***VERA***

The metal clamped hard against my wrists, cold and merciless. Each rattle of the chain felt like a taunt.

"Why am I being held?" I demanded, stumbling as two guards yanked me toward the packhouse. My voice cracked, but not from fear - at least, I told myself it wasn't.

They didn't answer. One tightened the manacle and I bit my lip as the iron dug into my skin. My wolf whimpered inside me, too weak to help.

"Oh, so now I'm a criminal? You're going to bind me because I dared to stand up for myself?" I twisted in their grip and glared at the soldiers. "Because I fought back against a group of spoiled girls who cornered me? That makes me the crazy one?"

The taller guard tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The world tilted and I stared upside-down at the dirt path as we moved.

"Let go of me!" I thrashed, wriggling against his back, but he was solid as a mountain. My stomach churned with every step.

"The Alpha said you're to be held," he finally said, voice flat. "He called you his breeder."

The word cracked like a whip.

Breeder.

I froze. "In other words," I spat, "his sex slave. Is your Alpha that desperate? Didn't he just claim a Luna - my sister, no less - and he thinks I'll agree to-" I broke off with a bitter laugh. "Not in any lifetime."

"You don't have a choice, miss." The other guard didn't even look at me. His tone sounded almost apologetic.

The path swung beneath me and all I saw was red. If I ever got my hands on a dagger and the goddess granted me one chance, I would bury it in Blake's chest without hesitation.

They carried me through the towering gates of the packhouse. The scent of pine and stone should have been comforting - it had been home once. Now it reeked of power and cruelty.

Inside, the air smelled of lavender oil and polished wood. Blake's maids swarmed me, their hands soft but mechanical as they stripped away the dirt of the scuffle. They scrubbed my skin, dressed me in silks that weren't mine, painted me like a doll. My wrists stayed shackled the whole time; iron cut into the illusion of glamour.

It was obscene - dressing me like a prize while the chains clinked with every movement.

Tricia. My chest ached at the thought of her. If she knew Blake had locked me up and dressed me like this, would she defend me - or would she smile and look away because she was Luna now?

The maids tried to curl my hair and I jerked my head aside. "Stop. Enough." My voice broke, louder this time. "I want to speak to the Alpha."

One of them froze, brush in hand. The others glanced at each other like startled deer.

"Do not touch me again," I snarled, patience gone.

The head maid cleared her throat softly. "I'm sorry, miss, but the Alpha is currently in a meeting with the Alpha of Furcroft. He'll attend to you afterward."

Attend. As if I were a guest. As if I hadn't been dragged here in chains.

"Attend to me," I scoffed. "You mean try to bed me. Untie me! You're holding me against my will - doesn't anyone in this house know rights?"

The head maid's eyes flickered, just for a moment, with something like sympathy. "Under other circumstances, perhaps. But when the Alpha orders..." Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Everyone obeys."

My wrists throbbed, swollen under the iron. I lifted them toward her, voice quieter now, almost desperate. "They're cutting into me. Do you want me dead before I even meet him?"

The maid hesitated, then sighed and nodded at a guard. Reluctantly he unlocked the cuffs around my hands, though my ankles stayed bound. Relief rushed through me, pins and needles in my fingers.

"It isn't wise to free a slave," the guard muttered. "She'll try to escape."

Slave. The word made bile rise in my throat.

Before I could reply, the room hushed.

"Special demands," one maid whispered, bowing her head. "The Alpha is here."

The room stiffened. Faces became masks.

Then he entered.

Alpha Blake. His presence filled the chamber like smoke, heavy and suffocating. His eyes found me immediately, and a slow smile curled his lips.

"Ah, Vera," he purred, stepping closer. "Darling Vera. Ever so innocent."

His hand slid down my collarbone, tracing lower, and I flinched. Rage flared hot and uncontainable. I spat in his face.

Gasps rippled through the room.

A guard surged forward, hand raised to strike, but Blake lifted a finger. "Enough."

He wiped his cheek with infuriating calm, then held out his hand. A maid rushed a cloth into his palm. He cleaned himself slowly, then pressed the damp rag to my lips and forced it in.

"Your first act of service," he murmured. "Get used to it."

They released my chains and shoved me to my feet. My knees shook, but I forced myself upright.

They shoved a jug into my hands and guided me behind him into the great hall.

The moment I entered, smoke choked my lungs. Thick, pungent, clung to my hair and clothes. The hall was grand - polished tables, carved beams, silver goblets - but it felt like a gilded cage.

Two packs sat across from each other. Blake's men lounged like they owned the room. Opposite them, the Alpha of Furcroft and his entourage sat straight-backed, silent, assessing.

I kept my head low and moved from table to table, pouring drinks. The chains around my ankles clinked softly with each step.

But someone stared. Heavy. Sharp. Pinning me.

When I dared to look up, my heart stumbled.

Eyes. Icy blue, glinting in the haze. Familiar. The same eyes I had seen watching me from the trees before.

And they were fixed on me.

He smiled, slow and deliberate. My stomach flipped.

Alpha Conry.

The air seemed to crackle as he leaned forward. "Let's get this discussion started. I want to purchase the small packland between our borders."

My hands trembled as I poured. His voice rolled over me like thunder - commanding, dangerous, yet strangely steadying.

"That pack isn't for sale," Blake said smoothly.

"Why not?" Conry's gaze never left me.

Blake smirked. "Because it was entrusted to me. Not everything can be bought."

"You put it up for trade, Blake." Conry's voice hardened. "Quit lying and name your price."

"Twice the market value," Blake sneered.

"I'll pay the market value."

"Twice."

The tension coiled like a bowstring ready to snap. My pulse hammered in my throat.

Then Conry's words cut through the smoke like a blade.

"I'll pay twice... if she comes with it."

Silence. Every head turned.

My heart stopped.

Please, goddess. Not me.

But Conry pointed. Directly at me.

"She?" Blake chuckled. "Conry, you've got terrible taste. She's hardly worth a copper. She was to be one of my playthings." His sneer crawled across my skin. "I could give you someone prettier."

For the first time I didn't resist the thought. If it meant leaving Blake's shadow, I would gladly be sold to a stranger.

Conry's expression didn't change. "I don't want prettier. I want her."

The room held its breath.

Blake studied him, then burst into laughter. "Fine. Why argue? She's yours."

A scroll was brought and signed.

My hands trembled as the realization settled. I wasn't free. But I was no longer Blake's.

Conry looked at me fully now, his eyes burning. "What's your name, little one?"

I froze. "Me?"

A glass shattered against the wall beside my head, exploding shards at my feet.

"Of course he's talking to you," Blake barked.

Conry's voice sliced across him. "Blake." Calm but edged. "She is mine now. If you lay a hand on her, you insult me. And I don't forgive insults."

The room stilled. Blake's lips thinned and he leaned back in silence.

Conry returned his gaze to me. His voice softened but his eyes still pinned me. "Your name, Diva?"

The word curled around me like smoke.

"Vera," I whispered, forcing strength into my tone. "Vera Stormborn."

His lips curved into something that made my pulse jump.

"Quite ethereal," he murmured.

***TRICIA***

"I think Conry has lost his mind." Blake's voice was low, edged with something sharp as broken glass, as he eased the door open and stepped into the room. The air around him smelled metallic - anger made human. I patted the mattress twice, a small old gesture to steady him. "Sit," I said, fingers finding the familiar line of his jaw as if I could hold him steady that way.

He didn't meet my eyes at first. He sat with his shoulders hunched like a man bent under weather. When he finally spoke it was nearly a whisper.

"I sold your sister to Conry," he muttered. "He struck a deal I couldn't refuse."

The words stirred something inside me. For a second everything muffled - the hearth's hum, the distant clink of cutlery. "You sold my sister," I echoed, feeling the room tilt. "You... without telling me?"

Before I could finish, his hand closed around my throat. It was sudden and brutal. He slammed me back against the wall with such force that the breath left me like something taken and dropped. For a moment my world narrowed to the tight ring of his fingers and the drum of my heartbeat until the room spun.

"I thought he loved me," a small voice inside kept whispering. Everything I'd built - compromises and false loyalties - felt like a debt I now had to pay.

"I'm the Alpha," he said, voice flat as law. "You're here to support me. Do not question my authority."

His grip tightened. I tapped his hand, useless, begging, my taps swallowed into the silence. Then, mercifully, he let go. I crumpled to the floor, breath a small theft from the room.

When my vision steadied I crawled to my feet with the slow dignity of someone unmade and reassembling. I felt hollow, as if the center of me - my taste for power, my appetite for control - had been scooped out. I touched the place his fingers had burned and let out a painful grunt.

I never imagined the man I thought would make me important would see me as a tool to be controlled.

I packed because fury makes hands busy and because movement feels like control. I shoved gowns into trunks, slid letters into pockets, tucked combs into folds of silk. Each fold was a small ritual, a summoning of the woman I had been before ceremony swallowed her whole.

The door creaked. I ignored it and kept folding, believing that if I finished packing I might finish being the person who had stayed silent while my sister was bartered. When at last I closed the trunk and turned, my breath snagged.

Blake was on his knees.

The memory of my throat, the pressure of his hand, sat like a bruise. For a moment I thought it a trick - a new manipulation - but his head bowed, not swaggering, and when he lifted it, his eyes were wet with something not pride.

"What are you-" I began, but he cut in, words clumsy and raw.

"I don't know what came over me," he said. His voice cracked in places that hurt more than his hands ever did. "I sold her because I thought I was securing the pack. I thought-God, Tricia, I thought I could buy safety. Besides, you saw what she did at the party. Who knows what else she's capable of. All in all, I was wrong. I was... blind." He folded his hands like a supplicant, a strange, human gesture from a man who never begged.

The apology landed like a wound stitched with a tremor. He reached up, fingers trembling, and touched the place his palm had burned. Awkward, human - his hand didn't demand; it sought forgiveness.

For a long time I watched him: the rise and fall of his chest, the small shake of his shoulders, the way light made his eyes look younger than the man who'd strangled me. Two different men had swapped faces.

"You don't get to decide who I am," I said at last, voice small and raw. "Not like this. Not with my blood."

He flinched as if struck, then bowed his head. "You're right," he whispered. "I was a coward, thinking I could do what was necessary in the dark while still calling myself a leader. I failed you. The decision should have been yours to make. I am sorry."

The shame in him was real - not performance. This cut him open. He rose awkwardly, and for a moment I wanted to run into the night and never turn back.

Instead I stepped forward and sat across from him on the bed. The room hummed quiet. Outside, wind kept time with the trees. "Why?" I asked because I needed the word like air. "Why her? Why trade blood for a promise that sounds like a threat?"

He swallowed. "I really am sorry. I don't have an excuse. I thought I was protecting the pack. I was wrong." His words sounded honest, but doubt stayed with me.

I thought of nights I'd spent dreaming of a throne I didn't want and of the quiet bargains I'd made to belong. I thought of the way men like Blake wear duty like armor while the people inside suffocate. I remembered my sister's laugh - the small way she cut through everything with light.

"You were supposed to be better," I said. "You were supposed to be better than a man who bargains with women."

He closed his eyes. For once he couldn't argue duty into oblivion. "Tell me how to fix it," he said, voice raw.

"How are you going to fix selling my sister to your rival without starting a war that will cost packs?" I asked, tears blurring my vision.

"Tricia." He reached for my hands.

I let him take my hand. That surrender was not forgiveness but acknowledgment: two lives bound in ways that refused to be neatly cleaved apart. He lifted me and drew me close. His arms were solid and familiar, the smell of him an anchor despite everything.

He kissed my hair first - an apology without words - then my forehead. "I will fix this," he promised. "Words are not enough. I'll bring her back in a way that won't shatter the pack."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to hurl myself into the current and let it carry me. His confession softened something inside the rigid shell I'd built, and forgiveness - uneasy and fragile - unfurled like a small flag.

We sat in the dim blue and let silence do the work of prayer. I forgave, but not fully. Doubt settled over me like a winter cloak - heavy and honest.

When he tightened his arms around me I did not pull away. The embrace felt like possibility braided with threat. I knew, with the stubborn certainty of someone who had loved and been hurt, that forgiveness is not a clean slate. It is a ledger that shifts across years.

He held me while the night moved outside in slow breaths, and I let myself be small and human - caught between the ache of betrayal and the hush of choosing. For now we were bound by vows and mistakes; later the truth would have a voice. Until then, we would learn, or unlearn, ourselves. Either would be honest. Either way, my doubts would stay; and he, if he was the Alpha I still hoped for, would spend his days proving otherwise.

I finally let sleep take me, unaware the news I'd receive tomorrow would change my story.

***VERA***

The night felt long. The moon was bright and full, shining through the trees. Crickets chirped softly, and the wind rustled the leaves. The sound was calm, steady. It gave me a bit of comfort, even though my heart stayed restless.

"Bear with me. We'll be there soon," Alpha Conry whispered close to my ear. His voice was crisp, like dry leaves brushing the ground. My pulse jumped when his lips brushed my skin. I'd never felt that kind of warmth before. It scared me, but it also drew me closer without asking.

"Okay, sir," I said quietly. I turned my head away and pressed my fingers to the spot his lips had touched. It burned in a way I didn't want to admit.

"Do you know why I bought you from Blake?" he asked, holding my chin and making me look at him. His eyes were sharp but calm, like he could see everything I was hiding.

"No," I whispered. My voice was too weak for more.

"Your strength caught my eye. You don't bend to pressure," he said. His words hit harder than I expected. Then he moved ahead, spoke quietly to one of his men, and returned.

The man he spoke to looked strong. Tall, dark hair, scars running down his arm like stories written in skin. I could tell he had seen war.

"We're here," Conry said, patting my back lightly.

The mist grew thicker, wrapping everything in white. I couldn't see the castle at first. Then, slowly, its shape appeared through the fog-tall walls, dark stone, towers that seemed to touch the sky. The moonlight made it look alive. Warm lights glowed behind the windows.

Even though it was late, the castle wasn't asleep. Voices filled the courtyard. Merchants moved goods. People talked and laughed. It felt strange to see so much life at night. My old pack was never like this.

One building stood taller and brighter than the rest. That was his. Conry held my hand and led me forward with a faint smile.

"Welcome to my castle," he said with quiet pride. There was no arrogance, only confidence.

We stepped inside. The air was warm and smelled of wood, smoke, and something sweet. The walls were lined with old carvings, and the torches made them glow gold. Servants moved quickly, eyes curious but respectful. I lifted my head higher. I was used to stares.

For a moment, I thought about all I had left behind-Blake, the way he looked at me like I was less; the way my sister was chosen instead; the shame, the anger; and the night I ran until my legs gave out.

Conry squeezed my hand, pulling me back to the present. "You didn't break tonight," he said softly. "That's rare."

I didn't know what to say, so I whispered, "I did what I had to."

His eyes stayed on mine. Then he leaned down and kissed my forehead. The touch was light-not like Blake's rough hands, not like the people who only saw me as nothing.

The castle buzzed with life. The mist still hung outside, but for the first time in a long while, I didn't feel like I was standing alone in the dark.

I didn't know what would happen next, or if I could trust him. But right there, with his hand in mine and the castle lights on my face, I felt something shift inside me-something quiet, something new.

"Clean her up and prepare her for the banquet," he told one of the maids who greeted us at the door. His tone was soft but firm.

"Yes, sir," she said, taking my hand gently. "My name is Rachel. Tell me if you need anything." She smiled brightly.

"Sure... thank you," I replied, still unsure of the kindness. Going from being a reject to someone treated with care felt unreal. I only hoped it wasn't another illusion.

The scent of roses filled the bath chamber; steam drifted from the half-open door. Everything smelled rich and warm, and my chest thudded as I stepped inside. When she opened the door fully, I gasped. Two wide tubs waited, filled with hot water and petals floating on the surface.

"Get in. I'll bring you clean clothes," Rachel said with a smile before leaving.

I hesitated, then dipped my foot in. The warmth spread through me, soft and soothing. Soon, I sank under the surface. The night's pain seemed to melt away. Only the sting of bruises remained, but even that faded slowly. I closed my eyes and stayed there for a long while.

When I stepped out, Rachel returned with two dresses-one red, trimmed with silver beads, and another black, simple yet elegant.

"Which would you like for the banquet, milady?" she asked, bowing playfully.

I smiled faintly. "The black one."

"Good choice," she said with a grin.

The dress fit perfectly, as if it had been made for me. When I was ready, Rachel led me to the dining hall.

The hallway was quiet except for the sound of my steps. The air carried the smell of roasted meat and herbs. My palms grew damp as we reached a tall oak door.

"Go in," she said softly before stepping aside.

I pushed it open.

The room was dim but warm, lit by golden candles that flickered along the walls. A long table stretched between us, but only two plates were set-one for him, one for me. Alpha Conry sat at the far end, calm as ever. His dark eyes followed me as I walked closer.

"You came," he said, voice low and steady.

"Yes, Alpha," I replied, bowing slightly.

"Sit."

I sat down. The servants filled our glasses, then slipped away, leaving only the soft crackle of fire.

"You clean up well," he said.

"Thank you," I murmured.

He leaned back, studying me. "You're not what they say."

"What do they say?" I asked, curious.

"That you're fragile," he replied. "But I've seen you stand when others would fall. You don't break easily. That's rare."

The words caught me off guard. No one had ever said my strength was something good.

"I just do what I must," I said quietly.

He smiled faintly. "That's what strength really is."

The food arrived-roasted meat, bread, and a thick, sweet sauce. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I began to eat.

"Do you like it?" Conry asked.

"It's good," I said honestly.

He chuckled. "I'll take that as a compliment."

The silence that followed was calm, almost comforting.

"I didn't bring you here out of pity, Vera," he said at last. His tone was firm but kind. "I brought you because I want you to be my Luna. Since I first saw you, there's been a pull I can't explain."

I looked up at him, heart pounding. His eyes were steady, sincere.

He lifted his glass. "To a new beginning," he said.

I raised mine slowly. "Cheers," I whispered. Our glasses touched softly, the sound echoing in the quiet hall.

I searched his face for a crack in his calm, but found none. Then he stood and patted my back gently. "Think about it and give me your answer tomorrow," he said before walking out of the hall.

Could he truly want someone like me as his Luna? Or was I just another piece in a game I didn't understand?

Questions filled my mind as I walked back to my room. Each one heavier than the last.