1. A Line in the Sand

TRISTAN'S POV

“You will honor your duties to this pack. This is not an option.”

My father’s eyes were glaciers; his voice, pure flint. He stared at me across the cavernous darkness of his oak-paneled office. The massive leather-upholstered furniture, all antique scrollwork and black padding, should have dwarfed him, made him smaller somehow.

It didn’t.

Nothing ever made Clark Moretti small.

Not his oversized furnishings. Not the enormous primordial forest surrounding the sprawling Moretti estate. Not any other Alpha in any other territory, no matter how they blustered and snarled and puffed themselves up.

And especially not one disobedient son.

His unforgiving gaze bore down on me with all the force of an Alpha’s power, like invisible hands shoving me toward the seat behind me. It took all my strength to square my shoulders, straighten my spine, and remain standing. Every breath I took filled me with the heavy aroma of aged wood stain, and tried to collapse my lungs.

My legs trembled. Sweat made a ticklish path down my throat. I clenched my fingers and summoned all the power I could manage, but I wasn’t an Alpha yet. Even if I was stronger than your average fully-fledged wolf, I didn’t have my entire strength at my disposal and wouldn’t until I mated and unlocked the beast sleeping within.

And even if his mouth remained grimly dispassionate, a flat line framed by his severely cut beard, my father was mad.

“Sit,” he commanded, and the full force of the order slammed into me like a brick.

I resisted. Fuck me if I didn’t try my best to resist, locking my knees and tensing all the muscles in my body like I was Atlas straining to hold up the world. More sweat poured down my temple, my jaw, and beaded on my upper lip. I clenched my teeth together until they audibly squeaked.

My father sighed.

“Sit,” he commanded again, and his eyes flashed hotly gold with an Alpha’s power. This time the word drove into my chest like a spear-thrust.

I sat, practically punched down until I landed on the leather upholstery with a thump and an oof.

My father’s gaze returned to its normal chill gray. He studied me assessingly.

“Better,” he said, then tightened his jaw and looked away. His composure briefly broke with a frustrated knit of his brows. “I’m trying to speak to you as your father, Tristan, but you’re forcing me to speak as your Alpha. Clearly I’ve been too lenient on you all these years.”

“Lenient?” I bit off. At least he hadn’t used his power to command my mouth shut and my tongue still. “You’ve spent nearly every day drilling me in the responsibilities of a future Alpha. You’ve run me until the rubber wore off my shoes and the ground left my feet in tatters. You’ve laid wagers while I fought other future Alphas, and threatened silver and chains if I backed down. What’s lenient about any of that?”

“Don’t.” He turned his back on me and looked out over the broad, snowy expanse beyond the massive picture window behind his desk. His black-suited shoulders made a crisp square against the frozen white backdrop. “I did what was necessary to make you ready for your future role. To test your strength and hone your resilience. But I’ve let you go mateless for six years, Tristan. Every other wolf slavers to meet his fated mate once he turns eighteen. But I’ve let you duck the mating ball every year, and looked the other way.”

“There’s nothing at the mating ball for me,” I spat. “You know that. Least of all some strange she-wolf I’ll be shackled to by pheromones and duty.”

“I said don’t,” Father repeated, and the word sealed my lips like a zipper yanking shut. He bit off the words like a rehearsed speech, more for the cold outside than for me. “Every Alpha needs a Luna. Without one, this pack will fall apart and this bloodline will die with you. I’ll only be Alpha for another ten to fifteen years before I’m ready to retire. Would you have me give the pack to a feckless, mateless wastrel who’ll just let it dissolve?”

“Let it dissolve!” I flared. The heat in my chest, the anger climbing up my neck, broke the power keeping my mouth closed. “You built this pack on blood and pain. Let it die in blood and pain.”

Be careful, Severin whispered inside my head, but I was in no mood to listen to my wolf.

“I don’t want it,” I declared, “I don’t want to be Alpha, I don’t want a mate, and if you wanted to continue your bloodline maybe you should have had a second son who was straight.”

There.

I said it.

The word rang like a death knell’s echoes between us. The reason I’d never attended a mating ball. The reason I’d never claimed a Luna. And the reason I don’t care about being Alpha, if it means playing at being straight just to fit some ideal of a perfect future king.

My father’s very stillness said he knew. Maybe he’d always known. Maybe that was why he’d let me run free for six years, to let me be myself for as long as possible before the collar of duty closed around my neck.

He didn’t rage. He didn’t demand.

He only turned to face me. Instead of icy composure, the granite lines of his face spoke of certainty. Of inevitability. Of my undeniable future.

“You will attend the mating ball on the full moon this Saturday night,” he said quietly, his words blanketing the hall with the hush of authority. The bonds of his will relaxed on my body even as his words struck my heart relentlessly, again and again. “At this ball, you will find your future Luna, or one will be found for you. What you’ve done with your life up until this point doesn’t matter. You are my son, and you will take your place as the next Alpha of this pack.”

Every syllable was a noose, tightening on my throat until I couldn’t breathe. Even when my body was free, I couldn’t move. I only sat there, staring at him as my heart turned to lead and sank down to my feet.

He said nothing else.

The Alpha had decreed.

There was nothing I could do.

Except thrust to my feet, turn on my heel, and run from the office with my heartbeat pounding in my ears.