Zeva’s POV

The Northern Packhouse was colder than any winter storm I’d ever lived through.

Not because of the temperature—though the stone floors were icy enough to numb my toes—but because the air felt hollow. Like warmth didn’t survive long here. Like it was a place built for power, not people.

Roxie walked two steps ahead of me, her boots striking sharp, unforgiving echoes across the long hallway. She didn’t slow down. Didn’t look back. Didn’t bother to soften her voice when she finally spoke.

“Rule one,” she said brusquely. “You don’t wander. Not inside, not outside. You stay where you’re placed unless the Alpha or I tell you otherwise.”

I nodded, though she wasn’t looking at me.

“Rule two. You don’t address the Alpha unless he asks you a direct question.”

My breath hitched—because I remembered the bond that hit me earlier like a lightning strike. I remembered the way he glared at me like I was a stain on his territory, a mistake, an inconvenience. The memory made my chest tighten.

“Rule three,” Roxie continued, her tone sharpening. “Hierarchy here is simple. You’re at the bottom.”

Heat crawled up my neck, humiliation sinking deep. Bottom. Even though I was supposed to be his bride—his mate, in ways he refused to acknowledge. Even though an entire ceremony had been performed to hand me over like an offering.

Roxie slowed just enough to glance back at me, expression bored.

“No challenging anyone. Omega, Warrior, Gamma—anyone outranks you.”

“And you?” I asked quietly.

Her lips curled in a half-smirk. “I outrank you most.”

Of course she did. She had the look of someone Aric trusted—sharp-eyed, cold, efficient. A woman molded by the North’s ruthlessness.

“And the last rule.” Her voice dropped, almost as if she enjoyed this part. “No refusal when summoned for breeding duties.”

My stomach twisted. The words were vile. Dehumanizing. A slap in the face of everything I thought being someone’s mate might eventually mean.

I swallowed hard. “I see.”

Roxie shrugged. “You don’t have to like it. You just have to comply. The Alpha isn’t patient with rebellion.”

The Alpha.

Not my mate.

Not my husband.

Just the Alpha.

She pushed open a door and gestured inside. “This is your room. Someone will come get you when you’re needed.”

Needed.

Like a tool.

A function.

Not a person.

The small room felt suffocating the moment I stepped in—bare stone walls, a thin mattress, a single window facing a courtyard of frost and shadows. Cold seeped into me. Into my bones.

I barely had time to sit when a knock echoed.

Roxie’s voice came muffled through the wood. “The Alpha wants you.”

Already?

A chill shot through me—not fear of him, but fear of what his cruelty might look like up close.

I followed her through the halls again, pulse thudding in my ears. She led me to a heavy wooden door, opened it, and motioned for me to step inside alone.

Aric stood behind a large desk, not looking up. Papers were arranged in meticulous rows, and the fire behind him cast sharp shadows across his face.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t acknowledge me. Didn’t look at me for a full ten seconds.

When he finally did, the air thinned.

His gaze was ice. Controlled. Deadly. And absolutely indifferent.

“Sit.”

The single command hit me like a physical push. I sat—more out of instinct than obedience.

He slid a document across the desk. “This is our contract.”

I blinked. “Our what?”

“Our arrangement,” he clarified, voice clipped. “You seem intelligent enough to understand the need for clarity.”

I looked down. My breath caught.

A contract.

Cold. Precise. Brutal.

Clause One: No emotional expectations between parties.

Clause Two: The bride will not be given the title of Luna.

Clause Three: The bride will have no authority or participation in pack decisions.

Clause Four: The bride’s primary and only purpose is to bear strong heirs within a reasonable timeframe.

A tremor ran through me.

I didn’t look up immediately. I couldn’t. The words blurred, sharp edges digging into my mind like shards of glass.

When I finally forced my voice out, it came cracked and quiet.

“Is this how you see me? A… function?”

Aric’s jaw tightened, but not with guilt. “This is reality.”

“It’s inhumane.”

His eyes snapped to mine—cold, furious, dangerous.

“Inhumane?” He stepped around the desk and came closer. “You were traded, Zeva. Not courted. Not chosen. Not loved. You were offered as a breeder to strengthen my bloodline.”

Each word was a blow.

A reminder.

A cruelty.

He leaned down so close I could feel the chill of his breath.

“You have no leverage here. No power. And certainly no say in what I require from you.”

My hands balled into fists on my lap. “You don’t have to treat me like this.”

“I treat you as what you are,” he replied calmly. “A responsibility I didn’t ask for.”

My throat closed. “So that’s all I am to you.”

“The sooner you accept your place,” he said, straightening, “the easier this will be.”

I felt something splinter inside me. Not enough to break—but enough to hurt. Enough to scar.

He tapped the contract. “You will sign this by tomorrow.”

I stood slowly. My legs trembled, but I refused to let them buckle. “And if I don’t?”

His gaze hardened. “You will.”

Because he expected me to. Because every woman before me had broken under that voice, that authority.

I walked out without waiting to be dismissed.

Roxie wasn’t there. No guards. No witnesses to the humiliation burning beneath my skin.

I returned to my room, shut the door, and pressed my back to it.

The tremble in my hands returned with vengeance, but I refused—absolutely refused—to let tears fall.

I had cried enough in my old pack. I would not cry here.

Not for him.

Not for this place.

Not for my fate.

If Aric thought stripping me of rights would strip me of spirit, he was wrong.

He didn’t know my heart.

He didn’t know the fire my mother left inside me.

He didn’t know I could endure more than chains and cold words.

Let him believe I was powerless.

Let him believe I would bend.

I would survive this place.

I would survive him.

And I would not break.

Not for an Alpha’s contract.

Not for an Alpha’s cruelty.

Not for an Alpha who believed he could crush me into silence.

I whispered into the darkness of my small, freezing room. “You can take everything, Aric. But you won’t take me.”

Aric’s POV

Zeva moved through the Northern Packhouse like a shadow unsure of where she was allowed to exist. I watched her from the upper landing, unseen, arms folded behind my back as she followed Roxie down the main hall.

Her steps were soft. Careful.

Too careful.

Her shoulders tense, chin lifted only halfway—enough to show pride, but not enough to be considered a challenge. A fragile balance. A quiet rebellion. It annoyed me more than I cared to admit.

Garrick stopped beside me, leaning one shoulder against the rail. “She looks like she’s freezing in there.”

“She’ll adjust,” I said flatly.

“She’s not a soldier, Aric.”

“She will adapt or she won’t,” I responded. “Either way, she fulfills her purpose.”

Garrick exhaled sharply through his nose, his patience thinning. “Purpose,” he repeated. “Is that all she is to you?”

“That’s all she was sent here to be.”

He turned, studying my face. “You keep saying you don’t want a mate. Yet you act like you’re afraid of her.”

My jaw snapped tight. “I don’t fear her.”

Garrick raised a brow. “Then why are you so determined to break her spirit?”

“Because weakness from me,” I said, voice low and hard, “is an invitation for the East, the South, and every rogue clan in the region to strike. I take a Luna? They expect softness. I take a mate? They expect diplomacy. I cannot afford either.”

“So you’re punishing her for what she represents,” Garrick murmured.

“I’m controlling the threat before it grows teeth.”

Garrick’s silence was the kind that carried judgment. But he didn’t push further. He never pushed too far.

Below us, Zeva paused, steadying herself on the railing as if the cold or the weight of this place pressed on her bones.

The mate bond twitched—barely a spark, the faintest pull.

I crushed it instantly.

I had no intention of letting instincts dictate anything in my territory.

Later that night, I summoned her.

Not out of desire.

Not out of curiosity.

But because I needed to see what she was made of.

Roxie knocked before entering my office. “She’s here.”

“Send her in.”

Zeva stepped inside, posture stiff, hands clasped behind her back. She didn’t look at the floor, though. She met my gaze—wary, proud, hurting.

Good. Let her hurt.

Pain made people compliant.

Her voice was quiet but controlled. “You called for me, Alpha.”

I walked around her slowly, evaluating the tension in her shoulders, the tremor in her breathing, the heat of her humiliation still clinging to her from earlier.

“How are you adjusting?” I asked, tone empty of concern.

She swallowed. “I am managing.”

“Managing,” I echoed with a faint scoff. “You won’t last unless you learn discipline.”

“I follow the rules,” she replied.

“You follow them out of fear,” I corrected. “Fear fades. I need obedience.”

Her lips tightened. A spark. A challenge. However small.

I stepped closer. “What was that look?”

“No look,” she said. “Just… thought.”

“I didn’t ask you to think.”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t lower her eyes. “With respect, Alpha, you cannot expect me to turn off my mind.”

“I expect you,” I said, voice slicing through her composure, “to do as you’re told. Without resistance. Without question.”

“And if the things I’m told strip me of dignity?” she asked quietly.

I stopped.

Because that was bold. Unwise. Unexpected.

“You misunderstand,” I said calmly. “Dignity is a luxury. One you forfeited the moment your Alpha traded you.”

Pain shot through her aura—sharp, sudden, easy to feel because of the damn bond. I shoved it out violently.

“Do not speak to me of dignity,” I continued. “You are here for one purpose.”

“For heirs,” she whispered, bitterness cracking the words.

“Yes.” I stepped even closer, forcing her to tilt her head back. “You exist here for my bloodline. Nothing else.”

Her eyes glimmered—not with tears, but with fury she dared to hide.

Good. Fury made people predictable.

“I understand,” she said tightly.

“No,” I corrected again. “You will.”

Roxie announced our entrance as the heavy doors opened. The elders and warriors rose automatically, everyone except Garrick, who watched me with an expression that bordered on disapproval.

I ignored him.

Zeva stepped inside behind me, small against the tall pillars and harsh torchlight. The room buzzed with whispers. Some were curious. Most cold.

I turned to her.

“Kneel.”

Her body froze.

Not out of confusion, out of disbelief.

“Alpha—” she began.

“Now,” I commanded.

The dominance in my voice cracked through the air like a whip. She sank to her knees, palms pressing onto the cold stone floor.

The council fell silent.

I faced them, letting my words cut through the hall.

“This woman is not our Luna.”

Gasps. Quiet murmurs.

“She was traded to us as a breeding vessel, nothing more. She holds no authority. No influence. No position in this pack.”

Every word was designed to sever the idea—the fantasy—that she might ascend beside me. To erase the mate bond’s claim before it took root.

Zeva didn’t cry.

That surprised me.

Her pain radiated through the bond, raw, suffocating, but she held her spine straight even from the floor. Pride shaking, but not collapsing.

It irritated me.

It impressed me.

I despised both reactions.

Garrick stepped forward, voice low. “Aric… she doesn’t need to be humiliated like this.”

“This is not humiliation,” I replied coolly. “This is clarity.”

He shot me a look that said You’re lying to yourself, but I turned away before he could say more.

I addressed the hall once more. “If any member of this pack acknowledges her as anything beyond her assigned role, they will answer to me directly.”

Silence swallowed the room whole.

I looked down at her—not as a mate, not as a woman—but as a tool I needed to fit into place.

“You may rise,” I said.

She stood slowly, hands shaking, expression blank—the blankness of someone trying desperately not to feel.

The bond yanked painfully at my chest.

I crushed it.

I stepped away from her as if she were poison. “You may go. Alone.”

Her throat bobbed, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t even glance at the warriors staring at her with a mixture of pity and disdain. She simply turned and walked out with the ghost of her pride dragging behind her.

The doors shut.

The hall exhaled.

And the bond pulsed again, sharp, accusing, wounded.

I shut it out brutally until the sensation quieted to nothing.

I would not feel. I would not bend. I would not break for a girl traded like a commodity. Mate or not—Zeva would not change me.

I left her in the corridor, surrounded by stares and silence, without a backward glance.

Because if I looked back, even for a second, something inside me might begin to crack.

And I would not allow that.