Chapter 03

IRIS POV:

I squeezed myself to the end of the car, leaving a huge space between me and him.

His right hand suddenly moved toward me, making me flinch hard, my body still wired from everything that had just happened, but then he calmly clicked a discreet button on the center console.

A hidden panel in the partition between the front and back seats slid open with elegant precision, revealing a small, illuminated compartment lined in deep crimson velvet.

Inside sat a single bottle of wine, cradled like a priceless artifact.

The label was old-world elegant, gold-embossed script on black parchment, with a wax seal that looked centuries old. Even from across the seat, I could make out the name etched in flowing script: Lunar Eclipse Reserve – Alpha Vintage 1847.

My breath hitched.

I knew that name. Every wolf in the Dark Moon Pack, and probably every allied pack, knew it. This wasn’t just wine. This was the wine. The one bottle produced only five times every generation, fermented under a blood moon with grapes grown in sacred soil only the ruling Alpha family could access.

Only the highest echelons, the Alpha himself, visiting dignitaries from elder bloodlines, or ranking wolves who’d just closed contracts worth empires ever touched it.

And the price?

Rumors whispered it went for nearly 15 million dollars a bottle on the black market for supernatural rarities. Sometimes more, depending on who was buying and what flavor they needed to curry.

My mind reeled. Who was this man? A stranger who stopped his Rolls-Royce for a runaway bride?

He lifted the bottle carefully. Then he glanced at me with those storm-gray eyes.

“Need a drink?” he asked.

I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up. All I could do was stare, first at the bottle, then at him, then back again, my heart hammering so loud I was sure he could hear it.

He didn’t wait for words. A small, knowing smile curved his lips like he understood exactly how surreal this felt.

He reached for two crystal glasses that appeared from another hidden slot and poured slowly. The wine flowed thick and dark, releasing an aged oak scent.

He held one glass out to me.

I stared at it like it might bite.

“That’s…” My voice cracked, barely a whisper. “That’s the Lunar Eclipse. How…? Only the Alpha family…”

He tilted his head, the smile deepening just enough to show a flash of white teeth. “Drink,” he said softly. Not a command this time, more an invitation. “It won’t bite. And tonight… you look like you could use something stronger than tears.”

My fingers trembled as I took the glass. The crystal was cool against my skin, but the wine inside felt alive. I brought it to my lips, hesitated, then took the tiniest sip.

It exploded across my tongue, velvet fire, dark fruit, power. Strength rushed through me like liquid moonlight, chasing away some of the cold emptiness Nicholas had left behind. My wolf sighed in quiet awe.

One glass. Nearly a million dollars.

And he’d poured it for me.

He watched me over the rim of his own glass, and his eyes never left mine. The car glided smoothly down the highway, and the chaos of the estate slowly faded into the rearview like a bad dream.

“You want to talk about it… why you're in that dress running away from the Alpha's son?” he asked.

‘Wait, how did he know who we ran from, Iris?’ my wolf asked in shock.

“How did you know that?” I asked, confused.

“There’s only a little I don’t know, Iris,” he smirked.

“How did you know my name?” I asked, adjusting my seating position.

“Again, there’s only a little I don’t know,” he said.

“If you want to talk about it, I am all ears,” he added, leaning back into his chair.

Should I talk, should I say something, or just keep shut? My wolf and I were debating what to do next.

“Today was my mating ceremony,” I whispered. “To Nicholas, the Alpha heir of this pack.”

I stared down into the wine glass. My reflection looked small and broken in it.

“I thought… I thought it was everything I’d ever wanted. I’d had a crush on him since high school. He was golden, literally everything a girl like me could dream of. When the mate bond snapped into place two years after graduation, it felt like the moon herself had finally smiled at me.

“My father was ecstatic. Not because of love, but because of the alliances, the business deals, the status it would bring to our family. He kept saying it would ‘change everything.’”

My voice cracked on the last word. I took another tiny sip of the wine just to steady myself. The warmth spread again, loosening the knot in my chest enough for the rest to spill out.

“I was outside the mansion tonight, waiting for the ceremony to start, just… dreaming about what came next. Then my phone buzzed. An email. No subject. No sender name. Just a video file.”

My free hand curled into the silk of my gown, wrinkling the fabric over my knee.

“I opened it. It was him. Nicholas. And Diane, his father’s Beta’s daughter, the one everyone always said he’d end up with anyway if the bond hadn’t happened. And the video was taken two days ago.”

Tears pricked my eyes again. I blinked them back.

“I couldn’t breathe. Everything I’d built in my head just… crumbled. I ran inside to tell my dad, thinking maybe he’d… I don’t know, protect me? Stop it? But he looked at me like I was being childish. Like a video of his future son-in-law cheating was just… an inconvenience. He told me to clean up. Told me to walk down that aisle anyway. That this marriage would make him proud. That it would secure our family’s future. He didn’t even ask if I was okay. He just… ordered me to go through with it.”

I let out a shaky laugh that sounded more like a sob.

“So I stood at that altar in this ridiculous dress, the veil hiding how much I was falling apart, and when the Elder asked if I accepted the bond… I couldn’t say yes. I couldn’t lie in front of the moon and every ancestor watching. I couldn’t chain myself to someone who’d already chosen someone else. So I ran. I just… ran.”

Silence stretched between us.

I risked a glance at him.

He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t interrupted. He just watched me with those storm-gray eyes. His expression was unreadable but not cold. His glass rested untouched on his knee. The wine inside it barely rippled.

My wolf whimpered softly inside me, not in pain this time, but in quiet confusion.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” I murmured. “You’re a stranger. A stranger with the most expensive wine I’ve ever heard of and a *Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail*.”

He finally leaned forward just slightly, elbows on his knees, closing some of the space I’d put between us without crowding me.

“You’re not wrong to run,” he said quietly. “A bond forced on lies isn’t a bond at all. It’s a cage.” 

His voice was bold and calm.

I looked up at him fully then, really looked.

“Who are you?” I asked again, softer this time. “Really.”

He studied me for a long moment, as if deciding how much truth to give.

Then that small, knowing smile returned.

“Someone who’s spent a long time watching packs play their games from the outside,” he said. “And someone who just found the one reason to step inside them.”

He lifted his glass in a small, private toast, not to me exactly, but to whatever invisible thread had just pulled us together on this dark highway.

“To new beginnings,” he murmured. “And to never settling for half a heart.”

I didn’t know what to say.

So I just lifted my own glass, still trembling, and clinked it gently against his.

My wedding gown felt heavier by the second, clinging tightly to my skin.

He noticed.

“You’ll need to change from those clothes to something… more  casual,” he said.

I nodded.