Chapter 3

"He opened his eyes."

The servant gave me a skeptical look. He sent for a doctor anyway. The doctor walked to the far end of the room and examined the Prince from a cautious distance, his eyes on the glowing wolf.

"No change," He peeled off his gloves without looking up from the monitors. "Vitals stable. Brain activity consistent with deep coma." He peeled off his gloves and glanced at me. "Some candidates try to draw attention to themselves before the selection. It won't help."

The Head Omega folded her arms. "Enough with the theatrics. Wait here quietly until the others arrive."

I closed my mouth. But I knew what I'd seen. Those eyes were awake, and they'd looked right at me.

...

Over the next hour, the other candidates arrived.

Girls from the remaining twelve packs filtered in — some packs had sent two or three. They came in silk dresses and heeled shoes, with curled hair and painted lips and perfume that thickened the hallway air to soup. They chattered and sized each other up, adjusting their necklines, comparing earrings, positioning themselves near the front of the room where the King would see them.

A tall blonde from the Silver Ridge Pack — silk dress the color of crushed pearls, diamond studs in her ears — nudged her companion and nodded toward me. "Is that one a candidate? She looks like she wandered in from the kitchens."

Her companion pressed her knuckles to her mouth and laughed.

A dark-haired girl from one of the southern packs gave me a different look — not mocking, but calculating. She wore red, and her posture said she'd been training for this moment her entire life.

I stood near the wall in my cotton dress and bare face and felt invisible. Which was fine. Invisible was all I'd ever been trained to be. Calvin had liked me invisible. Quiet, soft-spoken, standing two steps behind him at pack gatherings. The perfect future Luna — seen, not heard.

I wasn't watching the candidates. I was watching the wolf.

The moment the first new girl entered, the wolf had risen from its resting position. Its translucent hackles lifted. Its pale eyes swept the room, scanning each newcomer, and a rumble spread through the floor — not a sound you heard, exactly, but one you felt in your bones and the base of your spine.

Several girls shifted their weight without knowing why. The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

The far doors opened, and every voice went quiet.

The King entered first. He was enormous — iron-haired, scar-jawed, with a body built from decades of war. The Queen walked beside him, tall and composed in dark green silk, her expression as readable as a locked door. Behind them came a handful of advisors and guards, spreading along the walls like shadows.

Everyone dropped into a bow. I was a beat late.

The King surveyed us. His gaze passed over each face without lingering.

"You know why you're here." His voice filled the room without effort. "My son's inner wolf guards his body. It will not permit anyone to approach him without its approval." He paused. "To be selected as surrogate, you must walk to the bed and touch the Prince's arm. If the wolf allows it, you pass."

Another pause. Heavier.

"The wolf has killed before. If you wish to withdraw, this is your last chance."

Nobody moved. But I saw the Silver Ridge blonde's hands curl into fists at her sides, and the dark-haired girl in red pressed her lips into a thin line.

"Then we begin."

The queue formed instantly. Girls shoved toward the front with silk-covered elbows, jockeying for position. The Silver Ridge blonde planted herself first. She smoothed her dress, lifted her chin, and walked toward the bed with the confidence of someone who had never been refused.

She made it three steps.

The wolf's shape erupted — one second a shimmering outline, the next a force like a battering ram. It slammed into her chest and launched her backward. She hit the far wall with a crack that made my teeth ache, slid to the floor, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She didn't get up.

Two servants rushed to carry her out.

The room went dead silent.

The second girl approached more carefully, hands raised, palms out. The wolf watched her come, its head low, its body coiling. She made it four steps before the force caught her in the ribs and threw her sideways. Her arm snapped with a sound like a green branch breaking. She screamed. They dragged her away.

The third was crying before she even stepped forward. The wolf snarled — just snarled — and the force of it drove her stumbling backward into the girl behind her.

One by one. Slammed into walls. Launched across the room. A girl from the Eastern Shore Pack crawled out with blood streaming from a gash on her forehead. Another's collarbone was shattered. Another lay where she'd landed, staring at the ceiling, her silk dress ripped and her eyes glassy with shock.

She'd probably told her mother she'd be chosen. Packed her best dress. Practiced her curtsy in the mirror. And now she was bleeding on a stone floor while the King watched with the same expression he'd use to check the weather.

The girl in red lasted five steps — the longest anyone had survived. The wolf watched her like it was measuring something. Then the force hit her at the knees and swept her legs out from under her. She went down hard, her skull bouncing off the stone floor with a sound that made the Queen flinch. They carried her out unconscious, her red dress trailing across the bloodstained floor.

The King's face hadn't changed through any of it. Not once.

By the time it was my turn, seven girls had been carried out. Three more had given up and pressed themselves against the walls, shaking.

I was last. My wolf stirred. She wasn't afraid. She was — I didn't have a word for it — alert. Ready. Like she'd been waiting behind those walls my mother had built, and something in this room had finally spoken her language.

I stepped forward.

The translucent wolf's head swiveled toward me. Those pale eyes locked on mine, and the air between us thickened, pressing against my skin — heavy, thick, electric.

I didn't rush. I didn't raise my arms in surrender. I walked the way you'd approach a wounded animal — slow, steady, every movement visible.

"I'm not here to hurt him," I said quietly. Just to the wolf. "I'm not here because I want to be."

Another step. The wolf's ears twitched forward.

"I don't have anywhere else to go." My voice was barely above a whisper. "I'm scared. I think you are too."

The wolf's hackles smoothed. Its head tilted — that same curious look from before, like I was a question it hadn't expected to hear.

I stopped within arm's reach of the bed. The wolf's energy pressed against my skin — cold, electric, tingling. My heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my throat, my wrists, the roof of my mouth. Behind me, I could feel every eye in the room boring into my back. Nobody was breathing.

The wolf's muzzle was inches from my fingers.

I reached out my hand.

The wolf lowered its massive head. And pressed its muzzle into my open palm.

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