Chapter 2

I didn't get to read his message.

Ryder's name flashed across my screen before the King's words loaded. I answered just to hear how scared he was.

"Have you lost your mind?!" he roared. "Fifty grand? Betting on yourself in front of the whole pack? Do you know whose face you just slapped?"

I kept walking toward arrivals. "Funny. I thought you slapped mine first. You know, when you sold me."

"I did it for the pack!" His voice went cold and superior. "You've been sipping lattes in Europe for a year while I kept Moonfall alive. Your father is dead, Ava. You're not a princess anymore. You're a wolfless girl nobody wants, and I'm the only reason anyone still says your name."

"So you posted my old photo to humiliate me."

"It's not humiliation if it's true."

I stopped in the middle of the terminal.

After my father died, the pack tore itself apart. Elders fought over his seat. Wolves I'd known since birth laughed at me in the hallways. Too fat to run. Too weak to shift. I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating, then ate everything. The panic attacks came every night.

Ryder found me during one of them. He sat outside my door until dawn and said, "Forget them. You're beautiful. I'll protect you."

I believed him. I gave him my father's seal so he could speak for me at council. He asked to keep us a secret, so no one would say he climbed through the Alpha's daughter. I agreed to that too.

On the flight home, I had imagined his face when he saw me. I imagined us finally going public.

He went public, all right. He just did it with my dignity.

"Here are tomorrow's rules," Ryder said, enjoying himself again. "The ancient tribute ritual. You drink from the King's cup. You wear his scent in front of the whole Gathering, photo posted to the channel. Then he carries you across the Moon Circle for fifteen full seconds. If the King doesn't throw you out for wasting his time, consider it mercy. Now apologize in the channel and cancel your bet."

"In your dreams."

I hung up and blocked him.

The channel was still on fire.

[Fifteen seconds?? His Majesty is 6'4" but he's not a crane.]

[If the King throws out his back, can Moonfall even afford the bill?]

[Ryder's playing dirty. Handing the King garbage is basically an insult to the Crown.]

My phone rang again. Nora, my best friend since kindergarten, glowered at me on video, her eyes red.

"I saw the photo. I'm getting my brothers. We're going to skin Ryder Hale and hang him on the pack house gate."

"Don't." I looked at my reflection in the dark window of the town car. "Killing him is too easy. He thinks I'm still the girl who cried outside his door. Let him keep thinking it."

Nora went quiet. "Ava. What are you planning?"

"He wants to use me as a stepping stone?" I smiled. "Then I'll step on him. In front of every wolf in New York. Help me find a dress that ends careers."

She grinned like a wolf. "I've been waiting three years to hear that."

I hung up and opened the channel again. They were still laughing at my weight.

Then a golden notice burned across the top of the screen.

The black icon. The account that had never once spoken in the channel. The man every wolf in North America bowed to without question.

[Kaelen Draven: She is not a wager.]

The channel stopped.

No one typed. No one reacted. For one full minute, three hundred wolves forgot how to breathe.

Then a private message slid onto my screen.

[Kaelen Draven: If you don't want to come tomorrow, you don't have to. No wolf alive will dare touch you.]