Chapter 003

Blood and Smiles

CECILIA

I was still inside my own head when I walked out of the study.

Lila was standing in the corridor.

I stopped.

She turned at the sound of my footsteps, and the smile that crossed her face was immediate.

"Cecilia." She moved toward me, her voice soft. "I heard. I am so sorry. This whole situation must be incredibly uncomfortable for you."

I looked at her. "News travels fast."

"You know how this packhouse is." She gave a small, sympathetic shake of her head. "I just want you to know that I am here for you. Whatever you need."

She looked like she meant it. She sounded like she meant it. Her eyes were gentle and her posture was open and there was nothing I could point to and say, there, that is the lie.

But I had known Lila my whole life. And something about the way she was standing there, already in the corridor, already turned in the right direction, already wearing that expression before I had even fully come through the door, did not sit right with me.

I kept my face even. "Thank you, Lila."

"Of course." She fell into step beside me as I started walking, which I had not invited her to do. "It is a strange choice, is it not? The Redwood Pack of all places."

I did not respond.

"I suppose Uncle Bonn has his reasons," she continued, her tone thoughtful. "Alpha Cassian does have a strong pack. Very well managed, from what people say in council circles. His numbers are good, warriors are well trained and he keeps things running tightly." A brief pause. "He has quite a reputation."

I glanced at her. "You seem to know a lot about him."

She lifted a shoulder lightly. "I pay attention at gatherings. It is worth knowing who the strong Alphas are."

She said it easily. Like it was nothing.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, "I actually met him once but briefly, at the Silvermont gathering two seasons ago."

I kept walking but I was listening to every single word now.

"He was not what I expected," she said, and something in her voice shifted just slightly. But I caught it. "He is very— present. You know how some Alphas walk into a room and you feel it before you even see them? He is like that." She laughed a little and waved her hand. "Anyway. I am sure you will form your own opinion. I should not be going on like this."

She smiled again and turned at the next corridor, heading in a different direction. "I mean it, Cecilia. I am here if you need me."

And then she was gone.

I stood there for a moment, watching the empty corridor where she had just been.

She had described him like someone she had studied. Like someone she had not stopped thinking about since that gathering.

Every detail she gave had been specific, considered, and just a little too fond for a casual acquaintance.

I filed every single word away and went to find Darcy.

I found her in the small room off the east wing that she used when she was not on duty.

She was sharpening a blade and looked up the moment I walked in.

"Close the door," I said.

She set the blade down.

I told her everything about the corridor, the smile, the conversation and Darcy listened without interrupting, which was one of the things I valued most about her.

When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.

"I am not surprised," she said finally.

"You knew?"

"Not the details. But the general shape of it?" She nodded slowly. "It is not exactly a secret among people who pay attention. Lila wanted Cassian. She made her interest known before any of this arrangement started but your father refused to put her forward." Darcy paused. "Alpha Bonn directed it toward you instead."

I stared at her. "And nobody told me this."

"Would it have changed anything?"

Probably not but that was not the point.

"There is more," Darcy said, and her voice took on a careful quality. "She has not accepted it quietly. People have noticed that she finds reasons to ask about him. About the Redwood Pack, about anyone who has had contact with Cassian or his wolves. She positions herself in conversations where his name comes up." She met my eyes. "She has been doing it for a while."

I sat down on the edge of the chair near the door.

I thought about Lila standing in that corridor already there, smiling and talking about him like she could not quite help herself.

Lila wanted Cassian.

Lila wanted my Alpha position.

Two things. Both of them things she believed she had a right to.

And now both of them were being handed to me, which meant that in Lila's mind, I was standing in the way of two things that were supposed to be hers.

That was not a cousin I could afford to leave with any kind of power.

Darcy seemed to follow my thoughts without me speaking them. "If your father gives her the Alpha position," she said quietly, "what happens to this pack?"

I did not answer.

"Cecilia." Her voice was not sharp, but it was serious. "I am not asking to push you. I am asking because I think you already know the answer and you are trying not to look at it."

I looked at the floor instead.

I thought about the pack. Not the elders, not the gossip, not the debt. The actual people who had no idea what was being decided behind closed doors right now and were simply going about their lives, relying on the fact that the people above them were making good decisions.

Lila had never cared about any of them. Not in any way that was real. She cared about what leading them would give her. The title. The authority. The position.

If she took over, everything I had spent my life building and protecting would go to someone who saw it as a prize.

Darcy said nothing. She just let me sit with it.

And I sat with it for a long time.

***

Then I stood up.

I did not say anything to Darcy. I did not need to. She read my face and gave me a short nod, and I walked back out into the corridor and made my way to my father's study.

I opened the door without knocking.

Bonn looked up from his desk.

"I will do it," I announced. "I will mate Cassian."

The breath he let out was long and slow, like he had been holding it for days.

He straightened in his chair and looked at me with something that might have been relief.

"You are making the right decision," he said.

I said nothing to that.

I just turned and walked back out praying I'd really made the right decision.

Chapter 004

The Mating Ceremony and the Last Step

CECILIA

Three days passed and I did not participate in a single preparation.

I spent every morning and afternoon on the training grounds, pushing myself and whoever was willing to come at me until my body had nothing left to give.

It was the only thing that made the time feel like mine. The moment I stopped moving, reality crept back in, and reality was something I was not ready to sit with.

But time did not care about that.

The morning of the ceremony arrived grey and cold, the sky flat and sunless, and I stood at the window of my room watching it and thinking that at least the weather had the decency to be honest.

They dressed me in white virgin silk. It clung to every line of my body and left my shoulders bare, the traditional dress of an unmated female surrendering to her male. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself for a long moment.

I had worn battle armour my entire life and never once felt exposed in it. This dress made me feel naked.

I said nothing and walked out.

***

The throne room had been transformed overnight. Flowers and white ribbons covered every surface, villagers packed every available space, and the noise of five hundred wolves settled into a low hum the moment I walked in. I kept my eyes forward and my chin up and did not look at any of them.

Cassian was already standing at the front when I arrived. He was in a dark formal attire, straight posture, those calm brown eyes finding me the moment I entered. He did not smile. He just watched me walk toward him with an expression I could not read, which was already irritating.

The priest began.

He spoke about unity and partnership and the sacred bond between mates, and I stood there and let the words wash past me like water. None of it landed. None of it was real.

This was a transaction dressed up in silk and ceremony, and I was the currency being exchanged.

"Do you, Cecilia, Alpha Queen of the Greenville Pack, take this man as your mate and husband?"

I wanted to say no. I wanted to tear this dress off and walk straight out of this room and let the consequences fall where they would. I felt the words sitting in my throat, ready.

Then my eyes moved to the crowd and found Lila.

She was standing near the middle, dressed modestly, her expression full of careful sympathy. She met my gaze and gave me a small, gentle smile.

The image of her wearing my crown hit me so hard and so fast that I almost flinched.

"I do," I said. The words tasted like ash.

"And do you, Cassian, Alpha of the Redwood Pack, take this woman as your mate and wife?"

"I do." He agreed easily, like this was the easiest thing he had ever agreed to.

"Then by the power vested in me," the priest continued, "I pronounce you mated and wed. You may now shift and exchange marks to seal the bond."

The room went very still.

I did not move.

The silence stretched. Around me, I could feel people holding their breath. Whispers began at the edges of the crowd, soft at first and then louder.

"Alpha Queen?" the priest said carefully.

"No." I kept my voice clear and steady. "We will not shift and mark. The exchange of vows and rings is sufficient."

The gasps that followed were immediate. I heard them ripple across the room like a stone dropped in still water. This was unheard of. It was an insult to tradition, to the ceremony, to the man standing beside me.

I did not care.

Then my father stood up.

Bonn rose from his seat at the front of the room, and when he spoke his voice cut through every whisper and every gasp and silenced the hall completely.

"The bond will be sealed now and in the old way." His eyes found mine across the room. "Shift."

The hall went so quiet I could hear my own breathing.

I turned to look at him. "You would not dare command me—"

"I just did." His jaw was tight, his gaze harder than I had seen it in years. "Refuse in front of this pack and every wolf here will know their Alpha Queen fears her own mate. Shift, Cecilia. Or Lila takes the crown tonight."

The whispering erupted again, louder this time, spreading fast through the crowd. I felt it rising around me like heat.

My claws pushed through my fingertips before I could stop them, and then my wolf came forward in a way she had not in longer than I could remember, not with power but with rage so deep it burned.

The white dress shredded. Red fur spilled across my shoulders as I held the half-shift, my body trembling with the force of holding it there. The crowd recoiled in one collective movement.

Cassian shifted a heartbeat later. A huge brown wolf with gold eyes that stayed completely calm. He lowered his head toward me, not in submission, but in offering.

I wanted to tear him apart.

Instead I lunged.

My fangs sank into the muscle between his neck and shoulder, hard enough that blood hit my tongue immediately, hot and sharp. He did not flinch. He did not make a sound. He just held my gaze with those steady gold eyes while I marked him, and that stillness made me angrier than pain would have.

Then his head moved and his teeth closed over the claiming spot on my throat.

Not savage but possessive in a way that left no room for argument.

The bond snapped into place between us like something locking shut. I felt it in my chest, in my bones, sudden and undeniable, and I hated every single second of it.

I tore free with a snarl and shifted back. Naked, bleeding at the throat, shaking with rage.

Cassian shifted back beside me, blood running freely down his chest, and looked at me without a single trace of shame or apology.

The blood dripped from his chest onto the white marble floor in slow, steady drops. He did not wipe it away. Instead the corner of his mouth curved, just barely, a small and private smile that only I was close enough to see, and then he turned to face the crowd and inclined his head like a man who had just been given exactly what he came for.

I wanted to hit him so hard his ancestors felt it.

The priest fumbled through the closing words, clearly shaken by everything that had just happened. "Then I present to you Alpha Cassian and his Luna, Cecilia."

Applause followed.

I turned to face the crowd with my chin lifted, blood drying at my throat, and stared back at every single person who was staring at me.

****

I had barely made it through the first hour of the reception when she appeared.

Cassian's mother, Marcella found me near the far end of the hall, away from the main crowd.

She was tall and composed, silver streaked hair pulled back severely, dark eyes that moved over me the way someone looks at something they have already decided they do not want in their house.

"I want to be direct with you," she said, keeping her voice low enough that only I could hear. "You are not what I wanted for my son. You come from a pack that is drowning in debt, you have no wolf to speak of, and everything about this arrangement smells of desperation." She held my gaze without blinking. "You are not welcome here. Not by me."

I looked at her for a moment.

Then I smiled, and it was not a kind smile.

"Let me be direct with you as well," I started. "I did not come here for your son. I came here to keep my throne. That is the only reason I am standing in this hall in this dress with his mark on my throat." I tilted my head slightly. "So your feelings about whether I am welcome here mean very little to me. You can kiss my ass for all I care."

Her eyes went wide. The composure cracked just enough to show the fury underneath it.

She turned and walked away without another word, her back rigid, her steps sharp against the marble floor.

I turned back to the room and reached for the nearest glass of wine.

"Cecilia."

I turned.

Lila was standing behind me, dressed simply, her expression warm and open. She stepped forward and took both my hands in hers, squeezing gently.

"Congratulations," she said softly. "Truly. I am so happy for you."

I looked at her face. The smile was perfect. The warmth was perfect. Everything about it was exactly right.

Except her eyes.

Her eyes were flat and careful and watching me in a way that had nothing to do with happiness.

"Thank you, Lila," I said.

She squeezed my hands once more and moved away into the crowd, and I watched her go and filed that look away in the same place I kept everything else she had ever given me.

****

The final toast came at the end of the reception.

My father rose from his seat, raised his glass, and smiled at the room with the easy confidence of a man about to deliver news he had already decided on.

"To the alliance," he said, loud enough for every wolf in the hall to hear clearly. "And to the heir that will be born within the year. The council has ruled. If no child is conceived by the next full moon cycle, the marriage will be declared void and the Greenville crown will pass to a new bloodline."

The room stopped.

Glasses froze, cnversations died. Five hundred pairs of eyes turned to me same moment.

My father's gaze found mine across the hall. "Tonight begins the count."

The wine glass in my hand shattered.

Red liquid ran down my wrist and dripped onto the floor and I was already moving, claws pushing through my fingers, crossing the hall in three strides with nothing in my head except the image of my hands around his throat.

Two guards stepped into my path before I reached him.

Then Cassian's arms locked around my waist from behind, solid and unyielding, dragging me backward while I snarled and bled and fought against his grip with everything I had.

His mouth dropped to my ear.

"One year," he said, so quietly that nobody else could have heard it. "I will give you an heir, Cecilia. And when I do, you will beg me to mark you again."

Then he released me and walked away.

I stood there, chest heaving, blood on my hand, the bond he had put in my throat still humming with a warmth I absolutely refused to acknowledge.

And underneath all of that rage, somewhere I did not want to look, something else had started burning.

I hated him for that most of all.

Chapter 005

CECILIA

I was halfway down the corridor toward my chambers when my father stepped out of a doorway directly in front of me.

I stopped.

He looked entirely too pleased with himself for a man who had just publicly humiliated his daughter at her own mating ceremony.

"Where do you think you are going?" he asked.

"My room, of course, to sleep."

He laughed. Actually laughed, the warm easy kind that meant he found something genuinely amusing, which only made me want to hit something.

"You are a mated woman now, Cecilia. You do not go back to your old room on your mating night." He crossed his arms with the satisfaction of someone who had been planning this conversation. "A chamber has been prepared for you and Cassian on the east side of the packhouse. It's at the far end of the corridor. You will spend the night there."

I stared at him. "And the pack? I cannot just leave—"

"I am still very much alive and healthy," he cut in, the amusement not leaving his face. "I ran this pack long before you were born. I think I can manage while you settle into your marriage." He waved a hand. "Darcy will travel with you tomorrow. She will see to your belongings tonight and go with you to the Redwood Pack as your personal attendant. You will not be going alone."

I opened my mouth.

He raised an eyebrow, daring me to find the argument.

I could not find it. He had thought of everything, which meant this had been arranged well before today, which meant he had known exactly how this night would end while I had been standing at that altar with absolutely no idea.

"You planned all of this," I said flatly.

"I am your father. Planning things is what I do." He nodded down the corridor. "Far end at the east side. Go and have a good night with your mate."

He walked away still laughing, and I stood in the corridor alone, staring at the wall, feeling like the ground had shifted under my feet without my permission.

Again.

****

I dragged my feet the entire way to the chamber.

When I pushed the door open, the room was warm and softly lit, a large bed at the centre, a fireplace on the far wall, everything arranged with an occasion in mind that I was not ready for.

And Cassian was standing near the window with no shirt on.

I stopped in the doorway.

He had his back to me, looking out at the dark grounds below, and I had approximately three seconds of thinking I could collect myself before my eyes moved on their own and refused to cooperate with my dignity. 

His back was broad and defined, muscle running clean lines from his shoulders down to where his trousers sat low on his hips. When he turned at the sound of the door, I got the full view of his chest, his stomach, every ridge of muscle that had absolutely no business looking the way it looked.

Eight. I counted without meaning to.

I pressed my lips together and looked up.

He was already watching me.

"Enjoying the view?" His voice was calm.

Heat crawled up my neck. "No. There is nothing to enjoy."

"You just dragged your eyes over me like you had not eaten in a week."

"I did not."

"Cecilia."

"Do not talk to me."

He blinked once and then lifted a shoulder. "Suit yourself." He reached for the band of his trousers. "I am going to shower."

He pulled them down.

I looked. I could not help it. It happened in the space between one breath and the next, my eyes dropped and then went wide and then I snapped them upward and found him already smirking at me with the expression of a man who knew exactly what he had just done.

"Do you want to join me?" he asked pleasantly.

"Get out of my sight," I hissed out in frustration.

He walked to the bathroom without another word, still wearing that smirk, and closed the door behind him.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed both hands flat against my thighs and stared at the opposite wall.

What I had just seen was not something I could un-see, and the bond sitting warm in my chest was not making it easier to pretend otherwise. 

My own body was betraying me in ways I had not given it permission to, and that was perhaps the most infuriating thing that had happened today, which was saying something given the day I had just had.

The moon goddess had a very specific sense of humour, I decided. She had taken my mother, given me a dormant wolf, forced me into a marriage I did not want, and then had the nerve to make the man on the other side of it look like that.

I heard the shower running through the door and made a deliberate effort to think about something else. 

Anything else. Trade routes. Border disputes. The debt. The heir timeline my father had announced in front of five hundred wolves like I was livestock at a market.

None of it worked particularly well.

***

Cassian came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and water still on his skin, and I had already positioned myself on my side of the bed facing away from the door, which meant I felt the mattress dip before I saw anything.

His warmth settled into the space beside me immediately. The bond pulled toward it like it had been waiting.

"You smell like a ceremony and dried blood," he said conversationally. "You should shower."

I turned my head. "Excuse me?"

"I am not trying to offend you. I am just telling you."

I held his gaze for a moment, then got up without a word and went to the bathroom.

The bath helped more than I wanted to admit. I stood under the water and let the tension in my shoulders loosen, just slightly, and told myself firmly that 

I was going to get back into that room, get into that bed, go to sleep, and wake up tomorrow with everything exactly as controlled as it had always been.

I came back out fully dressed, hair damp, spine straight.

Cassian was lying on his back with one arm behind his head, eyes open, looking at the ceiling. He glanced over when I came in and I moved to my side of the bed and pulled the cover back.

The moment I lay down, his arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me in.

I went rigid. "What are you doing?"

"Getting comfortable."

"Let go of me right now." I kept my voice even. "We are mated, not in love. I do not know you. I do not like you. Keep your hands on your side."

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he made a sound that was almost a laugh, low and soft, like I had said something that genuinely amused him but he was choosing not to make a big thing of it.

"Are you serious?" he asked.

I said nothing. Mostly because the warmth of his arm was doing something to me that I did not have a good answer for and opening my mouth felt like a risk.

He held the silence for a beat longer than was comfortable.

Then his lips touched the side of my neck, just briefly, warm and unhurried, right below the mark he had put there. "Goodnight, Cecilia."

He released me, turned onto his side away from me, and went still.

I lay there staring at the ceiling.

He had not pushed or even argued. He had simply let go and gone to sleep, and I did not know what to do with that. 

I had been ready for a fight and he had not given me one, and somehow that was worse than if he had.

I thought about the way he had just kissed my neck like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he had done it a hundred times before. Like he had all the patience in the world and was in absolutely no rush.

If he kept doing things like that, I was not going to last very long before something in me cracked.

That thought was the last one I had before I finally fell asleep.

***

Something light and warm moved across my face.

I stirred slowly, the way you do when sleep has been deep and your body does not want to give it up. I became aware of warmth beneath me before I became aware of anything else. 

I opened my eyes.

I was lying fully on top of Cassian, my head on his chest, both my arms wrapped around his neck like I had climbed there in the night and made myself at home without asking anyone's permission.

His voice came from above me, low and thick with sleep. "Good morning Luna I don't like you at all, but she's sprawled on my unattractive chest."

The heat that flooded my face was immediate and total.