Chapter 2

The east wing of the Thornton estate was where they stored broken furniture.

I discovered this at dawn, when pale light crept through curtains so dusty they hadn't been opened in years. The bed frame was cracked. The mattress smelled of mildew. A dead spider plant sat on the windowsill like a small, brown skeleton.

No one came to check on me. No one brought breakfast.

I sat on the edge of the bed, still in my pajamas, and called my mother.

She answered on the first ring. "Is it done?"

"Yes."

"Good. Don't cause trouble. Don't let him find out you're not Vanessa." She paused. "And don't call me again unless it's an emergency."

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone for a long time. Then I got up, washed my face with cold water from the bathroom tap — the hot water didn't work — and went to find clothes.

The wardrobe was empty except for a single white dress, clearly intended for Vanessa. It was two sizes too big. Vanessa was tall, elegant, with the kind of body that made heads turn. I was five-foot-four, plain-faced, and built like someone who spent more time in libraries than ballrooms.

I cinched the dress with a belt and ventured out.

The Thornton estate was a fortress. Stone walls. Iron gates. Guards at every corridor junction who tracked me with flat, suspicious eyes.

I found the kitchen by following the scent of coffee. A middle-aged woman stood at the stove — Helene, as I'd later learn, the head housekeeper.

She looked me up and down. "You're the bride?"

"Yes."

Her expression didn't change. "Alpha Kade takes his coffee black, no sugar. Breakfast is at seven sharp. He doesn't like to wait, and he doesn't like conversation in the morning." She set a tray on the counter. "Take this to the main dining room."

I carried the tray carefully, navigating corridors I didn't know, until I found the dining room — a massive oak table set for one.

Kade was already seated.

In daylight, without the veil and the panic, I saw him clearly for the first time.

He was devastatingly handsome in the way a loaded weapon is beautiful — all sharp edges and restrained violence. Dark hair pushed back from a hard-angled face. A jaw that could cut glass. And those gray eyes, cold enough to freeze the blood in my veins.

He didn't look up when I entered. He was reading something on his tablet, one hand loosely curled around an empty coffee cup.

I set the tray down. Poured his coffee. Black, no sugar.

"Your coffee," I said quietly.

He still didn't look up. "You're not Vanessa."

My hand froze on the coffee pot.

The silence that followed was deafening. My wolf whimpered inside me, pressing herself flat, instinctively submitting to the raw Alpha dominance flooding the room.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?" His voice was terrifyingly calm. He finally raised his eyes. "Vanessa is five-nine. You're barely five-four. She has a birthmark on her left collarbone. You don't."

He set down his tablet with a deliberate click.

"So I'll ask once. Who are you, and where is the woman I paid for?"

My throat constricted. Every instinct screamed at me to run. But I thought of my brother's pale face against the hospital pillow, and I held my ground.

"My name is Lena Ashford. Vanessa's younger sister." I forced my voice steady. "She left. I'm her replacement. The contract terms remain the same — your debt is settled."

Something flickered in his gray eyes. Not anger. Something closer to dark amusement.

"A replacement," he repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. "And you thought I'd simply... accept that?"

"You paid for an Ashford bride." My heart hammered, but I kept my chin up. "You got one."

The silence stretched. He studied me the way a wolf studies prey — calculating distance, measuring threat.

Then he leaned back in his chair and picked up his coffee.

"You have nerve," he said. "I'll give you that."

He took a long sip, eyes never leaving mine.

"Here are my terms. You stay in the east wing. You don't enter the west wing — ever. You don't speak to me unless spoken to. You play the role of Luna in public, nothing more. In private, you are nothing to me."

Each word landed like a stone.

"The moment I locate your sister," he set down the cup with finality, "you're gone."

He stood, buttoned his jacket, and walked past me without another glance. At the door, he paused.

"And Lena?" His voice dropped to something almost soft, which made it infinitely more threatening. "If I find out you're hiding anything else from me — anything — I won't be this generous again."

The door closed behind him.

I stood alone in the dining room, gripping the edge of the table until my knuckles turned white. His mark on my neck pulsed with his fading footsteps.

He doesn't know, I told myself. He can't feel the bond. As long as I keep my wolf quiet, he'll never know.

But even as I thought it, a treacherous warmth bloomed beneath the mark — and I realized keeping this secret might be the hardest thing I'd ever do.