ONE

ARIA

The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but I forced them out anyway.

“We should break up.”

Adrian froze in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame, the scent of pine and cold wind clinging to his leather jacket. Three months.

Three months of waiting, of counting the days until my Alpha returned from the pack raid up north. Three months of holding my breath, and this was how I greeted him.

His handsome face, all sharp angles and storm-grey eyes, went perfectly still. Then it fractured.

“What?” The word was a breath, a disbelieving puff of air in the quiet of my bedroom—the small omega quarters I’d been assigned, not ours. Never ours. “Aria, what are you saying?”

I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling the thin cotton of my dress like a poor shield. “I mean it, Adrian. You should… you should reject the bond. It’s for the best.”

He took a step forward, and the room seemed to shrink. “For the best?” he echoed, his voice low, roughened by the journey. “Look at me.”

I couldn’t. I stared at the worn rug between us.

“Your father doesn’t like me. The pack… they all look at me like I’m just an omega. A convenience. And the marriage alliance—” My voice hitched.

“Your father is going to marry you to someone else. Someone with a title, with land. I can’t… I can’t stand by and watch that, Adrian. I can’t.”

“Aria.” He was in front of me then, his hands coming up to frame my face, his touch so warm it was an agony. He tilted my head up until I had no choice but to meet his gaze. The storm in his eyes was real, a tempest of pain and confusion.

“Look at me. None of that matters. My father, the pack, some stupid alliance… the only thing in this world that matters to me is right here. It’s you.”

A tear escaped, tracing a hot path down my cheek. He caught it with his thumb.

“I love you,” he said, the words simple, absolute, and devastating.

“I have loved you since the day you stumbled into the training yard with those too-big boots. I am going to make you my Luna. My mate. My everything. No matter what.”

A fragile, impossible hope cracked open in my chest. “What about the alliance? What will you tell your father?”

A slow, fierce smile touched his lips. It was the smile I’d dreamed of for ninety lonely nights. “I’ll tell him to fuck off.”

And then he kissed me.

It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming, a promise, a desperate reunion after three long months of emptiness. His lips were firm and demanding, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, tasting of mint and wilderness and home.

I melted into him, my hands fisting in his jacket, pulling him closer until not a sliver of light could pass between us. All the fear, the doubt, the loneliness—it all burned away in the heat of his kiss.

When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard. He rested his forehead against mine. “I missed you,” he whispered, his voice raw. “Every damn day. Every cold night in that tent, I thought of you. Of your mouth. Your laugh. The way you feel in my arms.”

His hands slid down my back, pulling me flush against him. I could feel the hard planes of his body, the evidence of his want pressing against my stomach. A shiver that had nothing to do with cold raced through me.

“I missed your body,” he murmured against my neck, his lips brushing the sensitive skin below my ear. “Let me show you how much.”

He walked me backward toward the narrow bed. His eyes held a question as he laid me down, caging me with his arms. “Are you ready for this, my love?” he asked, his gaze searching mine. “Tell me you’re ready.”

He knew. He knew he was my first. In this pack, omegas were often matched quickly, but my heart had been his from the start, leaving no room for anyone else. I nodded, unable to speak, and pulled his mouth back to mine.

He was slow, achingly tender. He took his time, peeling away my dress, worshipping every new inch of skin revealed with his lips and tongue. He whispered how beautiful I was, how perfect, how he was the luckiest bastard alive.

When he finally entered me, there was a sharp, brief pain, but his eyes were on mine, holding me, anchoring me as he moved with a gentle, relentless rhythm that quickly built into something more.

It was more than sex. It was a conversation, a reaffirmation. Every thrust was a ‘I love you.’ Every gasp was an ‘I’m yours.’ The world narrowed to the feel of him, the scent of us—sweet omega and powerful Alpha, intertwined.

The coil of pleasure tightened deep within me, and when it shattered, I cried out his name into the crook of his neck, my body trembling around his.

He followed me over the edge with a low groan, his hips stuttering against mine. In the hazy, golden aftermath, as we lay tangled and breathless, he nuzzled the place where my neck met my shoulder. His breath was hot on my damp skin.

“I love you, Aria,” he whispered. Then his teeth grazed the spot—the mate mark location. A jolt of pure electricity shot through me. “You will always be mine.”

The bite was sharp, a bright burst of pain that instantly melted into a warm, spreading glow. It felt like a seal, a brand, a forever promise.

He soothed the mark with his tongue, then kissed it gently. I clung to him, tears of happiness now, my heart so full I thought it would burst. He had chosen me.

He had marked me. Everything was going to be okay.

A sharp knock at the door shattered the moment.

“Alpha Adrian,” a male voice called from the other side. “The Alpha Prime demands your presence. Immediately.”

I felt Adrian tense above me. “Tell him I’ll be there shortly,” he called back, his voice taking on the hard edge of command.

“He said now, sir.”

Adrian sighed, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead before rolling away. He dressed quickly, his movements efficient. I sat up, pulling the sheet around me, suddenly cold.

“Don’t go,” I whispered, the fear returning in a cold trickle.

He crouched by the bed, taking my face in his hands again.

His thumbs stroked my cheeks. “I have to. I’ll go and tell him exactly how things are. That I have a mate. That the alliance is off.” He smiled, that confident, heart-stopping smile.

“Ten minutes. I’ll be back in ten minutes, and we’ll figure out the rest together. I promise.”

He kissed me, one more time, deep and reassuring. Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

I counted the seconds. Then the minutes. The room still smelled of us, of sex and love and his marking bite, a tender, throbbing reminder on my neck. Ten minutes came and went. Then twenty.

The cold trickle of fear became a river. I got up, pacing the small space.

My thoughts tumbled over each other. His father, Alpha Prime Kael, had never hidden his contempt for me. An orphan omega with no connections, no strength.

I was only tolerated because of Adrian’s obsession, and because, as the pack healer had once muttered within my earshot, “A strong Alpha heir needs to be bred, and any fertile omega will do.”

But Adrian loved me. He’d just proved it, hadn’t he?

Thirty minutes. He said ten.

A sick feeling settled in my gut. Something was wrong. I couldn’t stay here, waiting in the scent of our passion that was starting to feel like a taunt. I pulled on a clean, simple dress and a light shawl, arranging it carefully to cover the fresh mate mark on my neck—our secret, for now.

The moment I stepped out of my room and into the main corridor of the pack house, every eye in the vicinity snapped to me.

It was a physical weight, their gazes. Pack members paused in their conversations. Warriors leaning against walls smirked. A group of older she-wolves sewing by the fire looked up, their expressions a mix of pity and scorn.

My cheeks burned. It felt like they all knew. They could smell it on me, the sex, the marking. They could see the change in my posture, the flush on my skin.

The virgin omega, finally claimed. And by the Alpha heir, no less. What a joke.

I kept my head down, hurrying towards the west wing where Alpha Kael’s study and the formal meeting rooms were. My heart hammered against my ribs.

I just needed to see Adrian. To hear him tell me it was done, that he’d handled it.

The corridor to the main meeting room was empty and quiet, the thick rugs muffling my footsteps.

As I approached the heavy oak door, I heard voices. Male voices. Adrian’s and his father’s.

I stopped, pressing myself against the cold stone wall beside the door, which was slightly ajar. A sliver of light cut across the dark floor.

“…did you do it?” Alpha Kael’s voice was calm, measured. “Did you complete the task?”

My breath caught. Task?

Then Adrian’s voice, flat, devoid of the warmth that had wrapped around me just an hour before. “Yes.”

“You marked her? Took her?”

“Yes.”

The single word was an ice pick through my heart. It didn’t sound like my Adrian. It sounded like a soldier reporting a mission.

A low, satisfied chuckle from Alpha Kael. “Good boy. It’s done with, then. We can only hope that bitch gets pregnant quickly. A pup will secure the bloodline early. Liana arrives in two days. Time to clean yourself up and find yourself a proper wife.”

I didn’t hear Adrian’s reply. A roaring filled my ears, drowning out everything else. The world tilted. I clutched at the wall, my fingers going numb.

Good boy.

That bitch.

A proper wife.

The mark on my neck burned like a brand of betrayal. The warmth, the love, the promises—all of it, a lie. A calculated, brutal task.

I had given him everything. My heart, my body, my first time, my forever.

And he had just been following orders.