CHAPTER 1

ELSPETH CROWHURST POV

"Open the door right now, Elspeth!"

Hadley Thornbury's voice slammed against the solid oak door of the pack room.

Elspeth Crowhurst gasped awake, her breath burning in her lungs. Sunlight sliced through the heavy velvet curtains of Frostwick City's Mooncrest Wedding Lodge. Her body throbbed with a deep, lingering ache—a phantom mark of intense, consuming passion from the night before. Her wolf stirred beneath her skin, warm and confused.

Someone had entered her bed during the dark hours. She had felt the powerful, possessive scent of a dominant mate—heavy, magnetic, and intoxicating. Thinking it was Hadley, her newly bound husband, she had given in completely to the heat, moaning softly as large hands claimed her body, leaving phantom fire across her skin. The mysterious male had caressed her cheek with surprising tenderness before she blacked out from total exhaustion.

Now, her shredded silk gown lay scattered on the floorboards. Pain shot up her ribs as she scrambled to wrap a velvet cloak around her exposed body.

Before her fingers could fasten the clasp, the heavy wooden lock splintered. The doors burst open.

A dozen Moon Gazette Reporters rushed inside, their magical scrying stones flashing blind light across the room. Directly behind them stepped Hadley Thornbury, his expression twisted in fake rage.

Elspeth reached out a trembling hand toward her husband. "Hadley—"

"Elspeth Crowhurst!" Hadley shouted, stepping forward and striking her across the face with his bare palm. The crack echoed across the room like a snapping branch. "We completed our Moon-Bond Pact less than twelve hours ago, and you are already rolling in bed with another wolf? You treacherous bitch!"

Elspeth hit the floor hard, her palm slamming against the cold stone. Her cheek swelled instantly with heat and blood. "Hadley, wait—listen to me!"

"Believe your own eyes, everyone!" Rosamund Kettering stepped out from behind the reporters, a sly, gloating smile on her lips. She tossed a stack of glossy parchment sheets onto the floor right in front of Elspeth. "Hadley waited for you in the pack suite all night, Elspeth. And here you were, giving your body to a strange male! How could you bring such filth upon the Crowhurst bloodline?"

Elspeth looked down at the parchment. Her blood ran cold.

The images showed her clearly tangled in silk sheets with a massive, dark-haired male. His face was hidden in the shadows of her neck, but his raw power was undeniable. It was not Hadley.

"What is this?" Elspeth whispered, her voice shaking violently as she pushed herself up. "I... I was toasted by you last night, Rosamund. You handed me that cup of pack wine!"

"Don't try to blame Rosamund for your own filthy desires!" Hadley snapped, pulling a set of rolled documents from his tunic and throwing them onto her lap. "The Moon-Bond Pact is shattered. Sign these severance papers immediately and get out of my sight."

"You set this up," Elspeth hissed, staring directly at Rosamund, who slid her arm tightly around Hadley's elbow. The betrayal was plain, ugly, and absolute. They had planned this together. "I won't sign a single thing. You used me to claim my family's territorial standing, Hadley! I refuse to let you cast me out like this!"

Hadley leaned down, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low growl that only she could hear. "Refuse? If you don't sign these papers right now, every single one of these scrying photos will be pinned to the gates of Frostwick City by sunset. Your father, Barnabas, is lying in the Silverfang Pack Infirmary with a failing heart. One glimpse of his daughter ruined like a shameless rogue, and his pulse will stop forever. Do you want to kill your old Patriarch?"

Elspeth stared at him, her chest heaving as tears of absolute rage welled in her eyes. The Crowhurst Bloodline had fallen on hard times, and her father’s life hung by a fragile thread under the care of the Silverfang Healers. Any sudden shock would end his life.

She gripped the quill with white knuckles. Without reading the parasitic terms that stripped her of her birthright, she slashed her signature across the parchment.

"Take it and rot," Elspeth spat, throwing the papers at Hadley's chest.

Hadley caught them with a cold sneer. "Leave your belongings at the lodge. You are banned from stepping foot on Thornbury pack land."

"Keep them," Elspeth said, standing tall despite the bruised ache in her limbs. "I don't need garbage from traitors."

She pushed violently through the cluster of reporters, ignoring the blinding flashes and shouting voices, and rushed out into the cold morning air of Frostwick City.

As she rounded the corner near The Howling Hearth Café, her head pounding violently, her pack communicator vibrated sharply inside her cloak pocket.

Elspeth pulled it out with shaking hands and pressed the receiver to her ear.

A heavy, unfamiliar voice echoed through the speaker—deep, commanding, and laced with absolute Alpha authority.

"Elspeth Crowhurst. Check the neck of your cloak."

Elspeth froze in the middle of the cobblestone street, her breathing catching in her throat. She reached up to touch her collarbone, her fingers brushing against a heavy, cold obsidian pendant that had been tucked hidden beneath her neckline all morning.

"Who are you?" she demanded into the device.

The voice on the other end gave a dark, low chuckle. "I am the owner of that pendant. And the male who marked you last night."