"Did you honestly believe this was a blessing from the Moon Goddess?" Nikolai asked.

The stack of papers struck my shoulder and scattered across the bridal-suite carpet. One page landed faceup beside the bed, dark rust-colored drops staining the corner.

My father's blood.

A minute earlier, my new mate mark had still burned with the intoxicating heat of Nikolai's bite. Now the skin at my neck throbbed like a brand.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Your father's treason." Nikolai stood between me and the locked door, still dressed in the black formal shirt he had worn beneath his wedding coat. "Ten million dollars routed through shell accounts to the rogue band that attacked us three years ago."

I stared at the transfer records. "My father doesn't control the pack's offshore accounts."

"He controlled enough."

"He has served your family for twenty-six years."

"And my father died in a fire your father paid for."

The words hit harder than the papers had.

Three years ago, the old packhouse had burned before dawn. I had dragged two pups through a kitchen window while smoke blackened the sky. Nikolai's father never made it out of the west wing. My father, Beta Adrian Vale, had spent the months afterward rebuilding patrol routes and hunting the surviving rogues.

"He would never do that," I said.

Nikolai crossed the room and shoved a photograph toward me. Charred beams. A collapsed roof. The blackened shell of the packhouse.

"We caught one of the mercenaries at the northern border this morning," he said. "He identified Adrian Vale as the man who financed the attack."

"Under what conditions?"

His eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"Was he questioned in front of the council? Was there a healer present? Did anyone record his statement?"

"I questioned him."

"That isn't a trial."

"I am the Alpha."

"And my father is your Beta. Even you do not get to execute him because one rogue says a name you want to hear."

Nikolai's jaw tightened.

I bent and gathered the nearest pages. The transfers were real enough to look frightening: dates, account numbers, routing details, authorization codes. But the deeper I looked, the stranger they became.

"The Beta estate could never move this kind of money," I said. "You know that."

"Power has a way of finding money."

"Power? My father supported your succession."

"Until he realized he could take it for himself."

I straightened. "Then let me speak to him."

"No."

"Nikolai."

"The council ordered him held below the east barracks. His hearing is at the end of the month."

"You told me he was already guilty."

"He is. The hearing determines the sentence."

My stomach turned.

I touched the fresh mark at my neck. "You knew this before the ceremony."

His silence answered me.

The room seemed to tilt.

"You stood before the pack and took me as your mate while you believed my father murdered yours."

"I married you because leaving the Beta bloodline outside my control would have been stupid."

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

"So the vows were a trap."

"Call them containment."

The bond inside me surged in protest, a brutal instinct insisting that the man in front of me was mine, that I should move toward him, trust him, soothe him. I hated my own body for wanting what my mind finally understood.

"You marked me," I whispered.

"The Goddess made that mistake. I did not."

The door opened before I could answer.

Bianca Thorne stepped into the bridal suite wearing my white silk nightgown.

Not one like it. Mine. My initials, E.V., were embroidered in pale thread near the hem.

She leaned against the frame as if the walk from the guest wing had exhausted her. A silver wolf-crest cufflink rolled between her fingers. I recognized that too. I had given the pair to Nikolai that morning.

"Nikolai?" she said softly. "Are you still coming to change my dressings? The scars are hurting again."

The rage in his posture vanished at once.

"You should be in bed," he said.

"I tried." Bianca's gaze slid to me for half a second. "I got lonely."

I looked at Nikolai. "She is wearing my wedding-night clothes."

"They are clothes."

"And she has your cufflink."

"I dropped it in her room earlier."

Bianca lowered her eyes, the perfect picture of fragile innocence. "I can leave if I'm causing trouble."

"You are not," Nikolai said.

Of course she wasn't.

He crossed to her and put an arm around her waist. She immediately leaned into him.

"Take a good look at Bianca," he told me. "She ran into the fire trying to reach my father. She carries those burns because she chose this pack over herself."

I remembered the night of the fire. I remembered Bianca appearing outside after the roof collapsed, soot on her face and a shallow burn along her shoulder. I also remembered never seeing her enter the building.

"My father pulled three warriors out of that fire," I said. "Where is his gratitude?"

"Buried with mine."

He guided Bianca toward the door.

"You're leaving me locked in here?"

"Until I decide what to do with you."

Bianca turned her face into his shoulder, but not before I saw the small smile she tried to hide.

The lock clicked behind them.

I waited until their footsteps faded, then dropped to my knees and sorted every page by date.

If my father had been beaten for this evidence, there had to be a weakness in it.

I found one on the seventh sheet.

A two-million-dollar transfer dated October fourteenth, three years ago. The sender field listed my father's emergency authorization code. The recipient line carried a handwritten acknowledgment.

Darius Thorne.

Bianca's older brother.

I checked the date again, and a memory snapped into place: my father in the infirmary, unconscious beneath an oxygen mask after a severe lung infection. He had spent that entire week sedated.

He could not have authorized the transfer.

Someone had used his code while he could not even speak.

I folded the page into the lining of my dress just as footsteps returned outside the door.

For the first time that night, fear gave way to something sharper.

The evidence did not prove my father was a traitor.

It proved someone inside Nikolai's circle had built the lie.

At sunrise, two guards unlocked the bridal suite.

"The council wants you downstairs," the taller one said.

"I want to see my father first."

"Not authorized."

I kept the incriminating transfer folded against my ribs beneath the boned lining of my wedding dress. "Then tell the council I refuse to attend until I am allowed legal access to the accused Beta."

The guard almost smiled. "You are in no position to refuse anything."

He was right about one thing: I could not win by staying behind a locked door.

I followed them.

The Alpha estate had been transformed overnight from a wedding venue into a tribunal. White flowers still climbed the banisters, but armed warriors stood at every archway. Staff stripped ribbons from the chandeliers while elders gathered around the long breakfast table.

My official Luna chair stood at Nikolai's left.

Bianca was sitting in it.

She wore a high-necked cream dress that covered most of her old burn scars. Nikolai sat beside her, reading a council brief while she poured tea into his cup as if they had done it every morning for years.

I stopped at the threshold.

Elder Torin, the oldest member of the council, glanced from Bianca to me. "Alpha, the Luna's chair belongs to your marked mate."

Nikolai did not look up. "Elara can sit at the other end."

A few elders shifted uncomfortably.

Bianca touched his wrist. "I can move. I don't want Elara to feel displaced."

The performance was almost elegant.

"Stay," Nikolai said.

I walked to the empty chair opposite him and sat without lowering my head.

"Where is my father?" I asked.

Nikolai closed the brief. "Alive."

"That was not my question."

"East barracks. Lower cells."

"Has he been examined by a healer?"

"He is not a patient."

"He was beaten before he was detained. I saw his blood on the evidence."

Elder Torin watched me carefully.

"The accused Beta will be medically assessed before formal sentencing," Torin said.

"Before sentencing? Not before questioning?"

Nikolai's fingers tightened around his cup. "Do not turn this into theater."

"I am not the one who put another woman in the Luna's seat the morning after my wedding."

Silence landed across the table.

Bianca's eyes glistened on command. "I only sat where Nikolai asked me to sit."

"Of course you did."

Nikolai stood. His chair scraped back. "Enough."

I pulled the folded transfer from my dress and placed it on the table.

"Then explain this."

He looked down.

"Two million dollars," I said. "Dated October fourteenth. Authorized under my father's code and acknowledged by Darius Thorne."

Bianca went very still.

I pointed to the date. "My father was intubated in the pack infirmary that entire week. He was sedated. The medical logs will prove it."

Nikolai picked up the sheet.

For the first time since the wedding, uncertainty crossed his face.

Bianca recovered quickly. "Darius often received transfers on behalf of pack vendors. That proves nothing."

"Then you will not mind opening his accounts."

Her gaze sharpened.

"My brother is away negotiating trade agreements," she said. "You cannot accuse him because you are desperate to save your father."

"I can accuse anyone whose signature appears on evidence used to condemn mine."

Nikolai turned the paper over. "Where did you get this?"

"You threw it at me."

A muscle moved in his cheek.

Elder Torin held out a hand. "Let me see it."

Nikolai hesitated before passing it over.

Torin studied the transfer. "The authorization code could have been entered remotely. We need the source ledger and the infirmary admission record."

"Exactly," I said.

Bianca's fingers tightened around the handle of the teapot.

Nikolai noticed. I saw him notice.

Then Bianca coughed.

Once. Twice. By the third cough, she was bent over, one hand pressed dramatically to her ribs.

Nikolai abandoned the document at once.

"Bianca?"

"I'm fine." She gasped the words. "The smoke damage acts up when I get upset."

"Get the healer."

A servant hurried out.

I stared at him. "She coughs and suddenly the evidence no longer matters?"

"Her lungs were permanently damaged in the fire your father caused."

"You do not know that he caused it."

"I know enough."

"No. You chose enough."

His eyes flashed gold.

The Alpha pressure rolled across the room, pushing several servants into instinctive submission. I stayed upright even as the mate bond shuddered under the command.

"At noon," Nikolai said, "the pack will gather in the ceremonial hall. You will appear beside me for the formal Luna acknowledgment."

I almost laughed. "You locked me up, gave my chair away, and now you want me to stand beside you for appearances?"

"The pack does not need to know the extent of our private dispute while the council investigates your father."

"So I am a traitor's daughter in private and your Luna in public."

"You are whatever keeps this pack stable."

That sentence told me more about our marriage than any vow had.

I rose from the table.

"I will attend on one condition."

"You are still pretending you have conditions?"

"I see my father afterward."

Nikolai's mouth hardened.

Elder Torin spoke before he could refuse. "The request is reasonable. The accused Beta should be permitted one supervised family visit before the formal hearing."

Nikolai looked at Bianca, then at the transfer bearing Darius's name.

"Ten minutes," he said. "After the ceremony."

It was the first thing I had won since the wedding.

As the guards escorted me upstairs to change, Bianca passed close enough that her shoulder brushed mine.

"You should have stayed quiet," she whispered.

I stopped.

Her expression remained sweet for the watching servants.

"Why?" I whispered back. "Because Darius made a mistake?"

Her smile vanished for one heartbeat.

That was all the confirmation I needed.

At eleven fifty, the same guards returned to my room. One carried a folded silver sash, the ceremonial mark of the Luna.

"Alpha's orders," he said. "You stand beside him until the blessing ends."

I took the sash.

Downstairs, the bells of the ceremonial hall began to ring.

And somewhere beneath the east barracks, my father was waiting for the ten minutes I had just forced Nikolai to give me.

The Luna acknowledgment lasted less than four minutes before Bianca collapsed.

I had barely stepped onto the ceremonial dais beside Nikolai when a commotion broke out near the front row.

"I can't breathe," Bianca gasped.

She clutched her throat and folded against the arm of a bench.

Nikolai left my side before the elder finished the blessing.

"Clear the aisle!"

He pushed through the crowd, lifted Bianca into his arms, and carried her out of the hall. The silver Luna sash still hung from my shoulder. The pack watched their Alpha abandon his marked mate in the middle of her own acknowledgment ceremony.

No one said a word.

I removed the sash myself.

Elder Torin approached as the crowd began to disperse. "Your visit with your father will have to be delayed."

"No."

"The Alpha is occupied."

"My agreement was not dependent on Bianca's breathing schedule."

His brows rose.

"Ten minutes," I said. "Supervised. You gave your word in front of the council."

Torin studied me, then signaled to two guards.

"Take her to the east barracks."

My relief lasted exactly twelve steps.

A runner came through the side door, breathless. "Elder Torin. The Alpha orders Lady Elara returned to the estate immediately. The prisoner has been moved to medical observation after an interrogation incident. No visitors."

"An interrogation incident?" I asked. "What did they do to him?"

The runner looked away.

Torin's jaw hardened, but he did not challenge the order.

I understood then that Nikolai could keep moving the walls whenever I found a door.

An hour later, I sat alone in the estate study with the copied transfer spread beneath my hands. I had memorized every number on the page.

Two million dollars. October fourteenth. Darius Thorne.

A violent wave of nausea rolled through me.

I reached the bathroom just in time.

When the sickness passed, I stayed on my knees, breathing against the cold tile.

There was one truth I had been hiding even before Nikolai turned our wedding into a prison.

I reached into the inner pocket of my formal dress and unfolded the blood-test report I had obtained from a junior infirmary technician two days ago.

HCG: ELEVATED.

PREGNANCY CONSISTENT WITH APPROX. FIVE WEEKS.

I pressed one hand over my abdomen.

Nikolai had just said my bloodline should never continue. He believed my father was a murderer. If I told him now, would he protect the child because it was his heir—or treat it as one more piece of the Vale family to control?

I could not risk finding out.

I folded the report and tucked it beneath the removable lining of my jewelry case.

Voices rose in the foyer.

Three servants carried luggage up the stairs. Behind them walked Bianca, color restored to her cheeks so completely that the scene in the ceremonial hall looked almost absurd.

"Put those down," I said.

The servants stopped.

Bianca rested a hand on the banister. "The healer wants me under observation. Nikolai asked me to stay here."

"There are guest rooms downstairs."

"The south suite has the best light."

My blood chilled.

The south suite was not a guest room.

I climbed the stairs and blocked the white oak door at the end of the hall.

"Not this room."

Bianca tilted her head. "Why?"

"You know why."

For months, I had prepared that room as a future nursery. I had painted the walls myself, restored the old family cradle, and hidden tiny silver stars along the ceiling beams.

Bianca's eyes dropped briefly to my stomach.

The glance was so fast I almost missed it.

"Move," she said.

"No."

The front doors opened below us.

Nikolai came up the stairs two at a time.

"What is happening?"

Bianca immediately sagged against the railing. "Nothing. I told Elara I could take another room. She seems upset."

"She is not taking the nursery," I said.

Nikolai looked at the door behind me. "It is an empty room."

"It is not empty to me."

"Bianca needs somewhere quiet to recover."

"Then give her one of the nine actual guest suites."

His patience snapped.

"We are not having pups, Elara."

The words landed exactly where Bianca's glance had.

My hand moved toward my abdomen before I stopped it.

Nikolai saw the motion but misunderstood it as shock.

"Your father's bloodline ends with you," he said. "Do not build fantasies around a future that does not exist."

I wanted to tell him he was already wrong.

Instead, I stepped closer and lowered my voice. "If you change the lock, you are not giving Bianca a room. You are taking something from me because you can."

"Then consider it taken."

He gripped my arm, moved me aside, and entered a new code on the keypad.

The lock flashed green.

Bianca walked past me with a small, private smile.

Inside, one of the servants set her suitcase beside the cradle.

I felt something inside me harden.

That evening, I pulled an old duffel bag from under the bed and packed the things I could carry without attracting attention: cash, boots, a winter coat, my mother's pocketknife, and copies of every document I had managed to photograph.

I had just hidden the pregnancy report beneath the false bottom when someone knocked.

Garrett, the lead border guard, stood outside with two warriors.

"Alpha's order," he said. "You are required at the council banquet tonight."

"Why?"

His gaze flicked away from mine.

"Bianca will sit at the Alpha's right hand. The Luna's seat will remain empty."

I looked back at the half-packed bag on my bed.

If I ran now, I would lose access to my father and the pack records.

If I stayed, Nikolai would keep stripping away everything he could reach.

I zipped the duffel closed and shoved it beneath the bed.

"Fine," I said. "Take me to the banquet."

Garrett stepped aside.

At the bottom of the stairs, a servant waited with my wool coat already draped over one arm.

I had not asked anyone to touch it.