Three years ago, they locked me in an ice cell for three nights.

I was born with a curse in my blood. Cold doesn't just hurt me. It eats me. My wolf curls up and goes silent, and my bones feel like they're splitting from the inside.

They knew that. All of them.

And they still turned the key.

Lyla Marrow, the pack's orphan girl, slipped on the frozen river during the winter hunt. She fell through the ice. When they pulled her out, shaking and blue-lipped, she pointed at me.

"Selvina pushed me."

I was standing ten feet away. I never touched her.

It didn't matter.

My fated Alpha, Kalen Draven, wouldn't even look at me. My older sister, Selena, held Lyla's frozen hands and cried. Jasper Holt, the boy I'd grown up with, the one who used to share his lunch with me under the pine trees, was the one who dragged me to the cell.

On the second night, I screamed until my throat bled.

Through the bars, I saw Kalen's boots. He stood there for a long time.

Then he walked away.

By the third night, the mate bond in my chest was barely a thread. Thin as frost. Ready to snap.

When they finally opened the door, I didn't say a word. I waited until the pack was asleep, and I ran.

I didn't stop until I crossed into Night Wolf territory.

---

Now I was back.

Only because Grandma was turning eighty, and she'd written to me in her shaky handwriting. *Come home, little moon. Just once.*

The train doors hissed open. Cold air hit my face, and my fingers went stiff in my coat pockets.

I made it three steps out of the station.

"Selvina."

Kalen.

He looked the same. Broad shoulders, dark hair, gray eyes like a storm over the lake. Selena stood on his left in her white fur collar. Jasper leaned against a car on his right, arms crossed.

A welcome party. How sweet.

"Move," I said.

Kalen closed the gap in two strides and clamped his hand around my wrist. Hard.

"You don't get to disappear for three years and then tell me to move."

"Watch me."

His Alpha power rolled off him in a heavy wave. My knees wanted to buckle. My wolf whimpered.

I locked my legs and stayed standing.

"Lyla has nightmares," he said, low and rough. "Every single night. She wakes up screaming about the river. About *you*."

"Then she should see a doctor."

Selena gasped. "Selvina! How can you say that?"

I turned to my sister. "Easy. I opened my mouth and said it."

"She's an orphan." Selena's eyes filled with tears, right on cue. "She has no one. No mother, no father. And you almost killed her, and you can't even say sorry?"

"I didn't push her."

"You're still lying." Jasper pushed off the car. His voice was flat. "Three years, and you're still lying."

I stared at him. The boy who used to braid wildflowers into my hair.

"You threw me in that cell, Jasper. You heard me screaming. Did that feel like the truth to you?"

His jaw tightened. For a second, something flickered in his face.

Then it was gone.

"You were always spoiled," he said. "Everyone gave you whatever you wanted. Lyla never had that."

"So that makes it fair?"

Nobody answered.

Kalen's grip got tighter. The bones in my wrist ground together.

"You'll apologize to her," he said. "Tonight. In front of the pack."

I laughed.

It came out of me before I could stop it. Short and bright and completely wrong for the moment. Selena flinched like I'd slapped her.

"I'm here for Grandma's birthday," I said. "That's it. When the party's over, I leave. You'll never see me again."

"You think you can just walk away from me?"

"I already did."

Kalen leaned in close. His breath was warm against my cold ear.

"I can force the bond open again. Right now. Pull it back to full strength whether you want it or not."

Selena's head snapped toward him. "Kalen, that could tear her soul apart."

"Then she'd better start cooperating."

My blood went colder than the wind.

I looked up at him. At the man fate had picked for me. At the man who'd stood outside my cell and listened to me beg.

"Go ahead," I said quietly.

His eyes narrowed.

"Try it. You'll find out the bond already died. It died on the third night in that ice cell, Kalen. You were standing right there. You just didn't stay long enough to hear it stop."

For the first time, he didn't have an answer.

His fingers loosened. Just a little.

That was all I needed.

I yanked my arm free, stepped around him, and walked toward the black sedan idling at the curb. The driver was already holding the back door open.

"Selvina!" Selena's voice cracked behind me. "Whose car is that? Where have you even been?"

I didn't turn around.

The door shut. The heated seats wrapped around me, and I finally let myself shake.

My phone buzzed before we'd even pulled away.

A video call.

I swiped, and his face filled the screen.

Loren Vale. King of the Night Wolves.

The man who found me half-dead in the snow at his border three years ago. Who carried me inside, wrapped me in every blanket in his house, and sat by the fire with me until my heart started beating right again.

His dark eyes searched my face.

"You're pale."

"I'm always pale."

"You're paler." His voice dropped. "Who touched you?"

I tugged my sleeve down over the red marks on my wrist. "Nobody important."

"Selvina."

Behind him, in the corner of the screen, I could see a small bed. A tiny shape under a pink blanket. One chubby hand flung over her head, curls everywhere.

Mia. Our daughter.

My throat went tight.

"She waited up for you," Loren said, softer now. "Fell asleep holding your scarf."

"Tell her I'll be home soon."

"I'll tell her tomorrow, when I bring her to you." His face went hard again. "I can have three hundred wolves at their border by sunrise. Say the word, and there won't be a pack left to throw a party."

I believed him. That was the scary part.

"No."

"They put you in a cage."

"I know." I pressed my thumb against the screen, right over Mia's little hand. "That's exactly why I'm the one who has to end this. Not you. Me."

He was quiet for a long moment.

"You have three days," he said. "Then I'm coming to get you myself."

"I'll be done before that."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

The call ended. The screen went dark, and in the black glass I saw my own reflection. Older. Harder. A stranger to the girl who'd run from here.

My phone buzzed again.

A text. Unknown number.

*Welcome home, Selvina. I've been dreaming about you. —Lyla*

The Marrow family castle still smelled like pine smoke and old money.

I stood in the arched doorway of the banquet hall. A tiny earpiece was tucked behind my hair.

"Talk to me," Loren said in my ear.

"Chandeliers. Ice sculptures. Two hundred wolves pretending they're happy to see each other."

"The helicopter's on the ridge. Four minutes to the east lawn."

"I won't need it."

"You don't decide that. I do." A pause. "Stay on the line."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

He made a low sound that might have been a laugh. I didn't get to find out.

The string quartet stopped playing.

Every head turned toward the grand staircase.

Lyla floated down in ice-blue silk. Her hair was pinned up with tiny silver stars, and her shoulders looked so thin that one hard wind might snap them. She held the railing with both hands, like every step cost her something.

"Poor thing," an old she-wolf whispered beside me. "She still can't stand the cold, you know. Ever since the river."

*She* couldn't stand the cold.

I took a glass of plum wine from a passing tray. My hand needed something to hold.

Lyla reached the bottom step. Her eyes swept the room.

Then they landed on me.

She froze. Her lower lip trembled. Her eyes went pink and wet in about two seconds flat. Impressive.

"Selvina?"

The whole room heard it. She made sure of that.

She hurried toward me, the silk whispering around her ankles, and stopped just out of reach. Her hands twisted together at her chest.

"You came back. I thought—I thought you hated me too much to ever come back." A tear slid down her cheek. "I missed you. Isn't that stupid? After everything, I still missed you."

"That's a nice speech," I said. "Did you practice it in the mirror?"

A few guests gasped.

Lyla's face crumpled. "I just wanted to say I forgive you."

"I didn't ask you to."

"Selvina, please—"

"I'm here for Grandma. Not for you. Not for anyone else in this room." I lifted my glass an inch. "So go cry somewhere I can't see it."

"That's enough."

Selena cut between us like a blade. She put herself in front of Lyla, one arm thrown back to shield her.

"She's trying to make peace with you, and you spit in her face?"

"She's trying to make a show. You're just the best seat in the house."

Heavy footsteps came from behind Lyla. Kalen stepped up close to her back, one hand settling on her shoulder. Like a wall. Like a promise.

My stomach turned over.

"You walk into this house," he said, "and the first thing you do is attack her."

"I answered her. There's a difference."

"Not the way you do it."

Jasper drifted in from the edge of the crowd, hands in his pockets. "Three years, Vina. You had three years to cool off. And you still come in here with your teeth out."

Nobody had called me Vina since I was twelve.

"Don't," I said.

"Just admit it." He shrugged, like it was easy. "Say you pushed her. Say you're sorry. Then everybody can eat cake and go home."

"Admit something I didn't do?"

"Admit what *happened*," Selena snapped.

Kalen's gray eyes held mine. "Do it, Selvina. Right here. Then this ends."

The chandeliers blurred.

For one second I wasn't in the hall. I was on a stone floor with frost creeping up my fingers. My breath came out in white puffs that got smaller every hour. Kalen's boots sat outside the bars, perfectly still.

Then they walked away.

"Selvina." Loren's voice was sharp in my ear. "Your heart rate just spiked. What's happening?"

I swallowed and opened my mouth to answer all of them at once.

"Three years ago, I was ten feet away from that river, and every one of you—"

The floor tilted.

I blinked. The floor stayed tilted.

Heat crawled up the back of my neck, then dropped straight into my legs, and my knees went soft as wet paper. My fingers started to twitch around the stem of the glass. Small at first. Then harder. My whole arm was shaking.

"Selvina?" Loren said. "Answer me."

My lips wouldn't make the word.

Across from me, Lyla had gone quiet. She was staring at the floor, her lashes lowered, the picture of a hurt little girl.

But at the corner of her mouth, just for a heartbeat, something curled up.

A smile.

My wolf howled inside me, then dropped flat, like she'd been hit with a tranquilizer.

Wolfsbane dust. A paralytic. It had to be. I'd smelled something sweet under the plum and thought nothing of it.

*The wine.*

My arm went dead.

Not numb. Dead. Like it belonged to somebody else.

The glass slipped out of my fingers.

It tipped in the air, and dark purple wine flew out in a wide arc. It splashed across Lyla's chest and down the front of that perfect ice-blue gown. The glass hit the marble and burst into a hundred pieces.

For one second, the hall was silent.

Then Lyla screamed.

It was a beautiful scream. High and broken. She folded down to the floor, clutching the stained silk to her body, sobbing so hard her shoulders jerked.

"Why?" she wailed. "Why do you keep hurting me?"

The room exploded.

"Did you see that?"

"She threw it right at her!"

"After everything that girl went through—"

A hand clamped around my arm. Kalen. His fingers dug in hard enough to bruise, and his Alpha power slammed down on me like a falling roof.

My spine bent. My legs shook. I couldn't even feel my own feet.

"Are you out of your mind?" he growled.

I forced my tongue to move. It felt thick and heavy, like a stone in my mouth.

"Dr-drugged." The word came out slurred. "My wine. Somebody—"

"Oh, please." Selena's voice rang over the noise. "Now she's playing sick."

"Kalen, look—" I tried to lift my dead arm. It hung there, useless. "Look at my hand."

"I'm looking at Lyla," he said. "That's all I need to see."

Jasper crouched beside Lyla and pulled his jacket around her wet shoulders. He glanced up at me. His face was hard, but his eyes didn't quite meet mine.

"That's low, Vina. Even for you."

I laughed.

It came out wet and crooked, half air, half nothing. My tongue was too slow to stop it. Selena's face went white with fury.

"Guards!"

Two men in gray uniforms pushed through the crowd.

"Take her to the west wing," my sister said. "The sealed room. Lock it."

"Selena." My voice was barely a whisper now. "Selena, please. It's me."

She looked right at me. Her chin was up and her eyes were dry.

"I know exactly who you are. That's the problem."

Rough hands caught me under both arms. My feet dragged across broken glass. I felt a sharp sting at my ankle and then felt nothing at all. Somewhere along the way, the earpiece slipped from behind my hair and vanished under a hundred stamping feet.

Loren's voice went with it.

The last thing I saw in that hall was Kalen kneeling beside Lyla. His big hand cupped the back of her head, so gentle.

He never looked at me once.

The west wing was cold. Always had been.

The guards shoved me through a narrow door, and I hit the stone floor on my side. I couldn't even lift my hands to catch myself.

"Wait," I mumbled. "Please. It's cold. I need—"

The door slammed.

A heavy iron lock dropped into place with a clang that I felt in my teeth.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Frost crept into my lungs with every shallow breath. My wolf didn't answer when I called her. My fingers wouldn't curl. The cold was already crawling up my legs, slow and patient, the way it had three years ago.

Exactly the way it had.

Loren said three days.

Lying there, shaking in the dark, I wasn't sure I had three hours.

Then something scraped against the other side of the door.

And a soft voice whispered through the crack.

"Selvina? Are you cold yet?"

I didn't answer her.

"No?" Lyla's whisper slid through the crack like a draft. "That's okay. You will be."

Her footsteps faded down the hall. Soft. Unhurried. She was in no rush at all.

The cold took its time too.

It crept into my fingertips first. Then my wrists. My wolf lay curled somewhere deep in my chest and wouldn't lift her head. The paralytic sat heavy in my blood like wet sand.

*Phone. Get the phone.*

My left hand still half worked. I dragged it across the stone toward my coat pocket. It took forever. My knuckles scraped, and I didn't feel it.

My fingers closed around the phone.

I pulled it out and let it fall flat beside my face. The screen lit up, bright blue in the dark. Loren's name sat at the top of my recent calls.

I pressed my thumb toward it.

*Click.*

The lock turned.

The door swung open, and a dim yellow glow came on from the single lamp on the wall. Someone stepped inside and kicked the phone. It spun across the floor and stopped face-down under a broken chair.

Kalen.

He shut the door behind him and stood there, looking down at me. His face was calm. Almost kind.

That was worse than anger.

"Look at you," he said quietly.

"Get out."

"You're shaking."

"It's cold." My tongue was still thick. Every word dragged. "It's always cold. You know that."

He crouched in front of me. His knees cracked. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair off my cheek, gentle as a nurse.

I wanted to bite his hand off.

"I've been thinking," he said. "About why you're like this. And I think I finally understand."

"Do you."

"You were the favorite. Your parents' golden girl. Your grandmother's little moon. Then Lyla came, and suddenly people had to share." He tilted his head. "You couldn't stand it. That's all this ever was. Jealousy."

A sound came out of my throat. It was supposed to be a laugh. It came out as a cough.

"She *drugged* me, Kalen."

"Stop."

"She put wolfsbane in my wine. Smell my breath. Smell it."

"I said stop." His voice sharpened, then smoothed out again, like he'd caught himself. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here to fix this."

"There's nothing to fix."

"There is." He leaned closer. "Accept her. Treat her like a sister. Make it right in front of the pack. And I'll repair the bond. All of it. You'll stand beside me again. You'll be my Luna."

He said it like a gift. Like a crown he was setting on my head.

"I don't want it."

"You don't know what you want. You never did." His gray eyes dropped to my neck. To the soft place just under my jaw where the mating gland sat. "But your wolf does."

"Kalen."

His lip pulled back.

His fangs slid down, long and white in the lamplight.

My heart slammed against my ribs. I tried to roll away, and my body didn't move. Not an inch. The drug held me flat like a hand on my chest.

"Hold still," he murmured. "It'll hurt less."

His breath touched my skin.

I dragged every scrap of strength I had left up from the bottom of my lungs.

"Bite me," I said, "and you die tonight."

He paused. His mouth hovered an inch from my throat.

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a warning. The only one you're getting."

He smiled against my neck. "From who?"

The door exploded.

Not opened. *Exploded.* The heavy wood split down the middle with a crack like thunder, and splinters sprayed across the room. One sliced past my cheek.

A tall shape filled the broken frame.

Black robes, heavy and long, trimmed in silver thread. Dark hair. And eyes like molten gold, burning so bright the lamp looked dim beside them.

Loren.

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

His power rolled into the room like a flood. The air turned thick. The lamp's glass cover shattered. The narrow window above us cracked, then burst outward, and freezing wind poured in.

Kalen staggered to his feet.

"Who the hell are you?"

Loren stepped over the ruined door. His eyes went to me on the floor. Then to the fangs still showing in Kalen's mouth.

His jaw went very, very tight.

"You touched her," Loren said. His voice was soft. That scared me more than any roar.

"She's *my* mate." Kalen's shoulders bulged. Bones popped. His hands twisted into claws, black and curved, and coarse dark fur rippled up his arms. His face stretched halfway into a snout. "Get out of my territory!"

He lunged.

Loren didn't move until the very last second.

Then his hand shot out and caught Kalen by the throat. One hand. In midair.

He slammed him into the stone wall so hard the whole room shook. Dust rained down from the ceiling.

Kalen clawed at his wrist. His claws scraped against the black sleeve and couldn't even tear it.

"Let—me—"

"No."

Loren's eyes flared brighter. Kalen's whole body jerked. His fur shrank back into skin. His claws melted into fingers. His face snapped back to human, red and choking.

Bloodline suppression. Old blood crushing young blood.

Kalen's knees buckled, and Loren let him slide down the wall into a heap.

Then Loren turned his back on him, like he was nothing at all, and knelt beside me.

His hands were warm. So warm. He cupped my face and tipped it toward the light.

"Selvina. Look at me."

"Hi," I whispered.

"Hi." Something cracked in his voice. "What did they give you?"

"Wolfsbane. In the wine."

His thumb pressed against my cold lips. "Can you stand?"

"Not really."

"Then lean."

He pulled me up against his chest and wrapped his robe around both of us. Heat soaked into me. My wolf finally stirred, just a little, and lifted her nose toward him.

Behind us, Kalen coughed and wheezed on the floor.

Loren didn't even glance back.

---

He half-carried me down the long hallway, his arm locked around my waist. My feet barely touched the floor.

The banquet hall doors were open.

The quartet was playing again. Lyla sat near the fireplace wrapped in a fresh shawl, surrounded by people patting her hands.

Loren walked in.

The music died mid-note. A violin bow screeched and stopped.

Two hundred wolves went silent all at once.

Selena was the first to move. She shoved through the crowd, her white fur collar bristling.

"What is this? Who let you in here?" Her eyes snapped to me. "*Selvina?* Who is this man?"

Loren said nothing.

"Guards!" Selena's voice rang off the ceiling. "Seize him! Now!"

A dozen men in gray rushed forward from the walls.

Loren breathed out.

That was all. One breath. A thin thread of his power slipped loose into the room.

Every guard hit the floor.

They dropped flat, faces against the marble, arms pinned at their sides. One of them whimpered. Not one could lift his head.

Someone screamed. A tray of glasses crashed somewhere near the back.

"Step aside."

My father's voice. He came through the crowd with my mother right behind him, both of them pale, both of them furious.

"You break into my house," my father said, "on my mother's birthday, and you put your hands on my daughter—"

He stopped three feet away.

His nostrils flared. His face changed.

My mother grabbed his sleeve. She was trembling. They had both felt it. The weight of that blood. Old and dark and endless.

My father took one step back.

Then another.

Loren moved me gently behind him, his body a wall between me and everyone in that room. His golden eyes swept the crowd. Selena. My parents. Jasper, frozen by the dessert table with his mouth open. Lyla, very still by the fire.

When he spoke, his voice filled every corner of the hall.

"This woman is Selvina Vale. My wife. Queen of the Night Wolves."

Nobody breathed.

Then, from the fireplace, a single teacup slipped from Lyla's fingers and shattered on the hearth.

And in the silence after it, from the hallway behind us, came the sound of slow, dragging footsteps.

Kalen was coming.