Chapter 2

Everyone was dressed in their finest wear, and Marian was not done up any less.

Her outfit was a gold gown her father had prepared for her.

A dress that was both alluring and an official statement.

It highlighted her curves and her toned frame. Her arms were bare and her thighs peeked out of the high slit with every step she took, showing the firm muscles of her long legs. Her long hair did not hide the muscles of her shoulders and back, which shifted with every swing of her arms.

Her breasts and hips were in full attendance, and nobody could second-guess whether or not her assets had anything to do with the rejection – they, clearly, had not.

The display of her body, the uprightness of her poise, was a statement that she would not be cowed.

A clear message that she was not ashamed or afraid to be seen.

Marian knew in her heart that if she had had her way, she would have worn black or red, something ‘traditional’, but the fact that her father, the one she had left behind, left alone in a world that had shunned them, had gifted a gold dress to her, she had no choice but to put it on.

And when she had, she had felt her father’s unwavering love. A love she had done everything to ignore ever since his fall – their fall. A love she had pushed away, fled from, and finally embraced, albeit slightly, and had therefore returned earlier than she needed to.

Marian did not notice the heads that turned or the eyes that stared.

She was not here for them.

She glanced around the packed room, searching for her father.

Their time together was limited.

The sooner she found him, the longer she could stay with him, and once the ceremony was done, she would head out.

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The party was livelier than the last one. Various wolf clans had been invited, and even a few rogue wolves who dwelled around the perimeter of their pack lands were in attendance.

As Marian waded deeper into the room, some wolves nodded to her, others gawked and whispered, and still others looked away, pretending not to have noticed her.

Some had been allies of her father’s during the war, others had been on Dax’s side.

After the battle, some had been part of the group who had abused her, used her as a punching bag during training, or treated her lower than a slave – when her father was not near – or had been part of the group who looked away when she was being mistreated.

She glided by them all.

She was not their prisoner anymore, not in her heart or in her mind.

She was only back for one reason, and once her duty was fulfilled, she would leave.

“Where is he…” Marian stated irritably to Dinka as she glanced around.

There were too many smells in the room, and something was also interfering with her senses.

“It’s almost time, they must have started releasing the gas,” Dinka replied in a low growl.

“Yeah, it should be time soon,” Marian confirmed.

“I can’t wait to get out of here,” she continued, complaining to her wolf.

“Use the link,” Dinka urged.

Marian did not respond as her mind pulled her to the past again.

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Alpha Dax had let her leave at New Year’s, she had no illusions about this.

A thought from him would have had her wrapped in chains and dragged back to the dungeons that had been her home for a month after the war, until her father had managed to get Dax to let her out.

But the pack Alpha had not bothered. Even in her pain, reeling from the effects of the rejection, she had still felt his smug satisfaction as she ‘escaped’, and she was confident that he would let her leave again.

He did not want her around.

If not for her father, he would have killed her that day as well, just as he had killed the rest of her family – that day, three days after Christmas.

As Marian searched for her father in the large hall, Dinka nipped at her again,

“We can link with him,” Dinka pressed, getting agitated.

Earlier that day, when Marian had first entered the pack grounds, as soon as she arrived within the pack borders, her father had called to her in the mind link they shared.

She had pushed at him and barred him from connecting with her.

Now, she searched for him, like a lost child. Silently seeking her father in the crowd, while maintaining her outward calm.

“No, Dinka! If I use it, others will feel it. Be patient, D. We’ll find Dad,” Marian snapped at and placated her wolf at the same time.

Marina was never one for patience. Always ready for action and geared to go, she was faster with her fists and tongue than she was with her heart or head.

Strongest in a fight, weakest in matters of painstaking attention.

Yes, she wanted to find her father as quickly as possible, but no, she did not want or need any extra attention from others on her private matters.

Her business this night was with the father, no one else.

He was here, she knew that.

He always attended every pack ceremony, event, or gathering. Always.

“Hey, looking for someone?” a deep, arrogant voice, so very familiar to Marian, droned on her left.

Her pulse spiked, and she rolled her eyes, neutralizing the instant surge of pain that hit her in the chest, dousing the budding flames with indifference.

She had not sensed the person who had spoken, and Dinka also had not felt him, as she had been engrossed in sniffing out their father.

Marian turned slowly. Her green eyes fell on the dark brown, almost black, eyes of the man who had stepped up to her – Dorien Aldon, the heir to the Lightmoon pack, adopted son of the current Alpha, the wolf who had rejected her barely eleven moons ago.

This is the second time I’m meeting him today.

What’s his problem?

He rejected me, didn’t he?

What’s with all this attention? She mused irritably as she recalled her meeting with Dorien earlier that day when she had arrived at Lightmoon’s pack grounds.

“What’s it to you?” she asked lazily, eyeing him warily as she stood facing him.

“Maybe I could help?” he replied smoothly.

Marian stared at him, a neutral expression on her face.

“The day I need your help, Dorien, is the day hell freezes over,” she stated cooly.

Dorien smiled wryly at her, his soft lips curving up at one corner.

Before he could say anything more, Marian spun around and moved through the crowd, deeper into the hall, and away from the boy she had loved for over nine years of her current nineteen-year life.

Dorien hung back, gazing at her receding back.

He tried to say something in the mind space, but he hit a wall so solid that his eyes widened with surprise.

How did she get so good at that? He mused, but remained silent as he watched her cut a sexy path through the crowd. Eyes and heads turning as she passed by.

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Marian continued searching for her father and then, as if by some destined hand, she turned, a path cleared, and her eyes fell on him.

Her father, Corien Storm, former Alpha of the Lightmoon pack.