Chapter 4

Ava's POV

“One million dollars. And you give up your inheritance.”

Rebecca pushed the check toward me.

She was my father’s former business partner and my so-called stepmother. The way she looked at me was as if she were deciding which garbage bin to drag a bag of trash to.

I picked up the check and slowly tore it in half in front of her.

“You—”

“I’m not signing anything.” I tossed the torn pieces back onto the table and looked straight into her eyes. “If you want to buy my inheritance, at least find out how much the Crawford pack is worth first.”

Rebecca’s face instantly turned livid.

“How dare you speak to me like that?”

“You’re sitting in my father’s chair and spending my father’s money.” I leaned back in my chair. “You tell me—why shouldn’t I?”

Rebecca suddenly stood up, the legs of her chair scraping across the floor with a harsh sound.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped out from behind her. He had blond hair, sharply defined features, and a cruelty in his eyes reminiscent of a predator.

“Ava, right?” he said arrogantly. “I’m Lucas. Your… brother.”

He deliberately drew out the word “brother.”

“My father had only one child.” I looked at him. “And that person isn’t you.”

The smile vanished from Lucas’s face.

“Lucas, stop wasting time!” Rebecca snapped. “This pack is yours! She’s just an Omega who can’t even shift. What right does she have to lead the Crawford pack? Her father got some Omega pregnant after a one-night stand and left us with this mess!”

“A mess?”

I stood up and looked at Rebecca.

“You mean the mess worth tens of billions of dollars? The mess you’re desperate to seize, even if it means falsifying inheritance documents?”

Rebecca’s lips trembled.

Lucas stared down at me. His Beta aura pressed over me like a wall.

A pack’s heir had to possess Alpha blood. And Lucas wasn’t even my father’s biological son.

No one dared to challenge pack law.

“My father’s will named me as the heir.” I didn’t look away. “I will not go against it.”

Lucas took a step forward.

“So you’re not only weak, but stupid. Do you really think you’ll be able to leave here alive today?”

“Before you kill me, you’d better think about what you’ll tell the pack council after killing the legal heir.”

Rebecca’s face twisted.

“Kill her! Once she’s dead, no one will stand in your way! She’s an orphan, and she’s an Omega—no one will come to avenge her!”

A second later, a group of guards dressed in black poured out of the estate and surrounded me.

I didn’t step back.

My heartbeat pounded painfully against my eardrums, but I forced myself to stay where I was.

Old Beta Alvin suddenly stepped in front of me. His body was straight as a wall.

“Madam, you can’t do this!” he shouted. “Miss Crawford is the heir chosen by the Alpha!”

“Get out of the way, old man!”

"Alvin!" Panic clawed up my throat. I tried to reach him, but a guard stepped into my path and bared his teeth.

Then, a screech of brakes cut through the tension.

Several black SUVs roared up and stopped hard at the manor gates. On each door, a blood-red moon emblem caught the sunlight, sharp and impossible to miss.

Bloodmoon Pack.

My stomach dropped. If the Crawford Pack ran the East Coast, the Bloodmoon Pack owned the entire West, no contest. What were they doing here?

The doors swung open, and a group of tall, battle-hardened wolves stepped out. The one leading them had a cold, chiseled face and eyes that swept over us, sharp and precise.

Lucas and Rebecca both went pale.

"The Bloodmoon Pack? What do you want?" Lucas asked, failing to hide the shake in his voice.

The man didn't even look at him. His eyes found me, studied me for a second, and then he bowed. "By order of our Alpha, we've come to escort our future Luna."

Luna?

Everyone froze. My mind went blank right along with them.

"What... what are you talking about?" Rebecca stammered. "What Luna?"

He let out a cold scoff, pulled a wax-sealed parchment from his coat, and unfolded it for everyone to see. "Twenty years ago, the former Alpha of the Bloodmoon Pack and the Alpha of the Crawford Pack struck a pact: their eldest son and eldest daughter would marry when they came of age, binding the two strongest packs on the East and West Coasts."

He paused, his gaze locking back onto me. "And now the Bloodmoon Pack has been informed that the only rightful heir of the Crawford Pack, Ava Crawford, has returned. By the pact, she will wed our new Alpha, Adrian Thorne, and become the Luna of the Bloodmoon Pack."

The whole world went quiet.

I stood there frozen, my head completely empty.

A marriage contract. With some Alpha I'd never even met, from the strongest pack on the West Coast?

Rebecca and Lucas went white as paper. A minute ago they'd been ready to kill me. Now I was suddenly the future Luna of the Bloodmoon Pack, someone now beyond even their reach.

It was more absurd than any drama.

The man rolled up the parchment and gave me a polite "after you." "Ms. Crawford, I'm Oswald, Alpha Adrian's Beta. Our Alpha is waiting. Please, get in the car."

Behind him, every Bloodmoon warrior dipped their head to me at once. Not out of fear, pure, unquestionable respect for the Luna they'd one day serve.

I looked at my terrified stepmother and stepbrother, then at Alvin being helped back to his feet, shock written all over his face.

One thing was certain: I was safe.

But a fresh wave of nerves hit me, sharp enough to spike my pulse all over again.

Because now I had to meet this fiance who'd appeared out of nowhere. I didn't know the first thing about Alpha Adrian. His pack towered over every pack on both coasts. A man like that didn't need to honor some old promise.

The only reason I could come up with: maybe he was hideous. Maybe something was wrong with him. Was that why he'd settle for a divorced Luna?