Chapter 2
I didn’t cry. Wolves don’t cry where anyone can scent it.
I left that room with blood running hot down my throat and walked straight into a hallway of a hundred listening ears. The pack house was a living beast—breathing, whispering, vibrating with rumors before I even reached the stairs. Heads turned. Omega girls paused with trays. Warriors straightened, nostrils flaring. And over all of it, the chapel bell kept chiming for the coronation that was supposed to crown my sister as Luna.
Two marks. One Alpha.
Anyone with a nose knew.
I made it to the landing before my legs buckled. The bite burned like a brand under my skin, a live wire threaded through bone. The bond roared in my blood—wanting his heat, his command, his promise—and I hated myself for wanting any of it.
“Clara.” Serena found me first. She was still flushed from him, hair tangled, the silk tie he had used to pull her close peeking from her sleeve. The scent of him clung to her like a second skin.
“Don’t,” I said. My voice was glass. “Don’t say you didn’t mean it.”
She swallowed. “I… didn’t know the Goddess would—”
“Give us both to the same man?” I laughed, and the sound hurt. “We prayed for mates, Serena. Not a triangle.”
Her eyes filled with apology I couldn’t afford to believe. “The Council—father—everyone… they said this is the only way the packs unite. Damien needs a Luna with a name that seals treaties. And I—”
“And I am not a treaty,” I cut in. “I am not a signature line.”
A shadow fell over us. The air tightened the way it does right before a storm breaks.
Damien.
Wolves parted without being told. His power rolled down the corridor, cool and absolute. I refused to bow. My neck throbbed where he had marked me, and my wolf bared her teeth at how much that simple presence soothed the pain.
“Come with me,” he said to me, not her.
Serena stiffened. “She needs a healer—”
“She needs me.” His eyes, gold and unreadable, flicked to my wound. “Bond fever hits fast. She’ll burn if we don’t stabilize it.”
He reached, and instinct screamed to let him. I took a step… and stopped. “I’d rather burn.”
His hand hovered. A tic jumped in his jaw. No one refused the Alpha out loud; the corridor went silent in a way that was almost reverent. Damien lowered his voice, no less lethal. “You will not collapse in my halls because you prefer drama to breath. Clara, with me.”
The command hit like a wall.
Alpha voice wasn’t sound. It was gravity. It dragged at marrow, at obedience carved into bloodlines for centuries. My spine bowed a fraction—enough to taste rage. Enough to taste freedom, too, because I didn’t yield.
I reached behind me and caught Serena’s fingers. “Tell the Elders I invoke ancient law.” My voice steadied on the words that had lived dust-covered in the back of our library since before we were born. “I claim the Rite of Severance.”
Gasps. A tray clattered. Somewhere, a pup whimpered and was shushed.
Damien’s gaze sharpened to a blade. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do.” I pulled my hand from Serena’s, looked my mate in the eye, and chose the path that scared me more than death. “The law forbids two bonds to one Alpha. If a second mark is laid outside the sanctioned betrothal, the marked may demand a Severance under the Moon. And you will answer.”
His shoulders eased, but it wasn’t relief. It was calculation. “The rite kills more wolves than it frees.”
“Then let the Goddess decide whether she wants me dead,” I said, and walked past him toward the chapel doors.
