Chapter two

The ballroom blazed with light.

Hundreds of wolves in silk and jewels danced beneath chandeliers that scattered the moonlight into a thousand pieces. Music swelled. Crystal glasses caught the glow. It was the most beautiful room I'd ever stood in, and no one in it knew who I was.

I kept to the edges, the mask hiding my face. In the crush of bodies, no one looked twice.

"Who is she?"

"Look at that dress…"

The whispers weren't insults. They were something I'd never heard aimed at me before . . . admiration. An event planner actually took my arm and drew me away from the servants' wall, toward the front, toward the elite. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst. For one impossible moment, I let myself pretend I belonged here.

Then the Master of Ceremonies stepped onto the stage.

"Blessed children of Luna! The moon reaches its peak!"

Power crashed through the room like a wave.

My wolf surged up inside me. Every sense sharpened at once. I could hear individual heartbeats. Smell every wolf in the hall.

And then one scent cut through all of it.

Pine and winter frost. Power and darkness. It wrapped around me and ‘pulled’.

‘Mate.’

My breath caught. Could it be true? Someone the Goddess had chosen for me. Someone who might love me, might believe me, might not be ashamed to stand at my side.

I turned toward the servants' section first, hoping, praying he was someone as low as me, someone who wouldn't be able to throw me away. But every wolf there already had eyes fixed elsewhere.

I turned the other way.

And across the ballroom, I saw him.

Tall. Powerfully built, black silk and a silver half mask. Even hidden, I knew that face. I had knelt on his floors, had scrubbed his halls.

Alpha Dayn Blackwood. The man who owned the estate where I bled.

And he was staring straight at me.

The bond snapped into place. A golden thread stretched taut between us, humming with a rightness that made my knees weak.

‘No. Not him. Anyone but him.’

I tried to turn away, to melt back into the crowd. My body obeyed. I could only walk toward him, and he toward,me, both of us pulled by strings we hadn't tied. The crowd parted. Somewhere a young heiress made a small sound of defeat.

Up close he was devastating. Sharp jaw, green eyes burning behind the silver mask. His scent made my wolf whine with a longing I hated.

"She's the Alpha's mate—"

"Lucky wolf. He's second only to the Alpha King himself—"

The whispers didn't thrill me anymore. They terrified me. Because in a moment he would know my face, and everything would end.

"Take off your mask," he said. Low and commanding. "I want to see you."

I couldn't breathe.

His hand moved before I could stop him. One moment the mask was on my face. The next it was in his fist, and he was staring down at me.

I watched his expression change. Confusion. Recognition.

Then horror.

"You.”

The word landed like a curse. Gasps rolled outward through the crowd.

"That's her!"

"The traitor—"

"She killed her family!"

"Silence!" His command cracked across the room, and every voice died at once.

He stepped toward me. I stumbled back into a wall of bodies. The crowd had closed into a ring. Nowhere to run.

"You're the redhead," he said, deadly soft. "The one who murdered her family? Say it Are you Merliya Adair?"

"Ken did it, not me." The words spilled out of me, desperate, changing after three days of useless denials. "I heard him that night, on the phone. He said it was done. I swear I didn't know—"

"Are you Merliya Adair?"

"Yes." Barely a whisper. "But I didn't—"

"Fuck.” He turned away, both hands dragging through his black hair. When he faced me again his mouth was twisted with disgust. "Of course it's you. Of course the Goddess would curse me with you."

A tear slid down my face. This morning I was only a murderer. Now I was a curse too.

A woman in silver shoved through the ring. The Dowager Luna. His mother. Her eyes found me and filled with pure hate.

"Is that my dress?"

I opened my mouth to remind her she'd given it to me. Her hand cracked across my face before I got a word out, and I hit the marble hard.

"Thief!" She seized the satin and pulled. Fabric tore in the silent room. "How dare you steal from me!"

"You gave it to me," I choked. "Months ago—you said the color—"

Her foot drove into my ribs. I curled around the pain.

"Are you calling me a liar? How did you get this dress?"

I looked up at her rage and understood, with total clarity, that the truth would get me killed.

"I stole it," I whispered. "I'm sorry. I stole it."

Dayn hauled me up by the arm, his grip bruising, his wolf pressing against mine, demanding I submit.

"Look at me."

I raised my eyes to my mate. He looked at me like garbage swept up off his beautiful floor.

"You are not fit to be the mate of my lowest servant." His voice carried to every corner of the room. "You are nothing."

The bond pulsed between us, fragile and golden and new. He reached out and took hold of it.

"I, Dayn Blackwood, Alpha of Silverpine, reject you as my mate."

The bond shattered.

Pain exploded through my chest, white hot, like something vital being torn out by the root. I heard myself scream from very far away.

"This ceremony is over." His voice was ice. "Everyone out. Now."

The room emptied around me. I stayed on my knees, arms wrapped around myself, trying to hold together pieces that wouldn't hold. The rejection was worse than the boots, worse than the fire, worse than the moment I'd learned my family was gone.

Somewhere above me, footsteps approached. A rough hand closed on my arm and dragged me from the ballroom like the trash he'd named me.