Chapter 3

I didn't cry over the photo.

I threw up instead, which felt more honest.

By the fifth day, the keep had a rhythm. The head of house, Greta, a sixty-year-old Lycan with forearms like a baker and eyes like a hawk, decided on the second morning that I belonged to her.

"Too thin," she announced, setting a bowl of honeyed oats in front of me. "Eat. The pup needs."

I froze. "Who told you?"

"Nobody tells Greta. Greta smells." She patted my cheek. "Also you see bacon and run. Very obvious."

She fed me every three hours. She left oatcakes on my nightstand. When I cried in the laundry on day four, she didn't ask why. She just folded sheets beside me and hummed a lullaby in the Old Tongue.

It was the first time in three years someone had stayed in the room while I fell apart.

The King, I barely saw.

He rode out before sunrise and came back long after dark. But things kept appearing.

A jar of moonleaf for the nausea, the exact herb my grandmother used.

Healing texts in the library. My old craft.

Fur-lined slippers outside my door, the morning after I walked barefoot across the cold stone.

On day six, I caught him in the kitchen at midnight, drinking black coffee over border maps.

"Thank you," I said. "For the slippers."

He didn't look up. "Greta's idea."

"Greta says they were yours."

A pause. "Greta talks too much."

"Greta," called a voice from the hall, "hears everything."

Kael closed his eyes. For one second, the most feared Lycan alive looked like a very tired son.

I laughed. I actually laughed. It startled both of us.

He looked up then. Really looked. Something warm moved behind the silver.

I went back to bed and told myself my heart was racing because of the pup.

On day seven, the photos spread across every pack network.

Caden and Lila at the Spring Gathering. His hand on her lower back. Her head on his shoulder. They were calling her "the Luna Silvercrest should have had."

Nobody asked where his actual Luna was.

On day ten, the mate-link opened.

I was standing at the window when I felt it, a warm thread pulling taut behind my ribs. My whole body betrayed me. My pulse leapt. My hand went to my stomach. I thought: he's coming. He's sorry. I'll tell him about the pup and—

Sera. His voice in my head, clipped and businesslike. I need you to do something.

Caden, I have to tell you—

Listen. As my Luna, you're leverage. Draven can keep raising the price. If you're not my mate, you're worthless to him. He'll let you go. It's strategy. It protects you.

Worthless.

He said it so easily.

And after? I asked. When I'm free? Will you mark me again?

Silence.

Then, faint through the link, a sleepy voice beside him.

Caden? Come back to bed. It's cold.

He didn't even bother to block it.

Instead, he said the words. The ancient ones. The ones no wolf can unsay.

I, Caden Blackwood, Alpha of Silvercrest, reject you, Seraphina Vale, as my mate and my Luna.

The world tilted.

Kael's door was down the hall. I heard it open. He must have felt the air change.

I could have refused. A rejection only breaks if it's accepted.

But I thought about the ice. The cloak. Not now.

I walked into the hall where Kael stood, silver eyes burning, and I said it out loud so I would never be able to pretend I hadn't.

"I, Seraphina Vale, accept your rejection."

"Sera," Kael breathed. "Don't—"

Too late.

The bond snapped like a bone.

The pain doubled me over. Fire tore through my chest, down my spine, into my belly. My wolf howled inside me like something being skinned alive.

Then a different pain.

Low. Sharp. Deep.

A cramp that stole my breath.

Then another.

I looked down.

There was blood on the stone between my bare feet.