He carried me for what felt like hours.

The snow bit my skin and the wind cut through my torn dress, but his arms were warm. Solid. Like a stone that had learned how to be gentle. I hated that I noticed it. I hated that part of me wanted to lean in closer.

I was not supposed to want comfort from anyone. Not after tonight.

"Put me down," I whispered. My voice was weak. "I can walk."

It was a lie. My legs would have collapsed after three steps.

He didn't answer. He didn't even look down. Just kept walking through the trees like he knew exactly where he was going. Like the darkness didn't scare him.

"Who are you?" I tried again. "Where are you taking me?"

This time he did look down. Those storm-cloud eyes met mine for one second. And I saw it. Not pity. Not disgust. Something else. Something I didn't have a name for.

"Safe," he said. One word. Then his eyes were forward again.

Safe. The word felt foreign in my mouth. I hadn't been safe in years. Not really. Not since my wolf refused to wake up and my parents started looking at me like I was a mistake.

The trees got thicker. Colder. Then the forest opened up and I saw it.

A castle. Black stone, tall towers, windows glowing like eyes in the dark. It looked old. Angry. Like it had been standing there for a hundred years just waiting for something to die.

My stomach dropped. "This is your home?"

He didn't answer. Just carried me up the stone steps. The doors were huge. Iron. They opened before we even touched them.

Inside, it was warm. Firelight danced on the walls. The smell of wood and something else... something wild and clean... filled the air.

Servants stopped and stared as he walked past. Their eyes went wide when they saw me. Bruised. Bleeding. In his arms.

One girl gasped. "My lord... is she..."

"Get the healer," he cut her off. Voice sharp like a blade. "Now."

The girl ran.

He took me up a staircase that spiraled higher and higher. My head spun. The rejection mark pulsed with every step, like it was warning me. This is dangerous. This is wrong._

Maybe it was. But I was too tired to care.

He kicked open a door and carried me to a bed that was bigger than the one I shared with Bella my whole life. He set me down gently. Too gently for a man who looked like he killed people for breakfast.

Then he just stood there. Watching me. Like he was waiting for me to say something.

I pulled the blanket up to my chin. My hands were shaking. "You still haven't told me your name."

For a long time, he was quiet. The fire cracked behind him. Outside, the wind howled.

Finally, he spoke. Slow. Heavy. Like each word cost him something.

"Damien."

Damien.

The name hit me like ice water. I knew that name. Every wolf in every pack knew that name. They whispered it to scare pups who wouldn't sleep.

Alpha King Damien. The Beast of the North. The man who killed three Alphas in one night and took their lands before sunrise. The man who hadn't taken a mate in 200 years because every she-wolf who got close to him ended up dead.

I sat up too fast. Pain exploded in my ribs. "You... you're him."

He didn't deny it. He just watched me with those storm eyes.

"Why me?" The question tore out of me. "I'm nothing. I'm wolf-less. Kyle rejected me in front of everyone. I'm broken, Damien. Why would the Beast of the North want broken trash?"

Damien stepped closer to the bed. One step. Then another. Until he was standing right beside me.

He reached out and tilted my chin up with two fingers. His touch was cold. But it didn't feel cruel.

"You are not nothing," he said. Voice low, certain. Like he was stating a fact. "I felt you. In the forest. When the moon called you."

My breath caught. "That's impossible. I don't have a wolf."

His thumb brushed over the rejection mark on my neck. The burn came back, but different this time. Not pain. Heat. Like something sleeping under my skin had heard its name.

Damien's eyes darkened. "Then we will wake her."

Before I could ask what he meant, the door burst open. A healer rushed in with herbs and bandages. Damien stepped back, and the cold came with him.

But his last words before he turned away stayed in my chest:

"You are not trash, Selena. You are mine."

The door closed behind him.

And I sat there in the bed of the most feared man alive, wondering if I had just been saved... or claimed by something worse than rejection.

The healer's hands were cold.

She peeled my dress away from the wounds Kyle's boot left on my ribs. Every touch made me flinch. Not because it hurt. Because I wasn't used to anyone touching me gently anymore.

"Bruised ribs. Deep cut here," she muttered, spreading some herb paste that smelled like grass and fire. "Who did this to you, child?"

I didn't answer. What was I supposed to say? _My mate did it. In front of everyone. While my father watched

The healer didn't push. She just worked in silence. Damien stood by the window the whole time. Back to us. Like he was guarding the room from something outside. Or guarding me from something inside.

When the healer finished, she bowed and left without another word. The door clicked shut. Then it was just me and him. And the fire.

Damien finally turned. He walked to the bed but didn't sit. He just stood there, looking down at me like I was a puzzle he couldn't solve.

"You're bleeding," he said. Stating the obvious.

"It's just the mark," I whispered. The rejection mark on my neck throbbed. Hot. Angry. Like it hated being seen.

Damien's jaw tightened. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small dagger. Black handle. No shine. The kind of blade that had killed before.

My heart jumped. "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer. He just cut his palm. Blood welled up, dark and thick. He stepped closer and pressed his bleeding hand against the rejection mark on my neck.

I gasped. Pain shot through me, white-hot. For one second I thought he was killing me. That this was his game. Bring the trash in, then finish her off.

But then the pain changed.

It wasn't just pain anymore. It was heat. Then pressure. Then... a sound. Low. Deep. Like something big turning over in its sleep after a hundred years.

My back arched off the bed. My vision went white.

Inside my chest, something snarled.

_Mine._

The word wasn't Damien's. It wasn't mine either. It was older. Deeper. Female. Angry.

The wolf.

Damien pulled his hand back fast, like he got burned. Blood smeared across my neck, mixing with the red rejection mark. His eyes were wide. For the first time since I met him, the Beast of the North looked... shocked.

"What did you just do?" I choked out. My hands were shaking. My teeth hurt. Like they wanted to be sharper.

Damien stared at me. Then at his bleeding palm. Then back at me.

"Your wolf isn't wolf-less," he said slowly. Like he was figuring it out as he spoke. "She's locked. Sealed. By the rejection."

Kyle's rejection didn't just break my heart. It locked my wolf away. Like putting a chain on her throat.

I sat up, clutching the blanket to my chest. My whole body felt different. Restless. Like there was something under my skin trying to get out.

"So you can unlock her?" I asked. Hope was dangerous. But it crept in anyway.

Damien shook his head. "No. Only pain can break a rejection seal. Or..." He paused. His storm eyes met mine. "Or a stronger bond."

"Which means what?"

"It means," he said, voice dropping low, "you'll have to choose, Selena. Suffer until the seal cracks. Or accept the bond I'm offering you. My blood. My mark. My protection."

The room went quiet. Only the fire crackling.

Accept his bond? Let the most feared man alive mark me? After what Kyle did?

But the thing inside me snarled again. Louder this time. Hungrier.

_Take it. We're tired of being nothing._

I looked up at Damien. At the scars on his jaw. At the blood still on his hand. At the man who carried me through snow when everyone else left me in the dirt.

My voice came out small. "If I say yes... will you still want me when I'm not broken anymore?"

Damien didn't blink. "I want you now. Broken or not."

That should have scared me. Instead, it felt like the first honest thing anyone said to me in years.

I took a shaky breath and held out my neck. The rejection mark burned bright red, ugly and raw.

"Do it," I whispered. "Wake her."

Damien's eyes flashed. Not gold like Kyle's. Not brown like a normal wolf. Black. Like a night with no moon.

He leaned down. His lips brushed my neck right over the rejection mark. And then his teeth sank in.

Pain exploded. But this time, it wasn't just pain.

This time, something woke up.

The bed felt too big. Too quiet.

Damien's mark burned on my neck like fresh ink. Not painful. Just... there. A constant reminder that I wasn't alone anymore. That something inside me was awake now.

The wolf was quiet. But she wasn't sleeping. She was watching. Like a predator waiting at the edge of a forest, counting her steps before she ran.

_Don't trust him yet,_ she said in my head. Her voice was rough, like she hadn't spoken in years. _Bonds lie. Teeth lie. But blood never does._

I stared at the ceiling. "What do you mean?"

_He marked you. But did he ask?_

The question hit harder than Kyle's boot. Damien didn't ask. He just decided. He bled. He bit. He claimed.

Was that love? Or was that just another kind of cage?

The door opened before I could answer her. Damien came back in. He had changed his shirt. The old one was gone. But there were bloodstains on his hands. Mine.

He stopped when he saw me sitting up. His eyes swept over me once. Slow. Checking my ribs, my face, the mark on my neck.

"You're still awake," he said.

"I don't think I can sleep." I pulled the blanket tighter around me. "My head is... noisy."

Damien walked to the fireplace and tossed in another log. Sparks flew up. For a long time, he just watched the fire. Like he was deciding what to say.

"When I was twelve," he said finally, voice low, "my father tried to sell me to the rogues. Said I was too violent to be his son. Too much like my mother."

I blinked. The Beast of the North. Abandoned at twelve.

He turned to look at me. "They locked me in a cell for three days. No food. No light. When I got out, I promised myself one thing. No one would ever cage me again. And I would never cage anyone else."

He stepped closer to the bed. "So no, Selena. I didn't ask before I marked you. Because if I asked, you would have said no. You were broken. Bleeding. You would have chosen death over another bond."

My throat tightened. He was right. I would have.

"But I'm asking now," he said. "Do you want this mark? Do you want me? If you say no, I'll break the bond. It will hurt. Both of us. But I'll do it."

The room went silent. Only the fire made noise.

The wolf inside me stood up. _Careful,_ she warned. _This is the moment men show who they really are._

I looked at Damien. Really looked at him. Not at the Beast. Not at the Alpha King. Just at the man who carried me through snow when I was nothing.

I thought about my father turning his face away. About Kyle laughing. About Bella calling me broken.

Then I thought about Damien standing by the window all night, guarding a girl he didn't even know.

I lifted my hand and touched the black crown on my neck. "No," I whispered. "I don't want you to break it."

Damien exhaled. Like he had been holding his breath this whole time.

"Good," he said. One word. But his shoulders dropped, like a weight left them.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. Careful. Like I might shatter. "Then we start tomorrow. You train with me. Your wolf is strong, but she's wild. If you don't learn control, she'll burn you from the inside."

I nodded. My eyelids felt heavy suddenly. The wolf must have been tired too. All that thrashing and snarling wore her out.

Damien must have seen it. He stood up and pulled the blanket up to my chin. The gesture was so simple. So human. It made my chest ache.

"Sleep, Selena," he said. "Tomorrow, the world learns you're not nothing anymore."

He walked to the door. Paused. Without turning around, he added, "And for what it's worth... I'm sorry I didn't ask first."

Then he was gone.

I closed my eyes. The wolf curled up inside me, tail wrapped around her paws.

_We'll see,_ she muttered before sleep took her. _We'll see if he's different._

Outside, snow started falling again.

And for the first time in eighteen years, I fell asleep without feeling like trash.