CHAPTER 3

Elsin Waveridge POV

"Elsin Waveridge, did you forge a fake pack parchment just to shut me up?" Georgiana Waveridge pointed a trembling, clawed finger at the glowing crimson seal, her pale eyes wide with suspicion. "You expect me to believe a mate bond just fell into your lap?"

"Mother, look at the ancestral stamp," Elsin said, setting her leather satchel down on the worn wooden table. "It came straight from the Frostwick Elders Hall. The pack elders witnessed it themselves. It's real."

"Then where is my son-in-law?" Georgiana pressed, her gray tail-tuft twitching with restless agitation as she paced the small stone room. "Why didn't he step through the threshold to present himself to your mother? I told you to go on a simple date, not bind your wolf to a stranger. Do you even know who he is?"

"You were the one who pulled his notice off the territory board," Elsin said quietly. "He works for Westbourne Alpha Holdings, which means his position is stable. He's thirty, his wolf is untainted, and he carries himself with dignity." She paused, remembering the sudden, intoxicating scent of cold cedar and rain that had wrapped around her outside the hall. "His parents passed into the ancestral grounds, and he has no lingering pack ties. That means no hostile in-laws breathing down my neck."

Georgiana stared down at the golden lettering on the bond, her chest heaving as the raw tension slowly drained from her posture. She collapsed onto a wooden stool, her aged hands tracing the raised wax. She didn't know Elsin had rushed this bond purely to stop the relentless pressure.

Georgiana had shadow-rot eating away at her wolf-core, a silent death sentence she kept hidden from her daughter. Ever since Elsin’s previous mate trial ended in bitter betrayal, she had shut her heart completely. Georgiana lived every day in terror that when her own wolf finally faded, Elsin would be left utterly alone in a brutal world governed by dominant packs.

"Tell my son-in-law to join us for a feast tomorrow night," Georgiana grunted, settling back into her stool. "I need to look him in the eye and smell his scent. I'll judge if his blood is fit to protect you."

"I'll send him a mind-link message once I set up the stall," Elsin agreed, gathering her tools. "Stay inside tonight, Mother. Your fever is spiking again."

She hoisted a heavy wooden crate packed with hand-carved bone charms and spirit gems, heading down the steep stairs toward the lower territory. Her stall was a retrofitted iron runner-wagon she parked every evening at the Eastern Night Market. From five until eleven, she traded her crafted charms to common wolves, outland travelers, and passing merchants. On good moons, she pulled in over four thousand silver coins a month—more than enough to keep food on their table and pay for her mother’s suppressants.

Elsin had trained as a high-tier rune artisan in her youth, but after an incident five years ago that stripped her of her official mark, no major pack guild would employ her. Setting up an independent stall was her only choice.

Once her charm display was arranged beneath the glowing spirit-lanterns of the crowded market, Elsin pulled out her silver mind-comm device and typed a swift message to Alaric: My mother wants to host a feast for you tomorrow night. Are you free to share a meal?

The message went through, but no response returned. The market roared to life with snarling vendors and bargaining wolves, and Elsin quickly lost herself in her work.

By midnight, the air turned crisp and heavy. Business had been exceptionally lucrative; she had traded over three hundred silver coins' worth of protective bone runes.

She was sitting in the open flatbed of her runner-wagon, counting the iron coins, when her comm-device buzzed against her thigh.

Forgive me, Elsin. I was summoned to Vinkintop Blackswan on urgent Alpha Holdings business. I will return in a few suns, and we will feast with your mother then.

Elsin stared at the message. Off-territory travel was common for workers in major pack corporations. Understood, she typed back cleanly. Travel safely.

She stowed her coins and locked the wooden crates. Over the next three days, time blurred into an exhausting cycle of endless labor. Elsin worked from dawn until long past midnight, her body aching, completely forgetting that she now had a bound mate.

On the fourth night, heavy storm clouds rolled over the mountain peaks, unleashing a torrential downpour across Frostwick. Thunder rattled the stone buildings, and rain lashed against the iron frame of her runner-wagon.

Just as Elsin reached the muddy alleyway outside her cottage, the wagon’s main mana-core sputtered violently and died. The heavy iron wheels locked up in the mud.

"Not tonight," Elsin muttered, wiping wet hair from her face as she stepped out under a flimsy oiled umbrella to inspect the core housing.

The ancient runner-wagon was on its last legs. Buying a replacement wagon would devour half a year’s savings—money she desperately needed for her mother’s healing tonics. She had no choice but to drag her heavy supply crates up the muddy steps by hand.

She popped open the wagon's rear hatch, sheltering the delicate rune carvings under her umbrella. Some of these charms belonged to high-tier clients who had paid upfront for repairs; if the spirit gems got soaked, the magic would shatter.

A sudden gust of wind howled through the narrow alleyway. The umbrella was yanked violently out of her hand, tumbling uselessly into the dark street.

The freezing rain slammed directly into her face, soaking her thin tunic in seconds. Her dormant wolf whimpered softly against the cold, but Elsin gritted her teeth, wrapping her entire body over the heavy wooden crate to shield the delicate bone charms from the downpour. Water streamed down her neck as she trudged forward, her bare boots slipping in the mud.

Alaric Westbourne POV

From inside the darkened interior of his armored black carriage, Alaric Westbourne watched the small female struggling against the violent gale.

He had just returned from the high-level war summit in Vinkintop Blackswan. His silver-plated wheels were coated in mud, but his gray eyes remained locked on Elsin as she shielded her cargo with her own frail body.

She looked impossibly small in the storm, her clothes plastered to her skin, yet her posture radiated a stubborn, unbreakable refusal to yield. She didn't cry out for help. She didn't shift into her wolf to lighten the load. She simply endured.

Something deep within Alaric’s chest snapped. A fierce, instinctual heat flared in his veins, his dominant Alpha wolf clawing at his ribs, demanding he go to her, wrap her in his scent, and carry her out of the cold.

Alaric reached for the heavy silver handle of the carriage door and pulled out a wide black umbrella.

"Alpha?" his driver called out from the front bench, turning in surprise. "Should I pull up to the estate?"

"Return to the ancestral villa," Alaric commanded, his voice dark and absolute. "I'm walking from here."

He stepped out into the pouring rain, his long, heavy coat swallowing the wind as he closed the distance between them.