Chapter 1 – THE SPARE WOLF

On the night of the full moon. The door closed behind us.

Deucalion walked to the window and stared out at the moon for a long moment. I stayed near the door, the ceremonial gown still clinging to my skin.

Finally he turned.

He looked me in the eye.

“Get on the bed.”

His voice was flat.

I did not move.

He looked at me then, just briefly, and the cold in his eyes made my chest tighten.

“Do not make this harder than it already is.”

I walked to the bed and sat on the edge.

He removed his shirt without a word. The hard lines of his chest and shoulders caught the moonlight. When he came to me, every movement was controlled. Efficient. Detached.

He kissed me deeply.

His hands pushed the gown off my shoulders. The fabric slid down my arms and pooled at my waist. His palms moved over my breasts, firm and assessing, thumbs brushing across my nipples until they hardened against his touch. There was no tenderness in it. Only the slow, deliberate way a man completes a required task.

He pushed me onto my back.

I stared at the ceiling and tried to disappear inside my own head.

His mouth closed over one nipple, sucking hard enough to pull a sharp breath from my throat. His teeth scraped lightly. One hand slid down my stomach, between my legs, and found me already wet despite everything. Two fingers pushed inside without warning, curling, stretching, testing. He worked them in and out with the same cold precision he used for everything else, the wet sound of it loud in the quiet room.

When he finally settled between my thighs, I felt the thick head of him press against me. He pushed in slowly, inch by inch, filling me completely until my body had no choice but to take him. The stretch burned. The incomplete mark on my neck throbbed in time with every deep thrust.

His hips moved with steady, powerful strokes. Each one drove him deeper. The bed creaked. My breath came shorter. Heat built low in my stomach even as my chest stayed hollow. His body was heavy, hot, relentless. One of his hands gripped my hip hard enough to leave bruises. The other braced beside my head.

At one point his breath brushed my ear. “You are not her.”

The words cut deeper than the mark.

I closed my eyes.

He kept going, harder now, chasing his own release with no care for mine. The slap of skin against skin filled the room. My body responded anyway, tightening, pulsing, betraying me with a sharp, unwanted climax that left me shaking beneath him.

He finished moments later with a low, rough sound, burying himself deep as he came.

When it was over, he pulled out and stood, already reaching for his clothes.

The incomplete mark still burned. It throbbed in time with my heartbeat, reminding me that the bond had been forced and rejected in the same breath.

I sat up slowly, pulling the sheet around myself. My body still tingled. My thighs were slick. The air smelled of sex and rejection.

Neither of us spoke.

Outside, the mating celebration continued. Voices. Laughter. Music.

Then the noise changed.

Shouting.

A woman’s voice, sharp and furious, cut through the celebration.

I frowned. Deucalion’s head turned toward the door.

More shouting.

Then a crash.

I stood and walked to the window. From here I could see part of the stone circle. People were moving in every direction. The elders looked alarmed.

Deucalion opened the door without a word and walked out. I grabbed the discarded ceremonial gown, pulled it on as fast as I could, and followed.

The moment I stepped into the hallway, the chaos hit me fully.

Aria, my younger sister, stood in the middle of the stone circle.

Her hair was messy. Her eyes were red and wild. She looked like she had run the entire way here. “Where is she?” Aria shouted. “Where is my sister?”

And the moment her eyes landed on me, I knew this night was about to get much worse.

****

Weeks earlier I had woken up in my room angry.

My wolf was already pacing under my skin before my eyes even opened. She hated this room. Hated the thin mattress. Hated that no one ever knocked on my door unless they needed something cleaned or fixed. That was how I was being treated.

I got up and went straight to the training ground while the rest of the pack still slept. The dirt was cold. I didn’t care. I hit the wooden post until my knuckles split. Blood smeared across the wood. My wolf pushed harder, wanting real pain, real fight. I gave her what I could.

By the time the sun rose, Aria, my younger sister, stepped out onto the porch like she owned the morning. Perfect hair. Clean clothes. That soft little smile everyone loved.

Dad walked straight past me who was doing more training. Without even a word, he just went straight to her.

“Show me that new form,” he said, voice warm.

She moved like water. Her wolf flashed bright and strong under her skin. Stronger than mine. Everyone always said so. Two warriors stopped to watch. One of them whistled.

I kept hitting the post. No one looked my way.

Mom came out with tea and only had eyes for Aria. “Don’t push too hard, baby. You have that meeting later. We need you looking your best.”

Aria glanced over at me for half a second. Just long enough to let me see the small, satisfied curve of her mouth. Then she turned back to Dad and laughed at something he said.

I wiped the blood from my hands on my pants and walked to the kitchen.

The floor was covered in flour again. Aria’s failed baking from last night. I cleaned it. Then I started the morning food. When one of the younger girls dropped a pot and looked scared, I fixed it before Mom could start yelling. When Aria left her jacket on the floor for the third time this week, I picked it up without a word.

At lunch I sat at the far end of the table. Dad talked about patrols. No one asked how my training went. No one ever did.

Afterward I was outside fixing the east fence when two warriors passed by, talking low.

“Debt to Blackridge is worse than they told the pack.”

“They’re going to lose territory if they don’t make a deal soon.”

I hammered the nail in harder than I needed to. The sound covered the rest of their words.

That evening the air in the house felt wrong. Heavy. I was carrying water when I heard voices from Dad’s study. The door was shut tight. That only happened when something bad was being decided.

I set the buckets down and stepped closer.

Mom’s voice came first, sharp. “We can’t give Aria to the elder one. He's too big for her. The younger brother will be perfect.”

Dad sounded tired. “Blackridge wants a mating bond to happen on the coming full moon. They asked for her by name.”

Silence stretched.

Then Mom again, quieter. “There’s another option. The older one.”

My blood went cold.

“Malia?” My father asked.

“Yes, we can offer Malia to their first son and Aria can go with the second son.”

“Is that ok? Aria and the first son has a thing going on already, don't you—”

“Don't mind Aria, she's too young to see that the eldest son is too much for her. I can't have my eighteen year old baby mating with someone old enough to be her father.”

“You have a point. So what are you saying?” My father asked.

I could hear the movement of chairs. “Since Malia would be thirty years next week, why don't she mate with him instead? Their age gap is just ten years, compared to Aria.

I didn’t wait to hear more. I walked into the room before more decisions were made behind me.

“What the hell is going on here?” I asked with my fist clenched.

My mom looked at my father. Then she faced me and let out a long breath. “How much did you hear?”