CHAPTER 3: Caught by the alpha

Eileen’s pov

“What am I, Dad?” My fingers tightened around his hand. “Finish the sentence.”

His lips parted, and for one fleeting second, I thought he was finally going to tell me. I thought he would lay bare the secret that had been hollowing him out from the inside.

Then a sharp knock shattered the moment.

“Beta Hayden? Miss Hayden?” Madam Ferra's voice rang through the heavy wooden door, crisp and urgent. “The procession begins in ten minutes. The Supreme Alpha does not wait.”

My father's expression transformed instantly.

It was as though a heavy door had slammed shut behind his eyes, sealing away every trace of the broken, desperate man who had stood before me only moments ago. He slowly released my hands and stepped back, smoothing the folds of his ceremonial robes until his composure returned, every crack carefully hidden.

“Later,” he said quietly. “After the bonding. I'll explain everything then.”

“Dad, wait—”

“Smile at him, Eileen.” His voice dropped to a whisper as he reached for the door. “Whatever happens today, smile at him. Give him no reason to look too closely at you.”

He paused with his hand on the handle, his shoulders impossibly tense.

“Your life depends on it far more than you realize.”

Then he was gone.

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving only silence. Before I could gather myself, Wren gently guided me toward the mirror, fastening the delicate veil over my hair with trembling fingers that shook even harder than mine.

“Wren.” I caught her wrist before she could pull away. “Is my dad...usually like that?”

She frowned.

“Frightened?”

Her eyes darted toward the closed door before she leaned closer, lowering her voice.

“Beta Hayden hasn't smiled once since your betrothal was announced, Miss Hayden.” Sadness flickered across her face. “Whatever this arrangement is...it's cost him far more than gold.”

A chill crawled down my spine. “Do you know why he agreed to it?”

She hesitated. “That isn't my place to say.”

But the uncertainty in her eyes betrayed her. She knew something far more than she dared admit.

I opened my mouth to press further, but before another question could leave my lips, Madam Ferra swept back into the room.

She clapped her hands twice, the sharp sound echoing against the stone walls.

“Enough talking. Move.”

The walk to the ceremony grounds blurred into disconnected fragments. Cold marble beneath my slippers. An endless corridor lined with West Pack guards standing perfectly still, each lowering their head as I passed.

Towering doors carved from ancient oak slowly swung open. Beyond them waited a vast courtyard overflowing with wolves dressed in magnificent ceremonial robes.

The instant I stepped outside, hundreds of faces turned toward me.

Every eye settled on the bride.

I forced my chin higher, just as Madam Ferra had drilled into me all morning. The perfect image of a willing bride.

Even as my pulse thundered against my ribs.

Even as every step carried me closer to a man I'd never met.

A stranger I was about to marry.

Then I saw him.

He stood at the end of the aisle like he had been carved from the mountain itself. Even from this distance, I immediately understood why an entire kingdom bowed to him.

He was impossibly tall, broad-shouldered enough to make the officiant beside him seem insignificant. His dark hair framed a face of ruthless perfection a jaw sculpted from stone, features so sharply defined they seemed almost unreal.

Then his gaze found mine.

It didn't merely meet my eyes.

It seized them.

The force of it struck me across the length of the courtyard, cold, unwavering, impossibly intense. For a heartbeat, I nearly stumbled. His eyes never left mine. As though he had already begun studying me. Seeing far more than anyone ever should.

Supreme Alpha Alaric Mooncrest.

Here's a more immersive and emotionally charged version that strengthens the tension, sharpens Alaric's intelligence, and ends with a stronger cliffhanger.

I forced myself to keep walking.

Forced myself to meet his gaze instead of shrinking beneath it, because every instinct screaming at me to look away also whispered the same terrifying truth.

Weakness gets you killed.

If I was going to survive this new life, I needed to learn its rules before anyone realized I didn't belong in it.

When I finally stopped before him, he didn't greet me.

He simply looked at me.

His silver eyes lingered on my face with unnerving patience, as though he were peeling away layers only he could see. The silence stretched until I became painfully aware of every heartbeat pounding against my ribs.

Finally, he spoke, his voice low enough that no one else could hear.

"You're shaking."

"I'm not."

The lie barely left my mouth before my trembling fingers betrayed me. His gaze dropped to our hands. When it returned to my face,

"The Eileen Hayden I've heard about," he said evenly, "doesn't shake for anyone."

I lifted my chin. "Maybe you don't know me as well as you think."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Not quite a smile.

More the ghost of one.

"Careful," he murmured. "That sounded dangerously close to an admission."

"It was an observation." I refused to let the trembling in my hands reach my voice.

"You seem awfully confident in your opinion of a woman you've never actually spoken to."

"I've heard enough."

His eyes traveled over me again slowly, deliberately as if comparing every detail before him against the version he'd constructed in his mind.

"Reputations rarely grow from nothing."

"No," I replied. "But they do become monsters once enough people feed them with gossip."

For the briefest instant, amusement flickered across his face before disappearing behind that same unreadable mask. "We'll see." Before I could answer, the officiant stepped forward. His deep voice echoed across the courtyard as the ceremony began. The ancient words meant nothing to me.

Yet somehow...

My body knew them.

My lips moved before my mind could catch up, reciting vows in a language that felt ancient and strangely familiar.

"Bound beneath the Moon's eternal witness..."

"Joined in blood..."

"Until death and destiny are no more..."

Each promise left my mouth with terrifying ease. As though the woman whose body I'd stolen had spoken to them a thousand times in her dreams.

Then came the binding.

Alaric reached for my hand.

The instant our skin touched

Pain exploded through me.

A violent surge shot up my arm like a lightning striking bone, racing through every nerve until my lungs seized. A sharp gasp escaped me before I could stop it. The courtyard fell deathly silent. Alaric's grip tightened immediately.

His eyes narrowed. "What was that?"

"N-Nothing." I swallowed against the lingering shock.

"It was nothing."

But it wasn't.

It felt like two storms colliding.

Like something buried deep inside my chest had recognized him before my mind ever could. And judging by the sudden tension locking his jaw, he had felt it too.

The officiant, oblivious to everything, continued chanting.

A silver ceremonial cord was wrapped around our joined hands while he recited blessings older than any kingdom still standing.

"Two bloodlines become one..."

"Two souls beneath one moon..."

"Bound beyond life itself..."

I fixed my gaze ahead, steadied my breathing. Forced the smile my father had begged me to wear back onto my face. Even as my pulse thundered wildly beneath my skin. Even as I wondered whether Alaric could hear every frantic beat.

Finally, the officiant lifted both hands toward the sky.

"By the Old Law and the New..." His voice rang across the silent courtyard. "I declare Supreme Alpha Alaric Mooncrest and his Luna, Eileen Hayden, bound before the Moon Goddess and all united packs."

The silence shattered.

Thunderous applause erupted from every corner of the courtyard. Wolves raised their heads toward the heavens, their triumphant howls rolling across the castle grounds until the very air seemed to vibrate.

Yet through all the celebration Alaric never looked away from me. His stare remained fixed on my face with unsettling intensity.

"Smile wider," he murmured. His voice barely reached me over the deafening cheers. "Your father is watching."

The ceremony was over, the hardest part was behind me. Then Alaric leaned in to everyone watching, it looked like he was about to kiss his bride.

Instead, his lips stopped beside my ear. His breath brushed against my skin. And in a voice meant only for me, he whispered "I don't know who taught you to imitate her..."

Ice flooded my veins.

"...but the real Eileen Hayden has never flinched from another person's touch." His grip tightened imperceptibly around my hand. "You flinched from mine."

A long, terrifying pause.

Then came the question that stopped my heart.

"So tell me..." His silver eyes locked onto mine. "Who exactly did I just marry?"