1

Blake

"Alpha, you should really consider choosing a mate. You can't do both jobs yourself all the time, and your pack needs an actual Luna."

Rector's voice was a low drone in the back of the SUV. I stared out the window at the passing trees, my jaw set tight. He had been saying the same thing for three years. Every time we attended a pack summit, every time a new batch of she-wolves reached maturity, it was the same lecture.

"Claiming a random woman? Not a chance," I growled, the sound vibrating deep in my chest. "We gotta wait for our mate."

My wolf, Fenris, let out a low rumble of agreement. He was restless, pacing the edges of my mind. We had searched every corner of the northern territories. We had visited every pack from the coast to the mountains. Nothing. Sometimes I wondered if the Moon Goddess was punishing me for the blood on my hands. Or maybe she was just saving the best for last.

"The Silver Crescent gala is tonight," Rector reminded me. "Tristan is celebrating his new engagement. It would be a good time to show the other Alphas that Blackwood is stable."

"Tristan is a fool," I said coldly. "He traded a loyal heart for a political alliance. I don't care about his celebrations."

But we went anyway. Power was about presence, and I wouldn't let a pup like Tristan think I was afraid of his borders.

The ballroom was suffocating. The air was thick with the scent of too many wolves, a cloying mix of musk and expensive perfume. I stood on the balcony, watching the crowd with narrowed eyes. Tristan was in the center of the room, his arm wrapped tightly around Charlotte, a high-ranking beta from the eastern pack. They looked perfect. They looked like a lie.

Then the wind shifted.

A scent hit me like a physical blow. It was faint, buried under the smell of floor wax and cheap champagne, but it was there. It smelled like rain on hot pavement and crushed lilies.

Fenris went wild. Mine! he screamed, his voice deafening in my head. Mate!

I didn't think. I moved. I pushed through the crowd, my presence parting the sea of wolves like a blade. I didn't care who I stepped on. I didn't care about the whispers that followed me. I followed the scent until I reached the kitchens, away from the glitz and the gold.

There she was.

She was bent over a tray of dirty glasses, her hair falling into her face. She wore a tattered uniform that was two sizes too big. She looked small. She looked fragile. She looked human.

"Mine!" The word tore out of my throat before I could stop it.

The girl jumped, dropping a glass. It shattered against the tile, the sound echoing in the small space. She turned around, her eyes wide and clouded with confusion. They were the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen, deep and dark, like a forest at midnight.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Do I know you?"

I took a step toward her, my heart hammering against my ribs. The mate bond was a living thing, a golden cord snapping into place between us. I wanted to reach out and touch her. I wanted to sink my teeth into her neck and mark her until she smelled of nothing but me.

"You," I breathed.

"Tricia!"

The sharp bark of a voice made her flinch. Tristan stepped into the kitchen, his face flushed with anger. He didn't even notice me at first. He walked straight up to the girl and grabbed her by the arm, his fingers digging into her skin.

"Why aren't you out there cleaning the tables? You're useless, Tricia. Even as a servant, you’re a failure."

"I'm sorry, Tristan," she said, her head bowing low. "I was just... someone was talking to me."

Tristan finally looked up, his eyes landing on me. He froze. His grip on her arm didn't loosen, and my wolf began to snarl.

"Alpha Blake," Tristan said, his voice dropping an octave. "I didn't realize you were wandering the service halls."

"Let go of her," I said. My voice was calm, but it was the calm before a storm.

Tristan laughed, a jagged, nervous sound. "What, this? She’s just my ex-wife. A little human mistake I made a few years ago. She’s lucky I let her stay in the pack house at all. She’s basically an Omega without the title."

The air in the kitchen turned cold. Ex-wife. My mate had been touched by this coward. She had been claimed by him, rejected by him, and then forced to serve him. The scent of his mark was faint on her, a dying ember that made my blood boil.

"I said," I took a step forward, the floorboards groaning under my weight, "let go of her."

Tristan recoiled as if I’d struck him. He released Tricia’s arm, and she stumbled back, rubbing her bruised skin. She looked between us, her face pale.

"Blake, we should go," Rector said, appearing at the doorway. He looked at Tricia, then at me, and his eyes went wide. "Alpha... is that her?"

"She's human," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. I looked at Tricia. I wanted to feel joy. I wanted to feel complete. Instead, I felt a simmering, white-hot rage. How could the Moon Goddess do this? How could she link my soul to a woman who had been discarded by a weakling like Tristan?

"I don't understand," Tricia said, her voice small. "Who are you?"

"I'm the man who owns you now," I said.

I didn't offer her a hand. I didn't give her a kind word. I reached out and grabbed her wrist, my grip firm and unforgiving. She gasped, her skin hot against my palm. The bond flared, sending a jolt of electricity up my arm, but I pushed it down. I wouldn't be a slave to a feeling.

"Wait!" Tristan stepped forward, his face turning a dark shade of red. "You can't just take her. She belongs to the Silver Crescent. She has a debt to pay for the years she wasted as my Luna."

I turned my head slowly to look at him. "A debt? You divorced her. You stripped her of her rank. She owes you nothing."

"She's pack property," Tristan hissed.

I shifted my weight, my wolf pushing to the surface. My eyes glowed a bright, lethal silver. "She is my fated mate, Tristan. If you want to keep her, you'll have to fight me for her. Right here. Right now."

Tristan went quiet. He was a coward at heart, and he knew he wouldn't last ten seconds against a Blackwood Alpha. He looked at Tricia with pure loathing.

"Fine," he spat. "Take her. She’s been nothing but a burden anyway. I hope you enjoy the human scrap."

I didn't answer him. I dragged Tricia out of the kitchen, through the back exit, and toward the waiting car. She was struggling, her small boots dragging on the gravel.

"Let me go!" she cried. "I don't know who you are! You can't just kidnap me!"

"Shut up," I snapped, stopping by the car door. I turned her around so she was pinned between my body and the metal frame. I leaned in, my face inches from hers. "You think your life was hard before? You have no idea what's coming. You're coming to my pack. You're going to be my Luna. And you're going to wish you were still scrubbing floors for your ex-husband."

"Why are you being so mean?" she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "If I'm your mate... shouldn't you be happy?"

I laughed, a dark, hollow sound. "Happy? You're a human. You're weak. You're a liability. I’ve waited my whole life for a queen, and I got a servant who still smells like another man’s bed."

I saw the way my words cut her. Good. If she was going to be my Luna, she needed to learn that there was no room for softness in my world.

I shoved her into the backseat and climbed in after her. Rector got into the driver's seat, his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror.

"Where to, Alpha?"

"Home," I said. "And call the Elders. Tell them the search is over. Tell them I found a human."

Tricia huddled against the far door, as far away from me as she could get. She was trembling, her breath coming in shallow hitches. I ignored her, staring straight ahead, but my hand was itching to reach out and pull her into my lap. The bond was screaming at me to comfort her, to lick away her tears.

I clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white.

We had been driving for twenty minutes when the car suddenly swerved. Rector slammed on the brakes, the tires screeching against the asphalt.

"What is it?" I demanded.

"The road," Rector whispered, his voice shaking. "Alpha, look."

I looked out the windshield. Standing in the middle of the road was a woman. She was dressed in white, her hair long and silver, glowing in the moonlight. She wasn't a wolf. She wasn't human.

Tricia gasped beside me. "Who is that?"

The woman raised a hand, pointing a finger directly at the car. Her voice echoed inside my head, cold and ancient.

"The bond is a gift, Blake. But blood will demand blood. If you do not mark her by the next full moon, the Blackwood Pack will fall, and your mate will be the one to light the fire."

The woman vanished into thin air.

I turned to Tricia, my heart stopping. She wasn't looking at the road. She was staring at her own hands. They were glowing with a faint, pulsing blue light.

"My skin," she whispered, her voice full of terror. "It's burning."

I grabbed her hands, and the moment our skin touched, a shockwave of energy exploded from her, shattering every window in the car.

The glass rained down on us like diamonds, and in the silence that followed, I realized one thing.

Tricia wasn't just a human. She was something much, much worse.