THE PLUMP MATE THAT AWEKENED THE FIRST.

“I had spent my whole life being told I was worthless, but apparently I was valuable enough to be offered to a monster.”

The words of the decree still hung in the air when Ethan Blake folded the parchment and looked straight at me. The pack hall was packed with bodies and low murmurs, elders seated in a half-circle while guards lined the walls. Serena stood near the back with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed on the floorboards, the same way she used to look when we were children and she wanted to disappear.

“Aria Monroe,” Ethan said, his voice even and almost tired. “By order of the royal line, you have been chosen as this year’s offering to the mountain. The temple doors open at dusk. You will go.”

I stared at him, my stomach dropping so hard I felt it in my knees. He had dark hair pushed back from a sharp face and eyes that never seemed to warm, and right now those eyes were fixed on me like I was already gone. “You cannot be serious.”

Elder Thorne leaned forward with his hands folded. “The selection is final. The mountain requires a life. It has for generations.”

“Why mine?” My voice came out louder than I meant, and I hated how it shook. “There are ranked wolves in this room. Warriors. Why not one of them?”

“Because the mountain does not ask for strength,” Elder Thorne answered. “It asks for what the pack can spare.”

The hall stayed quiet except for someone shifting near the door. Heat crawled up my neck as the meaning settled in. They had looked at every unmated girl without a wolf and decided I was the one who would cost them the least. I turned toward Serena, the girl who once swore we would leave this place together. “Say something.”

She did not look up.

“Serena.”

Still nothing. My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe. We had shared food when the pack kitchen “forgot” my portion. She had bandaged my arms after the training yard incidents. She had looked me in the eye last winter and said she would never let them treat me like I was nothing. Now she would not even meet my gaze.

Ethan cleared his throat. “The decision was not made lightly. The elders reviewed every unmated female without a wolf. You were the only one who met the criteria.”

“Criteria,” I repeated, and the word tasted bitter. “You mean soft. Alone. Easy to lose.”

He did not deny it. “The pack survives because we keep the old agreements. One life each year keeps the rest of us safe.”

“Safe from what?” I took a step forward and felt the guards tense. “Has anyone ever seen the thing under that mountain, or do you just throw girls into the dark and hope the stories stay true?”

Elder Maris spoke for the first time, her voice thin and certain. “The stories are true enough. The last time the offering was refused, three border villages burned in a single night. We do not test the mountain.”

Fear slid cold under my skin, but anger rose faster. “Then test it with someone who can fight back. Not me.”

Ethan raised a hand. “Enough. The decree stands.”

“You know this is wrong.” I kept my eyes on him and saw the faint flicker in his expression, the way his jaw tightened. “I can see it on your face. You do not like this any more than I do.”

“What I like is irrelevant. My duty is to the pack and the crown. Both require this.”

Serena finally moved. She shifted her weight and glanced toward the door as if measuring the distance between herself and escape. I called her name again, softer this time, and hated the plea that crept into my voice. “You told me once you would never let them treat me like I was nothing. Remember that?”

Her shoulders stiffened, and still no answer came. Something small and sharp broke inside my chest.

Elder Thorne stood. “Guards. Secure the offering.”

Two men stepped forward with heavy iron chains hanging from their hands. I backed up until my shoulders hit the edge of a table, my heart slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat. “Do not touch me.”

They kept coming. One reached for my wrist and I jerked away, shoving him hard enough that he staggered, but the second guard caught my arm and twisted it behind my back. Cold metal snapped around my right wrist, then the left. The chain was short and thick, pulling my hands together in front of me until the iron bit into skin that had already known too many bruises.

“This is insane,” I said, breathing hard. “You are chaining me like livestock.”

Ethan watched without speaking. When the guards finished he nodded once. “Take her to the temple path. The rest of you remain here until the offering is complete.”

I dug my heels into the floor as they pulled me toward the doors, panic rising fast and hot behind my ribs. “Serena. Look at me.”

She did. For half a second her eyes met mine, wide and wet, and then she looked away again like the contact burned. The girl who used to share her blanket on cold nights would not even watch me leave.

“Coward,” I whispered.

The word carried. She flinched but stayed silent, and the last of my hope went with her silence.

Outside the air was cooler, and the path to the mountain wound upward through black rock and sparse trees. The guards walked on either side of me, one holding the end of the chain, and every step jarred the metal against bone. My wrists already ached. My mind kept circling the same thought: they had chosen me because no one would fight for me, and the worst part was that they were right.

“You do not have to do this,” I said to the nearest guard, my voice rough. “You know my name. You used to ignore me in the training yard. That does not make me disposable.”

He kept his eyes forward. “Orders are orders.”

“Orders from a man who looks like he wants to be somewhere else while he signs my death warrant.”

The other guard muttered, “Quiet.”

I ignored him and kept talking because silence felt worse. “How many girls have you dragged up this path? Do you even remember their faces?”

No answer came, and the temple rose ahead of us after twenty minutes of hard climbing. It was older than the pack hall, older than any house in the territory, with stone pillars leaning against each other and massive doors carved with symbols I could not read. Moss filled the cracks. The air near the threshold smelled of damp rock and something metallic that made my stomach turn.

Ethan had followed at a distance. He stopped ten paces behind us and spoke to the guards. “Leave her inside the sanctuary. Do not remain after the doors close. Return to the pack and report that the offering is complete.”

I turned as far as the chain allowed, fear and fury tangled so tight I could barely separate them. “You are going to stand there and watch them lock me in.”

He met my eyes for the first time since the hall. “I am going to do what every Royal Alpha before me has done. Survive.”

“By feeding the mountain someone you decided was already halfway gone.”

His expression flickered, then settled back into that controlled mask. “The mountain does not care about fairness. Neither can I.”

The guards pulled me forward. My boots scraped across the stone threshold, and inside the temple was colder. Light from the open doors reached only a few feet before dying against the dark. The floor was uneven, and old blood stains marked the center of the chamber in dark, faded circles. My breath came short and fast.

I planted my feet. “I am not walking into that.”

They did not argue. One shoved me between the shoulder blades and I stumbled forward, the chain jerking tight when I tried to turn back. Both guards stepped out and began pushing the doors closed. The stone ground against itself with a deep, grinding sound that vibrated through my bones.

“Ethan!” I shouted, my voice cracking. “This is murder and you know it.”

The doors kept moving. A thin strip of daylight remained, then narrowed to a blade, then vanished. The stone met with a final, heavy slam that shook dust from the ceiling, and total darkness swallowed the chamber.

I stood still with the chains cold against my skin, listening to my own uneven breathing, and for a long moment there was nothing.

Then a deep, unnatural roar rolled out of the blackness ahead of me, low and wet and far too close, and every instinct I had left screamed that I was not alone.