Chapter 1
POV: Eve
“No.” My voice is barely more than a whisper, but it echoes through my father’s office like a death sentence.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just stares at me with that unyielding, calculating gaze—the gaze of a man who has already made his decision.
“No,” I say again, louder this time, my chest tightening until I can barely breathe. “You can’t make me do this.”
“It’s already done.”
The words hit me harder than a slap. My knees nearly buckle.
“No.” My head shakes violently, as if sheer force can undo his decision. “No, you don’t understand, you can’t—”
“I understand perfectly,” he says, voice cold as steel. “You are my daughter, and you will do what is necessary for this pack.”
My stomach turns. My hands tremble. I feel like the floor is crumbling beneath me, and no matter how hard I try to grab onto something—anything—I keep falling.
“You’re selling me,” I choke out, voice raw. “Selling me to a monster.”
A flicker of something crosses his face—guilt, maybe. Regret. But it vanishes as quickly as it appeared. “I am securing our future.”
I let out a strangled laugh, high-pitched and broken. “Our future?” My heart is beating so fast it hurts. “No, this is about you. About your alliance, your power, your damn silver mine.”
His jaw tightens. “It’s about keeping you alive.”
Something sharp and icy slides through my ribs. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” His voice lowers, steady, merciless. “Do you have any idea what’s coming? What will happen if we don’t secure this alliance?”
“I don’t care!” The words rip from me, and I don’t even realize I’m screaming until my throat burns. “I don’t care what happens to this pack if it means throwing me to him.”
Caelum Alaric.
The name alone sends bile up my throat.
The Alpha of the Shadowfang Pack. A man whispered about in fear. A man whose name is soaked in blood.
A man who killed his own mate.
My breath shudders.
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
“I’ll run,” I whisper, barely able to form the words. “I’ll leave before you can—”
“You won’t.”
His certainty makes me sick.
I spin toward the door, but before I can take a single step, two guards step inside, blocking my path.
A cage. I’m in a cage.
And there is no way out.
A sob wrenches from my chest, but I swallow it down. I won’t break. I won’t.
I stare at my father, my vision blurred with unshed tears. “I will never love him.”
He exhales, a shadow of something sad in his gaze. “I’m not asking you to.”
That should be a relief.
It isn’t.
Because love isn’t the worst thing that could happen in a marriage like this.
Survival is.
“Why him?” My voice wavered, but I didn’t care.
I stood before my father, my hands clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms as if pain could anchor me to reality. Because surely, this couldn’t be real.
“Why the monster?” I spat the word out like poison, shaking my head in disbelief. “Caelum Alaric killed his mate—the one the Moon chose for him. How do you expect me to believe this isn’t a death sentence?”
My father exhaled, rubbing a hand over his weary face. He had aged in the last few months—more lines, more shadows beneath his eyes. But sympathy wouldn’t sway me. Not when he was selling me to a man feared across every border.
“It’s not a death sentence,” he said, his voice low, controlled, as if he were holding something back. “It’s an alliance. One that will keep you—and all of us—alive.”
I let out a bitter laugh, stepping back. “Alive? You think I’ll be alive tied to him? He doesn’t want me, father! I’ll be nothing to him.”
He sighed. “He gave me his word—”
“His word?” I cut him off, my blood turning to ice. “His word means nothing. A man like him doesn’t make promises. He takes. He destroys.”
My father’s gaze sharpened, his patience thinning. “You don’t know him, Eve.”
“And neither do you!” I shot back, my chest heaving. ”What did he threaten you with? What did he offer you to make you throw me to him like this?”
His expression hardened, his jaw tightening like stone. ”I did this to protect you."
“Then let me reject him,” I whispered. “Let me refuse. I have a choice—”
“You don’t.”
The finality in his tone sucked the air from my lungs.
“You don’t understand, Eve,” he said, softer this time, but no less firm. ”Rejecting him is the death sentence. Not just for you—but for us. All of us.”
I shook my head, my mind racing. “You think Caelum Alaric would slaughter an entire pack over me?”
My father didn’t blink.
And that’s when I knew.
That’s when I understood the weight of my fate.
Caelum would.
He could.
And he’d do it without blinking.
A slow, crushing dread settled in my chest, pressing, squeezing, making it impossible to breathe. There was no escape. No way out.
I could refuse and watch my family, my people, my entire pack burn.
Or I could marry the monster and pray that he didn’t destroy me.
I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder, his touch heavy with unspoken words. “I know this isn’t fair. But it’s the only way.”
Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. If this was my fate, I wouldn’t break—not here, not now.
I lifted my chin, swallowing back the sob in my throat.
“Then I hope you’re right,” I whispered. “Because if you’re wrong, you’ve just condemned me to a fate worse than death.”
And with that, I turned away—because if I looked at him for one more second, I’d shatter.
The door to my chamber is locked.
I know because I tried. I rattled the handle until my fingers ached, slammed my fists against the heavy oak until my arms were weak. No one came. No one listened.
I am a prisoner in my own home.
My bed is covered in gowns, cloaks, and furs, neatly folded by the servants my father sent in earlier. Pack your things. You leave today.
Today.
A hollow, twisting feeling takes root in my chest. This morning, I thought I had time. Maybe days, maybe weeks. A chance to fight back. But my father never intended to give me one. My fate was sealed long before I was even called into that hall.
I swallow past the lump in my throat, my hands tightening into fists. I don’t pack because I want to go. I do it because I refuse to let anyone else do it for me.
A knock sounds at the door.
It isn’t hesitant. It’s a command.
The handle turns, and this time, the door isn’t locked. Two guards step inside, their expressions impassive.
“It is time,” one of them says.
I don’t move. My heart hammers so violently it hurts.
I don’t want to go. I want to fight, to claw and scream until my voice is raw. But I know the truth. I’ve known it from the moment my father made his decision.
I lost before I ever had the chance to fight.
So I lift my chin, square my shoulders, and walk out that door like I am the one in control.
Like this isn’t my execution.
The great hall is cold when I step inside. The air is heavy with silence, thick with something unspoken.
And then I see him.
Caelum Alaric stands near the center of the chamber, his posture rigid as my father speaks to him in low tones. He does not look at me at first, but his presence is suffocating, undeniable.
Tall. Broad. A predator at rest.
His tunic is black, lined with silver thread, the heavy cloak around his shoulders giving him the air of a ruler untouched by fear. A sword rests at his hip, its hilt worn from use, but there is no doubt in my mind that he could kill with his hands just as easily.
Then there are his eyes.
Not just green. Sharp. Ruthless. Like blades forged from ice.
Something tightens in my chest.
Then his gaze shifts to me.
And I understand why people fear him.
The stories have followed him like shadows—whispers of an Alpha with no mercy, a beast of war who cut down his own mate and spilled the blood of his closest friend.
And now, I am to be his wife.
“Eve,” my father says. “Come forward.”
I force my legs to move. Each step is measured, even as my pulse pounds like war drums beneath my skin. When I reach them, I lift my chin, staring Caelum down.
“I don’t want this,” I say. My voice is steady.
A flicker of something passes through his gaze, too brief to name.
“She is… resistant,” my father murmurs. “She will learn.”
I snap my head toward him. “Tell me, Father, what of my true mate? What if he is out there?”
Silence.
Caelum speaks first.
“He isn’t.”
The finality in his tone makes my stomach drop. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” His voice is calm, unwavering. “He is dead.”
It shouldn’t hurt. I should not care. But the words hit like a blade between my ribs.
“You’re lying.”
No emotion flickers across his face. “I have no reason to.”
My throat tightens, rage bubbling beneath my skin. “And what of your mate, Alpha? You killed her, didn’t you?”
A sharp, suffocating silence falls over the hall.
Caelum doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch.
Then, slowly, he tilts his head. “Yes.”
A chill races down my spine. I expect my father to interfere, to scold me for daring to challenge the man who now owns me. But he doesn’t.
It is Caelum who steps closer. Not by much—just enough that I have to tip my chin up further to meet his gaze.
“If you killed her,” I say, forcing steel into my voice, “then what is to stop you from killing me?”
I expect him to smirk. To mock me.
Instead, his expression remains unreadable.
“I won’t.”
Two words. Cold. Absolute.
A bitter laugh escapes me. “Just like that? I am to trust the word of a man who let the world believe he murdered his own mate?”
“Yes.”
My pulse stutters. There is no hesitation in his voice.
“My marriage to you is an alliance, not a death sentence,” Caelum continues, his voice like carved stone. “You are of value to me. I have no reason to harm you. You will have safety. Comfort. A place at my side.”
A shiver skates down my spine. Not from fear.
From something else.
Something I refuse to name.
“It is time,” my father cuts in.
Caelum extends his hand.
It is large, strong—scarred in places, though the rest of him is perfectly composed.
I stare at it. Then at him.
I could refuse. Could let this moment stretch into a battle of wills. But what would it change?
So I lift my hand.
The moment our palms meet, a shock runs up my arm, burning through my chest like wildfire.
His grip tightens, just slightly. Enough to tell me this is happening.
He is taking me with him.
And there is no going back.
Caelum
