Chapter 2

Maren moved first. She wrapped both arms around Calvin's neck and pulled herself flush against his chest, pressing every inch of herself against him. She looked at me over his shoulder, and her smile was small and deliberate and sharp — the smile of a girl who had won and wanted you to know it.

Calvin didn't scramble. Didn't apologize. He sat there bare-chested with my stepsister draped over him and looked at me with nothing behind his eyes.

"You heard," he said. "So now you know. That's the situation."

The tears came hard and fast. I hated them. I hated that he could see them, that Maren could see them, that they were sliding down my face and dripping off my chin while I stood there shaking in my dead mother's dress.

"Why?" My voice broke apart. "Three years, Calvin. You told me I was yours. You told me you'd wait."

He exhaled through his nose.

"That's exactly the problem." He untangled one of Maren's arms from his neck but didn't move her off him. "Three years, and you never let me touch you. Wait for the marking. Wait for the ceremony. Everything proper, everything exactly right." He shook his head slowly. "Did you actually think you were that special? Special enough that I'd throw everything away and run off with you?"

"Don't—"

"You're a prude." He said it like reading off a list. Flat, final. "You act like your body is made of gold. Like I should be grateful just to hold your hand." He looked at Maren, who was watching me with bright, delighted eyes. "Maren isn't like that. She actually knows how to make a man feel wanted."

Maren giggled into his shoulder, and the sound scraped across the inside of my skull.

Something crumbled inside me. Not anger. Not even humiliation.

Grief. For the boy who held my face behind the woodshed. The one who never existed.

I grieved him standing in that hallway like he'd died, even though he was right there, kissing my stepsister.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. A voice I didn't recognize — sharp, formal, used to being obeyed — called my name from below.

"The escorts are here," Maren announced, lifting her head. She grinned at me with every tooth. "Better hurry, sis. And try not to get killed by that wolf. I hear it's nasty."

I bent down. My fingers found the locket on the floor and closed around it. I straightened up, wiped my face with the back of my hand, and walked away without another word.

Behind me, Maren's laughter followed me down the hall.

...

The car was black with tinted windows and the royal crest stamped on the door — a snarling wolf over crossed swords. I climbed into the back seat with my bag on my lap, my nails digging crescents into my palms.

The driver didn't speak. The guard in the passenger seat glanced at my cotton dress and bare face, and something like pity flickered across his features before he looked away. I wasn't what they'd expected. The candidates they usually transported probably wore silk.

I stared out the window and watched my pack's territory disappear behind the trees. The houses got smaller, then vanished. The forest closed in like a fist.

I kept replaying Calvin's voice in my head. You're a prude. She actually knows how to make a man feel wanted. Each sentence landed fresh, like he was sitting right next to me, saying it again and again.

I pressed my forehead against the glass and closed my eyes. My wolf whined low inside me, and I didn't even have the energy to push her back down. She was mourning too — not Calvin, exactly. More the idea of him. The version of him I'd built in my head over three years and mistaken for the real thing.

The drive took less than an hour. Shadow Creek bordered the Royal Territory, so I was the first candidate to arrive. The royal packhouse rose out of the treeline like a fortress — stone walls, iron gates, guard towers. The air turned cold and electric the moment we crossed the boundary.

A tall woman in a gray uniform was waiting at the entrance — the Head Omega, the guard told me. She ran the Prince's household. She looked me up and down.

"Shadow Creek candidate. Name?"

"Lillian."

She circled me once. "Plain," she said. Verdict delivered.

Then came the examination. A small room, white walls, no windows. A female doctor with latex gloves and a speculum. I was told to undress. Told to lie on the table and put my feet in the stirrups.

Back home, the pack healer always asked first. She'd put a hand on your arm, say tell me if anything hurts. This woman said nothing. I stared at the ceiling while a stranger confirmed that I was intact. The gloves were cold. The speculum was colder. My wolf snarled low in my chest, and I pressed her down until my teeth ached.

"Virgin," the doctor announced to the Head Omega, like I wasn't lying right there. "Healthy. Good bone structure. Stronger than expected for a Gamma's daughter."

I dressed with shaking hands, my mother's locket tucked under the cotton where no one could see it.

The Head Omega led me through corridor after corridor to the far wing of the palace. Two soldiers flanked the entrance. Inside, the room was dim and vast — a bed the size of my entire bedroom back home, draped in dark silk. The air smelled faintly of cedar and frost.

And lying in that bed, perfectly still, was the Lycan Prince.

He looked like he was sleeping. Dark hair against the white pillow. Sharp jaw, dark lashes, hands resting on the silk sheets with fingers that looked like they'd been made to hold weapons or give orders. Even unconscious, even motionless, something about him pressed against the air in the room.

Beside him, curled against his hip, was a pale blue shape. Transparent, shimmering, its edges rippling like light through water. A wolf — massive, luminous — its outline flickering with every breath the Prince took.

His inner wolf. Still manifested. Still guarding.

The wolf lifted its head when I entered. Its translucent eyes found mine.

It tilted its head. Curious. Not hostile.

"Huh," the servant behind me whispered. "That's the first time it hasn't snarled at a stranger."

He told me to wait here for the other candidates.

I stood alone in the sleeping Prince's bedroom. My mother's locket clutched in my fist. My cotton dress wrinkled from the car ride. The ghost-wolf watching me with pale, flickering eyes.

Something deep in my chest stirred. Not fear. Not recognition, exactly. Something older than both.

The Prince's eyelids twitched.

And then they opened.

Dark eyes, sharp and completely focused, looking directly at me.