Chapter 4: A Dangerous Deception

~Freya~

Fated mate.

The words roared inside my mind like a violent storm.

Panic gripped my chest and stole the air from my lungs. I turned my head and threw a desperate look toward the balcony. My mother was giving me a sharp, threatening side-eye. Her jaw was tight as she jerked her head slightly—go, move! Beside her, my father gave a stiff, dark nod.

Every step I took toward Alpha Ruzi felt like walking to my own execution. My legs shook so hard I could barely stay upright on Riya’s tall heels. My heart hammered against my ribs.

How am I supposed to tell my parents about this? Panic spun wildly inside my head. What if he realizes it too? What if he announces to the whole room that I am his fated mate, not just a chosen bride?

If my father thought I used the black magic potion to bind the Alpha to myself instead of securing him for Riya, he would skin me alive. They would accuse me of stealing my sister’s destiny. They would call me a traitor, a snake who used dark magic to claim the ultimate prize for herself. I couldn’t let the truth out. I had to keep this hidden, no matter what.

Standing in front of him felt like standing before a mountain of pure, deadly power. The heat coming off his body was overwhelming, mixed with that intoxicating scent of dark cedar and rain that made my wolf purr in desperate surrender.

He looked down at me, his golden-amber eyes cold and completely unreadable. “State your name and your house.”

“F—”

The name almost slipped out. The sheer authority in his voice nearly forced the truth from me. I swallowed hard, my throat dry as sandpaper, and violently cut off the first syllable.

“—Riya,” I squeaked, forcing my shaking voice to steady. “Riya of the Silver Moon pack, Alpha.”

A long, painful silence stretched between us. He searched my face, his piercing gaze cutting through me as if he could see every secret buried deep inside my soul.

“Starting tonight,” Ruzi declared, his voice booming across the grand hall, “you are my chosen mate.”

Chosen mate.

The tension snapped in my chest, and a wave of dizzying relief washed over me. He doesn’t know. The thought was a sudden, miraculous lifeline. Either his wolf hadn’t recognized the bond yet, or he was suppressing it, thinking the electric pull was just a trick of his instincts. He thought I was only a chosen bride. I was safe. For now.

Instantly the ballroom erupted into a chaotic mix of polite applause, gasps, and loud, buzzing whispers.

“Riya of Silver Moon?” “Unbelievable… he actually picked someone!”

I threw a quick glance back toward the balcony. My parents were nodding with dark satisfaction. The plan was working.

Ruzi didn’t spare the cheering crowd a single glance. He turned back to me, his tone short and efficient. “You will be coming with me to the pack estate tonight. I will send a driver to collect your belongings from your father’s home tomorrow.”

I couldn’t even form words. I just nodded numbly.

Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit. A squad of armed Alpha guards immediately stepped in, guiding me through the parted, staring crowd. We walked out into the cool night air where a gleaming black luxury Rolls-Royce sat idling by the entrance.

Ruzi didn’t bother opening the door for me. He slid into the leather backseat without looking back, completely indifferent. I tucked my dress in, opened the door myself, and slipped into the seat beside him, keeping as much distance between us as possible.

The car pulled away and slipped into the dark, winding roads of the territory. The silence inside the vehicle was suffocating, heavy with unspoken tension that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

“Why are your eyes like that?”

His voice cut through the dark like a blade. I flinched and snapped my head toward him. He was staring straight ahead out the tinted window, his profile sharp and stern.

“W-what?” I stammered, my pulse spiking again.

“Your eyes,” he repeated, turning his head slightly to lock those amber depths onto mine. His cold mask was perfect, but there was sharp curiosity in his tone. “You look as if you are carrying the grief of the entire world. As if you’ve been condemned to hell.”

“No,” I lied quickly, pressing my back against the door, trying to hide the terror in my gaze. “There’s… there’s nothing like that, Alpha. I’m just overwhelmed.”

He held my gaze for a long, grueling second before shifting his eyes back to the window. “Okay.”

Ten minutes later, the car rolled through massive iron gates guarded by heavily armed wolves. The Black Ridge Pack Estate was breathtakingly vast—a sprawling, imposing fortress of dark stone and glass, glowing under the moonlight.

The car stopped. Ruzi stepped out immediately, and I scrambled after him, smoothing down Riya’s silk dress. We walked through the grand double doors into an opulent, vaulted foyer.

As we stepped inside, my footsteps froze.

Standing in the center of the hall were Ruzi’s father and stepmother, watching our arrival with sharp, calculating eyes. But it wasn’t the former Alpha or his wife that made my throat lock up and my breath choke in my chest.

It was the younger male standing beside them.

Zabi. Ruzi’s half-brother.

He was leaning casually against a marble pillar, his dark eyes locked onto me the second I crossed the threshold. But he didn’t look at me with curiosity or cold distance like Ruzi did. He looked at me with open, ravenous, undressed hunger—a predatory smirk playing on his lips as his eyes slowly dragged over my body, from the silky waves of my hair down to the hem of my dress.

My skin crawled. A cold sweat broke out along my spine.

I instinctively clutched the small clutch bag in my hands, feeling the hard, distinct outline of the glass vial tucked inside.

The black magic potion was still sitting right there. My mind raced in a frantic, confused spiral. Was I still going to need it? Was I going to have to use it on Ruzi eventually to force the mark, or was this entire nightmare just a cruel, twisted joke set up by fate to ruin me?