Chapter 3

Adrian began teaching me how to survive in this manor.

He didn't coddle me, didn't touch me, rarely even looked at me. He simply appeared at a fixed hour every day and tossed me something.

Sometimes it was a sentence. Sometimes a task.

"There's someone behind the third pillar on the east corridor. When you pass, keep your chin up."

"Alpha Theron's tea is only delivered in the afternoon. Before then, don't drink anything anyone hands you."

"When they speak to you, count to three in your head before answering. The one who panics is the first to slip."

For the first time, no one was leading me by the hand. Adrian was pushing me to open my eyes and watch every step I took.

Inside me, Naya woke a little at a time, like water starting to move again beneath a frozen riverbed.

On the seventh day, a "guest" from Redfang stopped me in the garden.

She was one of Lydia's attendants, Celine Hart, who had stayed at the manor under the pretext of visiting relatives. Her gaze, however, was fixed on the unmarked skin of my neck.

"Before my lady left, she told me to stay and get a look at Blackmane's new Luna." Celine smiled faintly. "Luna? The blood moon has come and gone, and your mate hasn't so much as bitten you. Does an unmarked orphan like you really deserve the title?"

"Your lady?" I looked at her, my voice level.

"Lady Lydia." She bit down hard on the name, poison wrapped inside her smile. "She says that even though you've taken the seat, the one in Damian's heart will never be you. Enjoy your last days as Luna. When Damian comes back, the position won't be yours anymore."

With that, she offered me a cup of fruit wine. Beneath its sweetness floated a trace of bitterness, faint but there. Wolfsbane.

My chest tightened. Then I remembered Adrian's warning: Hiding away won't save you.

I didn't take it. I raised my hand and knocked the cup out of her fingers, onto the stone steps.

The wine splashed, and a small scorched-white mist rose off the stone. Burn marks like silver veins crawled across the ground.

"Next time you poison someone, cover the taste first." I heard my own voice, cold enough to belong to a stranger.

The smile froze on Celine's face.

"Go back and tell your lady." I stared at her, each word deliberate. "If she wants this position, she'll have to climb over my corpse, and this body of mine is still very much alive."

Soft gasps sounded beneath the surrounding eaves. For the first time, those hidden eyes reacted to me.

After all, this was the orphan girl baring her fangs for the first time.

Celine gathered up the broken cup, shot me a vicious look, and withdrew.

The hand hanging at my side had been shaking the whole time. I just didn't let anyone see it.

Back in the bridal chamber, I slid down against the door, and it took a long time for my heartbeat to slow.

So this was what fighting back felt like. Cold and scalding at once, like plunging a hand into fire and pulling it out again.

Naya nuzzled me gently at the bottom of my heart, as if licking a wound no one could see.

"Well done," she said. "They only fear prey that shows its teeth."

I committed her words to memory. This manor had no pity for the weak. It was only wary of those who could bite.

Starting tomorrow, I could never again let anyone treat me as a weeping thing waiting to be dealt with.

That evening, a gray-feathered messenger crow landed on the eaves of the Elders' hall, carrying Damian's first message since he left.

The message wasn't for me.

Passing beneath the corridor, I heard an Elder reading it in a hushed voice. "Hold the position for me. Once my business here is done, I'll return. As for Adrian, that stand-in, tell him to behave himself and take no liberties."

From beginning to end, not one word about me.

I stood in the shadow of the eaves and let out a quiet laugh.

In Damian's eyes, the mating ceremony beneath the blood moon had never been about marrying me. It was about putting someone in an empty seat to hold it for him.

He couldn't even be bothered to write my name.

I had always assumed he threw the mating contract to someone else out of blind panic. But no. He had calculated that no matter who stood under that hood, this pawn of his could never leave his board.

The hand at my side slowly curled into a fist.

Then I would see for myself whether this game could only be played along the lines he had drawn.

That night, Adrian came later than usual. He stood in the doorway, looking for a long moment at the burn marks no one had scrubbed clean. "You fought back."

His tone gave nothing away, but something seemed to stir in the frozen depths of his eyes.

"You're the one who said only I can save myself." I met his gaze without flinching.

He suddenly lifted a hand and brushed a loose strand of hair from my shoulder, his touch almost weightless.

That one motion made my heart slam.

I had seen that motion somewhere before. Many years ago, a hand had brushed blood-matted hair from my face, just as gently.

I stared at his profile and at the sliver of skin above his collar.

A long, thin scar ran along the side of his neck, pale silver, the kind a silver blade leaves behind and never lets heal properly.

My breath stopped.

The scar was exactly where the figure in my dream had taken the blade.