Chapter 3

By the time my father and I got back to our estate, the moon was already high, the sky pitch black.

The estate was dark, not a single lamp lit. The servants stood frozen along the walls, barely breathing, their wolves cowering under the weight of the silence.

My father sent everyone else away. He took my arm himself and led me back to my private quarters.

My room was exactly as I had left it before the mating ceremony. My half-finished pack law transcript was still spread out on the desk.

It was as if that whole mating ceremony had never happened, only a sick, absurd fever dream.

My father poured me a cup of hot tea to calm my nerves and watched me take small, shaky sips.

"Don't let what happened today eat you alive," he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. "None of this was your fault."

I clutched the warm cup, but my hands wouldn't stop trembling. "Father, I know I did nothing wrong. But now I'm the laughingstock of every pack in the kingdom."

"A laughingstock?" His lips peeled back in a cold, feral smile, the kind that made lesser wolves whimper. "Anyone who laughs at you will regret it. My daughter, even if she never mates, will always have my protection. No one touches you. Ever."

His words brought a flicker of warmth to the ice in my chest. My inner wolf, curled and silent since the ceremony, stirred a little. But I knew better. This wasn't over.

"The Stonecrest Pack controls the territory's warriors. If we cross them like this..." I trailed off.

"The warriors?" My father laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "They answer to the Alpha King, not to the Stonecrest Pack.

"If William can abandon his mate at the Moon Temple for another she-wolf, tomorrow he'll abandon the Alpha King himself. Do you really think the King trusts a wolf like that?"

I understood immediately. This affair wasn't about saving face for our pack anymore. It'd become a chess piece that could be placed on the kingdom's political board.

That night, I stripped off the heavy mating gown. The fabric still faintly smelled of his betrayal. I pulled on simple clothes. I didn't sleep, and my wolf didn't either. She was curled into a tight, wounded ball, refusing to surface.

Every hour, a wave of phantom pain crashed through my chest—the bond trying to reassert itself, finding nothing, and convulsing. I bit down on my pillow to keep from screaming.

*****

Early the next morning, the news ripped through the estate like a silver-tipped claw.

"My lady!" Maggie, my handmaiden, burst through my door without knocking. Her eyes were wide, her scent sharp with excitement and outrage. "William! He's kneeling outside our gates."

I was still in my nightgown, brushing out my tangled hair. "When did he start?"

"They say he rushed back last night. He returned to Shaw Manor and found the mating chamber empty, no sign of you or your mating gift. That's when he lost it.

"William's father was so furious that he had William flogged with silver-tipped lashes. Battered and bruised, William came straight here and has been kneeling outside since the middle of the night.

"They say his knees are scraped raw from the cold cobblestones." There was a hint of satisfaction in Maggie's voice.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror: pale face, dark circles under my eyes, and behind my irises, a wolf that was snarling and weeping at the same time.

"Good," my wolf snarled. "Let him burn. Let him feel what we felt."

But a smaller, weaker part of me, the part that still remembered his scent, his laugh, the way he'd looked at me the first time our eyes met, felt tired.

Honestly, it was just pathetic.

If he knew it would end up like this, why bother in the first place?

Did he really think pulling this guilt trip would wipe away the humiliation I went through? Or make my father go soft?

He clearly didn't know my father at all.

And he definitely didn't know me, not after my heart died once already.

Sure enough, my father didn't react at all that morning. He went to court like always, and when he got back, he headed straight to his study to deal with pack affairs, as if the guy kneeling out there didn't even exist.

It wasn't until the afternoon that Arthur Bennett, my father's most trusted Beta, rushed in with news.

"Your Grace, someone from the royal palace has arrived. The Alpha King requests your presence and William's as well," he said.

My father set down his pen, his face unreadable.

He walked to the door and finally gave his first order about William.

"Go and deliver a message to William," he said.

Arthur bowed. "Please go ahead."

My father stared out at the gloomy sky, his voice cold as steel. "Want my daughter?"

He paused and then slowly uttered the last words. "Pray in your next life."