10. You Don't Own Me

When I was four, I met Rune the first time. His father had brought him to finalize the agreement between our families. I was betrothed to him that day.

I had been fascinated first by his hair. They were strands of moonlight. His skin was as pale as his hair. His eyes were magical. He had an aura unlike anything I had encountered. There had been darkness. There had been mystery. There had been pain.

I wanted to know more. I wanted to fix what I had thought was broken.

He belonged with me, I had thought to myself every time we met. I didn't think there was any woman in Lycanthia who could have taken my place by his side. I was the fairest, from a powerful family of distant royals.

Growing up, I held onto that certainty. Rune and I were going to get mated as soon as we were done at the Academy. I had stayed chaste. I had turned down advances. It was a constant in my life, the belief that one day I would be his Erasthai and rule as his Queen.

Rune had been a hard book to read. While he s