The iron door had barely closed behind Silas when the distant roar of the pack reached the cell. Panic. Shouting. The sound of boots hammering against stone.

I remained on the bench, wrists still raw from where Nikolai's fingers had dug into my skin. The Bond throbbed between us like a second heartbeat, even with the thick walls separating us. I felt the exact moment he reached the catacombs—felt the sharp spike of disbelief, then the colder, heavier wave of dread.

Hours crawled past.

When the door finally opened again, it was not Nikolai who entered. Two enforcers dragged me upright and marched me through the corridors in silence. The entire pack reeked of fear. Outside the high windows the sky had already begun to darken toward the blood moon.

They brought me to the council hall.

Nikolai stood at the head of the long table, flanked by the elders. His eyes were bloodshot, the gold of his wolf flickering in and out of control. Dark veins of feral energy crawled along his forearms. The moment I stepped into the room the Bond flared so violently that both of us staggered.

Silas spoke first, voice tight.

"The slab is empty. No trace of flesh, no scent trail, only residual magic burned into the stone. The same golden signature that closed the Alpha's wound in the clinic."

A murmur of horror ran through the gathered wolves.

"The timing cannot be ignored," another elder said. "You heal. Sienna vanishes. The magic is identical."

Nikolai's gaze locked on mine. There was no mercy left in it.

"Explain," he demanded, the word more growl than speech.

I lifted my chin. "I told you the truth in the cell. I used my own life force. Nothing more."

Before anyone could answer, the western warning bells began to toll. Three long strikes.

Invasion.

A scout burst through the doors, blood streaking his face. "Alpha—enemy packs have crossed the outer wards. The barrier is failing. They're coming for the heart of the territory while we are leaderless."

Nikolai's control snapped.

He seized the edge of the oak table and the wood cracked under his claws. A wave of Alpha rage flooded the hall. Wolves dropped to their knees, choking on the pressure. The Bond between us screamed in answer, trying to anchor him, trying to pull the feral darkness back.

Silas's face had gone white. "He is tipping into full feral. Without a completed mating bond the wards will collapse before dawn. The Goddess has already marked them. The resonance is perfect—one hundred percent. There is no other choice."

Nikolai's head jerked toward me. For a single heartbeat something almost human flickered behind the gold. Then it vanished.

"Do it," he snarled.

They took us to the Alpha's chambers under the blood moon.

The door sealed. The red light poured through the windows and painted everything the color of fresh wounds. Nikolai did not speak. He crossed the room in three strides, caught the collar of the thin shift the elders had forced on me, and tore it open with one violent pull.

The Bond detonated the instant skin met skin.

Golden light erupted between us, raw and merciless. Every place his hands touched sent white-hot current racing through my nerves. He drove me backward onto the bed, mouth open against my throat, not kissing—claiming. His weight pinned me. The pleasure hit so hard my vision whited out. My wolf, silent since the rejection threat in the cell, howled in pure recognition.

He pushed inside me in one deep thrust.

The world narrowed to the brutal, perfect fit of our bodies and the golden tether that tightened with every movement. His hips drove forward again and again, each stroke dragging a broken sound from my throat. I felt him everywhere—inside my body, inside my soul, inside the cracked places he himself had made. The physical ecstasy was absolute. The emotional agony was worse.

Nikolai buried his face against the side of my neck. His breath came in ragged, animal gasps. His claws tore the sheets beside my head.

"Forgive me," he rasped, voice shredded. "Sienna… forgive me."

He never once said my name.

Tears slid from the corners of my eyes into my hair. I turned my face away so he would not see them. When his fangs sank into the mating gland at the base of my throat the pain and pleasure collided so violently that a raw cry tore from my lungs. The Bond locked fully into place—irrevocable, eternal, burning.

He shuddered through his release with a sound that was almost a sob. For one suspended second his arms tightened around me as if I were something he could not bear to lose.

Then the moment shattered.

He withdrew, rolled away, and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me, head bowed, shoulders heaving.

I lay still, the fresh mark on my throat pulsing in time with my heart. My body still trembled with residual pleasure even as something inside my chest felt hollowed out and cold.

He spoke without looking at me.

"This changes nothing. You are Luna because the pack requires it. Nothing more."

I closed my eyes.

"I know."

Weeks slipped past in a strange, careful truce.

The border raids slowed once the completed Bond stabilized Nikolai's power. The wards held.

By day I ran the clinic and sat through council meetings as the new Luna. By night I returned to a bed that still felt like borrowed ground. He rarely touched me again after the blood-moon night, yet the Bond kept us painfully aware of every flicker of guilt and reluctant need that passed between us.

In the days that followed, the sharp edges between us began to dull. Nikolai no longer looked at me with open hatred; sometimes, when he thought I wasn't watching, his gaze lingered with something quieter, almost careful. At night,

if the Bond flared too painfully, he would stay within reach instead of turning away.

One quiet morning I locked the clinic doors early, pressed my fingers to my own wrist, and let the last of my healing sense sink inward.

The tiny spark of life nestled low in my abdomen glowed clear and strong.

A pup.

Ours.

I sat alone in the empty examination room for a long time, one hand resting protectively over the place where our child already slept.

Outside, the first snow of the season began to fall. Somewhere in the main hall, Nikolai was speaking with the elders about the coming Moon Festival and my formal coronation.

I did not tell him.

Not yet.