The Lycan King’s Slave Bride
"Elders, I present my bonded mate. Not the nameless slave rumor has painted her as these past weeks, but Elena Cross, rightful heir to Ravenswood Pack, daughter of the late Alpha Alaric Cross, presumed dead since her wedding night four months past."
The chamber erupted.
Elena stood steady through the sudden clamor of overlapping voices, seven Elders reacting in seven distinct registers of shock, disbelief, and — in at least two cases she could clearly identify — the particular alarm of people recalculating political alliances in real time. Voss himself had gone very still, his weathered face carrying an expression Elena couldn't fully read, somewhere between vindication and fresh grief.