CHAPTER 3

Ciara's POV

I woke to unfamiliar softness.

For a moment, I lay still, disoriented, staring at a ceiling that was not mine. Dark wooden beams crossed overhead, and between them, painted constellations gleamed in silver leaf. 

The bed beneath me was too large, too warm, the sheets too fine. Nothing about this room belonged to my father's house.

Then memory returned in a rush. The rejection. The snow. Draven's black eyes looking down at me.

I sat up too quickly. Pain lanced through my temples and my body screamed in protest. Every muscle ached like I had been beaten, and my fingers and toes burned with a terrible pins-and-needles sensation that made me gasp.

"Careful, miss." 

A young woman appeared at my bedside, her hands gentle as she eased me back against the pillows. She wore a simple gray dress with a white apron, her dark hair pulled back in a neat braid. A maid.

"Where..." My voice came out hoarse, raw. "Where am I?"

"Lord Draven's residence, miss." She poured water from a crystal pitcher into a glass and held it to my lips. "You gave us quite a fright. Three days you have been unconscious."

Three days. 

I drank greedily, the cool water soothing my throat. Three days lost to darkness while... what? What had happened after I collapsed?

"Lord Draven brought you here himself," the maid continued, setting the glass aside. "Carried you through the door and ordered the healer summoned immediately. She said you were very lucky. Another hour in that cold and..." She trailed off, but the implication hung heavy in the air.

Another hour and I would have died.

I stared at my hands, at the bandages wrapped around my fingers where frostbite had threatened. He had actually saved me. Draven Stormclaw, the bastard son,  the wolf everyone whispered about in fearful tones—he had actually carried me to safety and called for help.

They said men like him did not show mercy. 

Yet here I was. Alive. Warm. In his home.

"I will bring you something to eat, miss." The maid moved toward a side table where a covered tray waited. "The healer said you must regain your strength slowly. Broth and bread to start."

The smell of food made my stomach clench with sudden hunger. I could not remember the last time I had eaten. Before the ball, perhaps. A lifetime ago.

The maid set the tray across my lap and removed the cover, revealing a bowl of rich chicken broth, soft bread still warm from the oven, and a small plate of sliced fruit. Simple fare, but it looked like a feast.

I had just lifted the spoon to my lips when the door opened.

Draven Stormclaw entered like he owned not just the room but the very air within it. He moved with a predator's grace, all power and dangerous certainty. In the daylight streaming through the windows, he looked even more formidable than he had in the snow. Tall, broad-shouldered, with that cruel beauty that marked him as his father's son despite the circumstances of his birth.

His black eyes found mine immediately.

"Out," he said to the maid without looking at her.

She curtsied and fled, closing the door behind her with a soft click.

I set down my spoon and moved to stand, to show proper respect to my... what? Savior? Captor? I did not know what to call him.

"Sit." He waved a hand dismissively. "You can barely hold yourself upright. I have no need of your formal courtesies."

I sank back against the pillows, suddenly aware of how I must look. My hair tangled, wearing a nightgown that was not mine, weak as a newborn pup. Not exactly the dignified image I had spent years cultivating.

Draven moved to the window, his back to me as he looked out over what I assumed was his property. "I imagine you have questions."

"Why?" The word escaped before I could stop it. "Why did you save me?"

He glanced over his shoulder, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Maybe the Moon willed it."

I blinked. "The Moon?"

"Indeed." His smile widened, but there was no warmth in it. "I was walking, contemplating the tedious politics of pack life, when the Moon Goddess herself appeared before me in a vision. 'Draven,' she said, 'you must save the freezing girl on the Beta's doorstep. It is your destiny.'" He turned fully now, his expression mocking. "Or perhaps I simply found the situation intriguing. Take your pick."

Heat crept into my cheeks despite the weakness that still gripped me. He was toying with me. Making a joke of my desperation.

I wouldn’t believe a single word. 

Draven Stormclaw did nothing without reason. He couldn’t have saved me out of kindness—wolves like him did not operate on kindness. 

Maybe I was useful to him somehow.

And a terrible suspicion arose.

"It is because of Kaden," I said quietly. "Because I was engaged to your brother."

Something flickered in those black eyes. Approval, perhaps.

"Clever," he murmured. "Yes, the timing is rather perfect, is it not? My brother publicly rejects his promised bride, and I—the bastard he despises—take her in. The scandal alone would be delicious." He moved closer to the bed, each step measured. 

I stayed silent for a moment before speaking. "Then I'm still useful to you," I said, hearing the desperation creep into my voice despite my best efforts. "Keep me. I'll do anything."

“Interesting.” He smirked, stopped at the foot of the bed, and clasped his hands behind his back. "The truth is, Ciara, I cannot simply keep you here.”

My chest tightened.

“Saving your life is one thing. Harboring the Beta's daughter without proper cause is quite another. Even I must observe certain... proprieties."

Of course. 

"But if I just go back like this..." I could not finish the sentence.

"You will not survive the winter," Draven finished for me. "Your stepmother will see to that, if your father does not finish what he started."

I gripped the sheets, my bandaged fingers clumsy. " So I’m begging you…" I forced myself to meet his eyes. "Whatever you want, whatever conditions you set, I will accept them. As long as you can protect me, I will do everything in my power to repay you."

"Everything?" He tilted his head, studying me. "Such sweeping promises. Are you certain you understand what you are offering?"

No. I was not certain at all. But what choice did I have?

"I understand," I lied.

"Do you?" He moved around the side of the bed now, close enough that I had to crane my neck to maintain eye contact.

"Then what do you want?"

His smile was slow, predatory. "Are you prepared to accept any condition I name?"

My heart hammered against my ribs. Every instinct screamed that I was standing at a precipice, that whatever he said next would change everything.

But behind me lay only snow and death and a father who wanted me erased.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Then marry me."

The words hung in the air between us, impossible and stark.

I stared at him, certain I had misheard. "What?"

"Marry me," he repeated, his tone almost amused. "Become my wife. It is quite simple, really."

"I..." My thoughts scattered like startled birds. "I can’t..."

"Ah." Draven laughed. "How fascinating. A moment ago, you were ready to accept any condition, to do anything I asked. But suddenly you look terrified. What changed, I wonder?"

Everything. Nothing. I did not know.

I had just been rejected. Cast aside in front of the entire pack because I was not good enough, not interesting enough, not valuable enough. And now this man—this dangerous, calculating man with a reputation that made decent wolves cross the street to avoid him—was asking me to marry him?

Did he really hate Kaden that much?

Enough to take the fiancé Kaden had just thrown away and turn her into a weapon, even ignoring the consequences it might bring. 

If I say yes, I would be a pawn in whatever power struggle existed between them, a tool to prove some point I did not fully understand.

But did that matter?

I thought of my father's cold eyes. My stepmother's venom. The long, frozen hours kneeling in the snow while everyone I had ever known looked away.

I thought of my mother's thin hand gripping mine, her desperate voice: Without his protection, your father's house will destroy you.

She had meant Kaden's protection. But Kaden had looked at me like I was nothing.

Draven, at least, was looking at me like I was something. 

Even if that something was merely useful.

I lifted my chin, forcing steel into my spine despite the weakness that still gripped my body. "I agree."