Aliyana’s POVThe walls pressed in on me.I had locked myself away after Nolan’s warning the night before. The doors were heavy, the locks strong, but even if I barred them with steel, the fortress itself was the real prison. I could feel its eyes on me, the guards at every corner, the whispering mouths in every hall.Their laughter hadn’t left me. Their words still clung like thorns in my chest. Not beautiful enough. Not Luna enough.I pressed my forehead against the cool stone wall, breathing slowly. But even here, in my chamber, I wasn’t free.Outside my door came the shuffle of skirts, soft voices dripping with poison.“Poor girl. She looks like a mouse, not a queen.”“A mouse married to a wolf. She won’t last a month.”“Maybe not even a week. Lady Calista will make sure of it.”Their giggles scratched against my ears until I wanted to scream. I shoved my palms over them instead, pressing hard, whispering through clenched teeth.“Don’t listen. Don’t bend. You can’t break.”Still,
Aliyana’s POVThe echo of their laughter still clung to me like smoke. No matter how many steps I put between myself and that courtyard, I could still hear the whispers. She’s not the one. She’s the wrong girl. Not beautiful enough. Not Luna enough.The fortress corridors swallowed me whole as I followed a pair of guards deeper inside. The air smelled of stone and iron, cold and sharp, like the bite of a blade. I hated how every step sounded like chains. Even though my wrists were free, I wasn’t free. The guards stopped at a tall set of double doors. One pushed them open, revealing a room so grand it almost mocked me. High arched ceilings carved with wolves and moons, velvet curtains heavy enough to drown a person, a bed so large it looked like it could swallow me alive.“This will be your chamber,” one guard announced without emotion. “The bride of Fangred deserves no less.”The words twisted inside me. Bride of Fangred. Not queen. Not partner. Bride. A title that felt like a colla
Aliyana’s POVThe fortress rose before me like the mouth of a beast.Stone walls stretched high into the clouds, iron gates creaked open behind me, and the sound echoed in my ribs. Each step inside scraped against my pride. My stomach twisted as I walked across the courtyard, hundreds of eyes following me. Not in awe. Not in respect.Soldiers stood in flawless rows on either side, armor gleaming, spears raised and so were some high members of the pack.I had never seen anything so vast, so unwelcoming. It wasn’t a home. It wasn’t even a castle. It was a cage built to remind you that once you stepped inside, you didn’t walk back out.I should have been walking toward a palace. A home. A place where a bride was welcomed.But this…this was no home. This was a prison disguised as a kingdom.The cold air bit at my cheeks, and though my dress was heavy, I felt bare. Stripped. Exposed.I could hear them whispering already.“That’s her?” “Not the one they promised.”“She looks… plain.”“Are
Nolan’s POVAliyana Hastings thought she hated me. That much was obvious in the fire that burned in her eyes when she told me she would kill me. I had heard those words more times than I could count, but never from lips so soft, never with a voice that trembled as though she almost believed herself capable.Wanting to kill a man and having the strength to do it were two very different things. Aliyana didn’t yet understand that.She thought I was a monster. She was not wrong.I’ve been called worse since I was a boy. Some names carved themselves into your bones until you no longer knew where the insult ended and you began. Monster was one of those names. I embraced it. Monsters survived. Saints bled out in the gutter.My mother was a bit like her sister. I watched her kindness rot inside her body while my father grew fat on blood and fear. I swore I’d never be like her. I swore I’d never be weak.And so, I became what the world needed me to be. The nightmare they whispered about when t
Aliyana’s POVI don’t know how long I screamed.My throat was raw, every sound scraping like glass against stone. My fists pounded against the heavy wooden door until the skin split and bled, until my knuckles burned and my bones felt close to breaking but still, I didn’t stop.I screamed for my father. I screamed for my mother. I screamed for my sister. And I screamed for Luke.But no one came. Not even my wolf that went dormant since the death of my mother.Not a guard. Not a maid. Not even my father.Only silence answered me. Silence, and the echo of Luke’s last breath replaying in my mind.When my strength finally gave out, I slid down the door in my ruined wedding dress, the silk pooling around me like a shroud. I crawled to the dresser, tearing through drawers in desperation, searching for scissors, for anything sharp enough to cut the cursed gown from my body. But they were empty. Of course they were. My father had made sure I had nothing that could free me.So I ripped the gow
Aliyana’s POVI couldn’t breathe.The Alpha’s words landed like a physical blow, knocking the air out of my lungs.“You will marry me,” he said.Me?My throat constricted as if invisible fingers were closing around it. My lungs wouldn’t obey. I dragged in shallow, shaky breaths that made me lightheaded. When I said I’d do anything to shield my sister from her fate, I hadn’t meant inheriting it. I hadn’t meant standing here, trembling before a man like him.I turned desperately to my father, my eyes stinging. He looked as stunned as I was, paralyzed, jaw slack, no words forming.I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again. Nothing came out the first time. The second time I forced words through the tightness strangling my chest.“I— I’m sorry, what do you mean?” My voice cracked. It was barely a whisper, yet somehow too loud in the heavy silence.Alpha Nolan smiled like I’d amused him. He spread his arms, his black eyes never wavering from mine. “Looks like my bride is standing right