CHAPTER 5

WINIFRED HAWTHORNE POV

Alpha Edmund Ravenscroft sneers down at Winifred Hawthorne, his lethal black eyes cutting through the dim interior of the car like a blade. He releases her bruised throat, his calloused fingers locking around her chin instead, tilting her face up to force her silver gaze into his.

The heavy scent of aged oak, rain, and raw male wolf-musk fills the small space.

"What game are you playing, wild hound?" Edmund growls, his voice a low rumble.

Winifred swallows past the raw burn in her chest, clinging to the desperate lie that might save her life. "I put my blood-mark on the substitute Luna agreement. As long as you do not sign a new bond with Dorothea, my wolf belongs to you."

Edmund shoves her head back against the headrest, his expression twisting into dark disgust. He pulls the vehicle into gear without another word and tore down the foggy roads toward the mountain manor.

He drags her into the silent, towering halls of the Ravenscroft Manor. Before Winifred can even catch her breath, he grips her torn collar and throws her bodily into a deep stone bath filled with ice-water.

"Do you really think I believe a word from a rogue stray?" Edmund snarls, leaning over the edge to shove her head beneath the freezing surface, his claws catching in her matted hair. "You are nothing but a discarded bitch to throw around my pack house."

Winifred thrashes violently under the freezing water, her lungs screaming for air, her broken spine sending white-hot agony through her nerve endings. Right before darkness takes her, he yanks her out by her arm, hauling her dripping, battered body onto the cold stone floor.

He shows no mercy to her broken body.

He takes her right there on the frozen floor, then drags her to the stone sill, forcing her down on the heavy couch, and finally onto his silk-draped bed. His relentless, possessive thrusts ignite a searing heat that tears through her lower body, swelling her intimate flesh with brutal pressure. Every harsh strike of his hips grinds against her bruised bone. Winifred cries out, her nails digging into his shoulders as she begs him to stop, but her cries only feed his wild, unyielding wolf.

Pain and exhaustion finally drag her into total darkness.

When Winifred opens her eyes again, the scent of antiseptic herbs fills her nose. She stares up at a plain stone ceiling, a glass bottle of medicinal liquid dripping steadily into the vein of her hand through a thin tube.

The alcohol has completely burned out of her system. Memories of her desperate words and her broken submission flood her mind, filling her with a heavy, humiliating shame.

She stays inside the pack infirmary for three long days.

Every morning, female pack healers tend to her shattered back and apply cooling ointments to her torn, swollen private parts. Though the healers keep their mouths shut, their pitying, judgmental stares tell her everything. They know exactly what the Alpha did to her.

Through all three days, Edmund never sets foot inside her chamber.

On the morning of her release, Winifred pulls her cracked communicator from her pocket and dials Maribel Hawthorne. This time, the signal connects instantly. Hearing Winifred’s weak voice, Maribel rushes straight to the infirmary in a transport, gathering Winifred’s small bundle of belongings and bringing her back to her small, one-room cottage near the outer pack borders.

Winifred collapses onto a low wooden bench stacked with discarded wolf-pelt cloaks.

Maribel pulls up a small stool, lights a dried leaf pipe, and takes a deep pull before exhaling a plume of white smoke. "Tell me everything, Wini."

Winifred pours her heart out, her voice trembling as she confesses every humiliation, every strike, and the brutal night at the manor.

Maribel crushes her pipe into an iron dish and slaps her hand against her knee. "Good! You finally took what was yours!"

Winifred blinks, stunned. "What?"

"You should not have thrown yourself at him so fast," Maribel says, leaning forward with sharp eyes. "Keep the Alpha on a leash. Make him chase you. Men are all the same, Wini. Give it time and his wolf will kneel to you."

Winifred shudders, the lingering ache between her thighs making her sick. "Forget it. He is a monster."

"Don't be stupid," Maribel says, wrapping a hand around Winifred’s neck pulling her close. "You have cut out his pictures from the pack newspapers for seven years! You pasted his picture on your bedroom wall! Now that his body is right in front of you, you want to run away?"

Winifred turns her head away, her chest aching. Maribel was right. For seven years, Edmund Ravenscroft had been her guiding light, the unknown boy who drove her to become stronger just to stand near his shadow.

Suddenly, a sharp chime rings out from her tunic pocket.

Winifred pulls out her communicator. The screen flashes with a private frequency line of the Alpha. Her hands shake so violently she nearly drops the device.

Maribel catches it in mid-air, her eyes widening as she reads the screen. "Edmund Ravenscroft?"

Winifred nods weakly.

Maribel reaches for the answer button, but Winifred lunges forward, snatching the communicator back and pressing it against her ear. "H-Hello?"

"Where are you?" Edmund’s cold, impatient voice snaps over the line.

"I am at my... friend's cottage," Winifred stammers, looking at Maribel for help.

"You have one hour to reach the Ravenscroft Manor," Edmund commands, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Be here."

The line goes dead before she can utter a single word.

Despite Maribel urging her to ignore the Alpha's command, Winifred’s ingrained fear forces her to move. Maribel quickly paints Winifred’s lips with vibrant red berry stain and dresses her in a fitted, dark leather tunic before sending her out the door.

With one minute remaining on the clock, Winifred knocks on the heavy oak doors of the manor.

Edmund pulls the door open, glancing down at the pocket watch in his hand. "Did you intentionally push the boundary?"

"What?" Winifred asks, forcing her silver eyes wide, acting innocent just as Maribel had instructed.

Edmund’s dark eyes track the deep red stain on her lips, a brief flash of heat passing through his gaze before his expression hardens into ice. He turns around, pointing toward a scroll resting on the low stone table. "Sign it."

Winifred walks over, pulling out a thick piece of parchment. A heavy, silver coin purse slides out alongside it.

It is a formal contract for a secret mistress.

Her heart drops into her stomach.

Before she can finish reading the first lines, Edmund steps up behind her, his warm breath hitting the back of her neck. "Serve as my secret companion for one year. You will receive fifty thousand silver coins every full moon, along with allowance set to a fifty thousand limit."

"No," Winifred interrupts, spinning around to shove the parchment back onto the table. She forces her voice to sound calm and polite. "I am sorry, Alpha. I drank too much that night and spoke out of turn."

She had grown up in an orphanage for nineteen years, surviving on the charity of kind pack elders. Becoming the hidden, paid mistress of a ruthless Alpha was something her pride could not bear.

Edmund’s lips curl into a cruel, dangerous smile as he sits back against the high leather chair, crossing his long legs. "Refuse if you wish. Tomorrow morning, I sign the official arranged match with Dorothea Whitcombe, and we will hold a grand celebration across the territory."

His words strike her straight through the heart.

If he binds himself to Dorothea, the Whitcombe family will use his power to crush Winifred, stripping her of her grandmother’s four percent territory stake and hunting her into the rogue wastes. The only way to destroy her adoptive family is to stay tethered to the Alpha.

"Have you reached a decision?" Edmund asks smoothly.

Winifred drops to her knees beside the low table without a word. She picks up the iron quill, flipping directly to the final signature line at the bottom of the parchment.

As her eyes scan the fine print above the line, she catches a brutal clause: The companion shall yield all rights of jealousy, shall not lay hands on another male, and shall never interfere with the Alpha's future choices for a true Luna.

It is a trap designed to keep her subservient and degraded forever.

Winifred grips the quill tight. A spark of defiance flares in her blood. Instead of writing her own name, she presses the tip to the parchment and begins signing Dorothea Whitcombe.

She manages to ink the first two letters before a heavy hand shoots out, snatching the iron quill roughly from her fingers.

Edmund looms over her kneeling form, his dark eyes blazing with dangerous fury as he snarls down at her. "Winifred Hawthorne... do you dare play tricks with me?"