The consummation clause

CHAPTER 004

THE CONSUMMATION CLAUSE

The second demand came in front of the entire pack.

Bonn waited until the final toast of the reception.  

He raised his glass smiling and spoke loud enough for every wolf in the hall to hear.

“To the alliance—and to the heir that will be born within the year. The council has ruled: if no child is conceived by the next full moon cycle, the marriage will be declared void and the Greensville crown will pass to a new bloodline.”

A collective gasp. Glasses froze halfway to lips.  

Cecilia felt five hundred pairs of eyes turn to her—like she was a broodmare on auction.

Bonn’s gaze locked on hers. “Tonight begins the count.”

The message was clear: fuck your new husband in the next thirty days or lose everything publicly.

Cecilia’s wine glass shattered in her hand. Red liquid ran down her wrist like blood.

She was across the hall in three strides, claws half-shifted, ready to rip her father’s throat out in front of the entire kingdom.

Two guards intercepted her before she reached him. Cassian, who had turned back after hearing Bonn's voice, locked his arms around her waist from behind, iron bands she couldn’t break, dragging her backward while she snarled and bled on the marble.

Bonn never even flinched. “Escort the Alpha Queen to her chambers,” he ordered calmly. “The consort will join her. The pack will wait outside the doors until the bond is… consummated.”

The hall erupted—shouts, cheers, cruel laughter. Someone started the traditional drumming: the rhythm beaten on shields when a new mating was forced in the old days.

Cecilia was half-carried, half-dragged through the corridors while the drumming followed, growing louder, closer, until it thundered right outside the Alpha Queen’s chambers.

The doors slammed shut.  

Ten guards took position. The drumming never stopped.

Inside, Cecilia rounded on Cassian, chest heaving, blood still dripping from her shredded palm.

“Get out,” she snarled.

“Can’t.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “They won’t open it until they smell sex and mating heat. Your father made sure of that.”

She lunged—not at the door, at him. Claws raked across his chest, shredding the fine tunic, leaving four perfect lines of red.

He didn’t block her. Just stood there and let the blood run.

“Then I’ll kill you,” she hissed out in pure terror, “and tell them the consort died of natural causes.”

Cassian’s eyes finally flared gold. In a predatory way. For the first time since he walked into her palace, the calm mask cracked.

“Do it,” he said, voice low, his tone spitting out venom. “Kill me. And tomorrow morning your cousin will be warming your throne while they burn my body on a pyre. Because I promise you, Cecilia—my pack will never believe I died in my sleep. They’ll come for blood. And you’ll start the war your father sold you to prevent.”

The drumming outside grew faster. Someone started chanting her name in a mocking, rhythmic way.

She was trapped. Utterly, publicly, sexually trapped.

Cassian stepped closer, blood soaking into his waistband, voice dropping to a whisper only she could hear.

“I won’t touch you unless you beg,” he said. “But we have to give them something. Tear my clothes. Mark me again. Make it look real. Or by dawn you’ll be nothing.”

He dropped to his knees in front of her, he wasn't submitting to her, just defiant whilst he bared his throat. 

“Use me, Cecilia. Hate me later. Just don’t lose your crown tonight.”

Outside, the drumming reached a fever pitch.

Cecilia stared down at the man bleeding on her floor, the man who was willing to let her savage him to save her title.

Her claws flexed.

The choice had never been more humiliating.