LOGINDarius's POVThe drive back to Silver Creek took two hours.I didn't speak for a single minute of it.Charles sat in the passenger seat, his eyes forward, his silence careful and deliberate, the way a Beta learns to be silent when his Alpha is holding something together by a thread. The two enforcers in the back didn't breathe too loudly.I stared out the window and replayed it over and over.Dorothy McAllister.Heir to the Blackwood Pack.Daughter of Alpha Matthias McAllister, one of the most powerful, most feared, most respected Alphas on the continent. A man whose pack holdings spanned half the known wolf territories. A man whose name made other Alphas straighten their spines at a council table.And for three years, his daughter had lived in my Luna wing, quiet as a shadow, rolling up her sleeve every time I called, never once raising her voice, never once making a demand, never once telling me who she really was.I pressed two fingers against my temple.How had my enforcers missed
Dorothy's POVI had exactly four days of peace.Four days of sleeping in my old bed, of eating meals that weren't scheduled around Isolde's needs, of walking through halls that smelled like home and family and everything Silver Creek had stripped from me. Four days of being Dorothy McAllister again.I should have known it wouldn't last.It started with a phone call.I was in my father's study, hunched over a stack of quarterly reports Lucian had dumped on my desk with a grin that said welcome back to the real world, little wolf, when my personal assistant, Wren, knocked twice and stepped in."Miss McAllister." She kept her voice carefully neutral, the way she did when she had news she wasn't sure how to deliver. "There is an Alpha at the gates requesting an audience with your father."I didn't look up from the report. "Which Alpha?"A pause. Just long enough to make my stomach drop."Alpha Darius Silverclaw of Silver Creek Pack."The pen slipped from my fingers.I heard it hit the flo
When Darius married Dorothy three years ago, she was nothing but a penniless, jobless omega with an extraordinarily rare blood type. He had been practical about it - a resource to be claimed before other packs discovered her value.He wasn't even sure if she'd finished college, or if she'd ever gone to one. Come to think of it, he also had no idea where she'd been living before he brought her to Silver Creek territory. The background check his enforcers had run was perfunctory at best - they'd confirmed her blood type and little else. As Alpha, he hadn't needed more.He also realized, with a faint prickle of guilt, that he'd never cared what part of the continent she'd run from before she entered his territory. Once she became his mate in name, she sank quietly into housewolf duties in the Luna's wing: gentle, silent, her wolf nearly invisible in the bustling hierarchy of Silver pack. She was a shadow—always present, never seen.Now, she'd left with nothing but the clothes he saw her
The rear left window of the Rolls Royce rolled down soundlessly.My brother, Lucian McAllister's handsome, dark-eyed face peered out, his Alpha scent—different from Darius's but equally commanding—washing over me like a protective blanket."Get in, little wolf."The door lock popped, my cue, and I slipped inside.I pressed my brow to Lucian's thigh. Laying my head on his lap felt safe, almost like when I returned from a bad run as a pup—scolded, but ultimately sheltered. His hand found my back without hesitation, large, warm, with a stabilizing pressure only my family could deliver."There, there."he murmured quietly, stroking me with a patience he seldom showed anyone else,“Let it out,”.At a nod from Lucian, our pack driver rolled the car into gear. The smooth purr of a well-kept engine vibrated in my bones; I let the tears come, silent and shaking.Tears hit my lap like broken glass. “I was so stupid,” I rasped. “Blind. Like I’d tied my heart to a cliff edge and jumped.”"We all cha
Time stopped. I watched as Darius's carefully guarded composure faltered, just for a heartbeat. He stared at me, searching my face as if my request must be the result of some mistake in the tether that bound.I could almost see the wheels turning behind those calculating eyes. The packless omega wolf who had used her rare blood type to secure a place in his prestigious lineage? What had changed?“You want out? Just like that?”he demanded, his Alpha voice making the air vibrate between us.“There isn't one that matters,” I told him, fighting to keep my breath steady. “I'll give blood for Isolde, but only if you grant me this.”"That wasn't our pact," he growled, eyes flashing with the amber glow of his wolf."I know. I broke my word. Report me to the Pack Council if you want." I shrugged, the gesture more defiant than I'd ever dared before.For once, I saw something unreadable dance across Darius's face—confusion, maybe faint surprise. In the three years since our forced union, he'd ne
The words flickering on the phone screen were like sharp blades, each message piercing precisely into the depths of my heart.“Isolde was taken to the territory clinic. She needs a blood binding. You know your duty. Come to Valebrook Clinic now.”“Where are you, Dorothy? You're late. Fifteen minutes.”“If you're going to complain about the arrangement, the compensation has been increased to $100,000. Check your account.”“Dorothy Miller, Twenty minutes. No more. A pact doesn’t bend to excuses.”I scrolled through Darius's messages, my fingers trembling as knuckles turned pale.His voice always came wrapped in winter. No warmth, just ice and order.These weren't messages from a caring mate—these were commands, the kind an Alpha issued to a subordinate wolf.Our arrangement wasn’t love—it was a hierarchy. He ruled. I complied.He barely touched me when we shared a room; he never let our scents mingle outside of necessity.He reminded me of this constantly, at any time and any place.The f







