Chapter 1

Kael's Beta delivered a vial to the healers' ward while my mother was bleeding in her skull. Three hundred thousand in pack funds — that's what my mate promised.

Every coin was counterfeit.

I called Kael through the bond. Selene answered. Her voice was sweet, almost pitying. "Luna, I counted those funds myself. Are you sure you didn't mix something up? The Alpha is in his resting cycle. Please don't disturb him."

By the time I begged and bartered enough to cover the surgery, the window had closed. They saved my mother's life. But the delay took everything else. Full paralysis. Neck down.

While I sat in the healing ward for three days feeding her through a tube, Kael took Selene to the mating banquet. Then a moonlit hunt. Then the mountain lodge. She posted every moment on the pack feed like a she-wolf marking territory.

He chose her. Every single time — he chose her.

So I severed the bond, sent him rejection papers inside a chest full of the same counterfeit coins, and disappeared with my mother on a transport to the Silverpeak healers across the border.

The Alpha who never once answered my calls through the bond? He howled ninety-seven times that night.

……

When I walked through the front door of the packhouse, Selene Ashford was curled in my mate's lap.

Shoes off. One arm looped around his neck, her fingers threading lazily through the dark hair at his nape. His hand sat on her thigh — casual, possessive, like it belonged there.

She was murmuring something against the hinge of his jaw, and Kael Thornwood — the Alpha who hadn't so much as glanced at me in six months — was gazing down at her with a soft, indulgent smile I'd never seen him wear.

They didn't separate when the door opened. Selene just burrowed deeper into him and looked at me the way you'd look at a stain on white marble.

Kael frowned.

"Your mother had a little health scare and you vanish for three days? What took you so long?"

I didn't answer. I walked past them, dropped my bag on the floor, and dumped three hundred thousand in counterfeit pack currency across the coffee table.

My voice shook.

"My mother was dying, Kael. She needed emergency surgery from the healers. You sent Selene with a chest full of fakes. Tell me — how is that any different from killing her yourself?"

"Because of those counterfeits, the surgery was delayed eight hours. She's paralyzed now. Neck down. For the rest of her life."

Kael's expression shifted. Barely.

Selene swung her legs off his lap. Unhurried. She smoothed her skirt and spoke with the patience of a woman correcting a difficult child.

"The pack needed liquid funds for the seasonal tribute. The Alpha pulled three hundred thousand immediately and sent me to deliver it. I placed it directly into your hands, Luna."

Her voice wavered. Her eyes glistened as though she were fighting back tears. "Are you seriously suggesting I swapped three hundred thousand for counterfeits? I would never —" She pressed her lips together, letting the sentence break off, the picture of a she-wolf too wounded to finish defending herself.

Kael didn't hesitate.

"Selene has managed this pack's treasury for a year. She doesn't skim pocket change."

Then he leaned back, voice dropping into that cool, dangerous register he used during pack tribunals.

"Besides — I transfer thirty thousand into your account every moon cycle. You barely touch it. If you really got fakes, scraping together three hundred thousand should've taken you an afternoon."

"So..."

His gaze went cold. The coldness of an Alpha who'd already passed judgment.

"Your mother isn't really paralyzed, is she? You're trying to frame Selene. She's my Beta — why do you keep coming after her?"

The words landed like ice water down my spine.

The way Kael and I met was the kind of story you'd find in a bad movie.

He was drunk outside a bar in the border town, cornered by two rogues — one with a silver blade. I grabbed a bottle and cracked it across the first one's skull before I even knew whose life I was saving.

Kael was barely conscious. I couldn't get a pack name out of him, so I dragged him to the nearest inn and cleaned him up.

When I carried him into the room, he reached for me — and from that moment, my life veered completely off course.

The next morning, Kael Thornwood looked at me with none of the heat from the night before.

"We mated," he said. "So we bond. Officially."

I mistook duty for feeling. I said yes.

After the bonding ceremony, I discovered who he really was. The Alpha of the Thornwood pack — one of the most powerful packs on the continent. He signed thirty percent of the pack's assets into my name and told me to stay out of pack governance. Stay home. Be the Luna.

I resisted. But I was a healer's daughter from a nothing pack who couldn't contribute in a decade what he generated in a week. Eventually, I stopped fighting. I kept the packhouse. I tended the garden. I tried to be soft where he was sharp, warm where he was ice.

For a while, there was a rhythm to it. He was distant but civil. I was quiet but present. I told myself we could build something slow.

Then Selene walked through the door, and everything changed.

Suddenly I couldn't reach my own mate without going through her. She managed his schedule, screened his calls, occupied every dinner. My monthly allowance dropped from thirty thousand to one. When I confronted Kael, he didn't even look up.

"You took advantage of one bad night to lock me into this bond, Rowan. Don't push your luck. Selene is my Beta. We work closely. Stop reading into things."

That's when I understood. He'd never loved me. I was an obligation — a debt from one reckless night and a wolf's rigid code of honor.

So I stopped asking about the money. I stopped questioning the hunts, the banquets, the moonlit runs Selene posted on the pack feed like a she-wolf staking a public claim. I swallowed all of it.

But every time I clashed with Selene, Kael sided with her. Without pause. Without question.

Just like today.

Each time, the coldness cut a little deeper until I couldn't breathe.

But none of it mattered anymore. I'd already arranged passage to Silverpeak territory for tomorrow morning. I was taking my mother to a healer's sanctuary in the northern mountains. And I was leaving Kael Thornwood for good.

Right now, though — I looked at Selene. Still positioned behind Kael's chair. One hand resting on his shoulder. Her eyes locked on mine, bright with something close to amusement.

Daring me.

I held her gaze.

"Kael didn't send me counterfeits. And I'm not framing anyone."

"You swapped the funds. You delayed the surgery. You put my mother in that chair."

Something snapped. I lunged across the room and drove my fist into Selene's face.

The next second — glass exploding against the back of my skull.

I turned.

Kael stood over me. The jagged neck of a whiskey bottle in his fist. His eyes blazing amber — the wolf surging to the surface. His face twisted with something I'd never seen directed at me before.

Disgust.

"Don't you ever touch Selene."

He shoved past me, gathered Selene into his arms, murmuring soft things against her hair — the tender, urgent sounds of a wolf protecting what he loved.

The room tilted. My knees buckled.

I hit the floor.