Chapter 2
The candles burned lower.
Half the guests had already left. The ones who remained weren't here to celebrate. They were here to watch the final act of my humiliation.
Daisy had retreated to her chambers, tossing one last "utterly ridiculous" over her shoulder before disappearing into the back halls.
The Moon Temple felt cavernous now, empty and cold.
And there, against the far wall, sat the mating gift from my pack: red lacquered chests stacked like a small mountain, each stamped with the Whitevale crescent moon.
Every chest held something my mother had chosen before she died.
"My daughter will marry with more dignity than any she-wolf in the kingdom," she'd said. "She'll have a foundation no Alpha can ever take from her."
Where was my dignity now?
I was still standing there, my wolf whimpering low in my mind, when the air changed.
It wasn't William.
I'd have smelled him, pine and smoke and that maddening undercurrent of the mating bond that made my wolf ache even now.
No, this was different: oiled leather and cold iron, the sharp tang of authority, the rhythmic tread of a dozen armed wolves moving in perfect formation.
The crowd parted like startled prey, and a wolf walked through the temple doors. The entire room went silent.
He wore a formal black coat embroidered with silver crescent moons—the ceremonial garb of the Whitevale Alpha.
His hair was silver at the temples, his face carved from the same granite as the northern mountains.
It was my father, Edward Sinclair, the Duke of Whitevale.
He didn't glance at the gathered wolves, didn't acknowledge the scattered flowers or the overturned chalice or the empty space where William should have been.
His eyes found me the moment he stepped inside, and they never left.
He walked straight to me, the crowd parting like water before a ship's bow.
He stopped a foot away, close enough that I could smell the familiar scent of his wolf—old oak and winter frost—underneath the formal cologne. It smelled like home, like safety, like everything I'd just lost.
The temple was so quiet that I could hear the candles crackling.
Every wolf held their breath, wondering what he would do.
They thought that he would scold me or try to salvage the alliance with pretty words and promises.
But he did neither.
He raised his hand, the same hand that had taught me to track prey, to stand my ground, and to never let any wolf make me feel small. Then, he lifted my veil.
The lace fell away, and the tears I'd been choking back for three hours finally spilled over.
I saw my father's face: the iron control, the cold fury simmering behind his eyes, and underneath all, a raw, aching tenderness I hadn't seen since my mother died. His wolf was right there, just behind his eyes, and she was grieving for me.
"Pup," he said, his voice rough as gravel, "come home."
The words hit my chest harder than any Alpha command ever could.
My wolf lifted her head and whined, not in pain this time, but in relief. I couldn't speak. I nodded, tears streaming down my face.
He turned to the stunned crowd and raised his voice so every wolf in that temple could hear him.
"Every chest. Every piece of the mating gift. Take it all back. Now," he ordered.
"Yes, Alpha!" The pack warriors snapped to attention, their wolves rising behind their eyes.
They began moving, red lacquered chests lifted onto shoulders and carried out the same doors they'd come through just hours ago.
The pack train was turning around. The mating was over.
The gathered wolves stared, slack-jawed.
No one had ever seen anything like this: an Alpha calling off his daughter's mating ceremony in front of the entire pack alliance, walking away from a political union that had taken years to arrange.
This wasn't just a rejection. This was a declaration: "My daughter doesn't need your son. My pack doesn't need your alliance."
I walked beside my father, step by step, out of the Moon Temple.
The night air hit my face, cold, sharp, and alive. I tilted my head back and let it dry my tears.
My wolf stretched inside me, shaking off the paralysis of the past three hours.
The torch-lit column wound through the streets of Mooncrest City, from the Moon Temple back to Sinclair Estate. Flames flickered in the darkness, casting long shadows on the cobblestones.
Every wolf who saw us pass knew what had happened. And none of them dared whisper a single word, not even a growl.