CHAPTER ONE

The melancholic, suffocating air that fanned against my pale face drained what little strength I had left, fueling the fear and trepidation boiling inside me—threatening to burst from my chest.

Today was the day of my doom—the day the kingdom of Arazona gathered in celebration, blind to the noose tightening around my throat. My imperial mother’s soothing, overly calm voice still echoed in my ears like the distant music played by the royal orchestra. Her words had stamped themselves onto my mind, much like the dancers’ feet etched their rhythm onto the marble floor.

Everything about the ceremony made me sick—the way Father smiled indulgently from his high throne, the way Mother sparkled beside him in her finest jewels, her expression glowing with pride. They looked every bit the image of royalty—poised, perfect, oblivious. The way the people laughed and danced and cheered, as if this day were meant for joy and not the quiet slaughter of their princess.

This alliance was not a union—it was a sacrifice. And I was the offering.

I hadn’t slept in days, haunted by faceless nightmares of the fifty-year-old Alpha they’d promised me to. The beast of Vermillion Park.

"Announcing the arrival of the groom, Alpha of the Vermillion Park City!" the steward’s voice rang out, shrill and trembling.

Silence crashed down.

The music died in an instant. Dancers fled like startled birds, vanishing into the corners of the grand hall.

Then it came—that presence. It poured through the gates like a storm breaking loose. A pulse of power and heat that rolled through the hall, folding us all beneath its weight. Knees buckled. Heads bowed. Even the air held its breath.

His footsteps echoed—slow, deliberate, cruelly patient—against the marble. They struck like thunder in the stillness.

My breath hitched. Sweat prickled down my spine beneath the heavy folds of my gown. The tiara on my head felt like an anchor, dragging me under.

Then I heard it. A voice. Deep. Low. Velvet and iron.

“Mate?”

My head snapped up.

It wasn’t spoken aloud. I felt it inside me—an intimate whisper threaded through my very bones. And when I met his eyes, I saw it there: recognition. Possession. Fate.

“Mate.”

This time, it wasn’t a question.

A sharp, sudden pain bloomed in my chest, as though something ancient had stirred within me—something that didn’t belong to me, yet had always been mine.

I looked away quickly, head bowing without command.

I thought I heard a sound escape him—a low, wounded exhale, almost a whimper.

Who was he, this man cloaked in power and mystery? How could his voice live in my head? Why did his gaze feel like a blade pressed to my throat and a balm to my soul at once?

I didn’t know. And yet, a terrible certainty coiled in my gut.

This wasn’t just a marriage.

It was a binding.

And I had already begun to unravel.

...Then I heard it. A voice. Deep. Low. Velvet and iron.

“Mate?”

My head snapped up.

It wasn’t spoken aloud. I felt it inside me—a whisper threaded not through the air, but through my blood, like it had always been there, waiting for him to call it forth. My eyes locked with his, and the world tilted.

He stood framed in the entrance like a judgment passed by the gods—towering, broad-shouldered, draped in dark formal wear trimmed with the red and silver of his House. Shadows clung to him like a second skin. His hair, black as obsidian, was swept back from a face carved in cruel, otherworldly perfection—angular, noble, dangerous. His eyes, however, were what stole the breath from my lungs. They glowed faintly, not like any mundane reflection, but like something alive—storm-gray and rimmed with gold, they pierced through the layers of silk, bone, and pride I wore like armor.

“Mate.”

This time, the word struck like a brand against my soul.

It was not a question. It was a claim.

Pain flared in my chest—sharp, sudden, as though something ancient had cracked open inside me, clawing its way to the surface. My breath caught. The room spun. I pressed a gloved hand to my ribcage beneath the jeweled gown, but the pressure did nothing to stop the ache. It wasn’t physical. It was deeper than that—deeper than bone, deeper than memory.

I dropped my gaze at once, trembling. The tiara on my head felt like it might slide off with the weight of it all.

And yet—I could still feel him.

His presence wrapped around the room, curling like smoke, brushing across every skin, every soul in the grand hall. But it lingered on me. Focused. Fierce. As if he’d forgotten the rest of the kingdom existed.

A moment passed. Then another. I swore I heard something—like the ghost of a whimper slipping past his lips, too quiet for anyone else to notice. Almost... broken.

I wanted to flee. I wanted to scream. I wanted to demand what this magic was, what this curse of a bond meant. But all I could do was stand there, trapped in the eye of the storm that was him.

Who was this man with a voice in my head? This Alpha with such impossible power that even my soul flinched at his nearness? Why did he look at me like he’d been waiting centuries?

My parents had spoken of duty. Of alliance. Of peace brokered in blood. But no one had spoken of this. Of bonds that tore through marrow. Of fated words echoing in the mind. Of a fire that bloomed in the chest with every heartbeat under his gaze.

Was this what it meant to marry a werewolf? To be claimed?

Or was this something else—something darker and far more binding than paper and vows?

And as I stood there, head bowed and heart pounding, I knew—this was no ordinary union.

Whatever had begun here today wasn’t political. It wasn’t ceremonial.

It was ancient.

It was sacred.

And it would ruin us both.