The morning mist cleared by the time Eduardo parked the black sedan at the edge of the Silverpine clearing.

Through the trees, the ceremony looked like an outdoor palace. Silk canopies arched over freshly cut grass. Giant floral displays of white roses and lilies lined the aisle, and rows of mahogany chairs were packed with hundreds of wolves. Half of Ironvale was there. Visiting dignitaries and elders from neighboring packs sat near the front. Stationed around the perimeter was a squad of thick-necked warriors in unmarked dark tactical jackets—Bodie’s borrowed rogue mercenaries, standing tall to make him look like a conqueror.

Eduardo opened my door. He reached into the backseat and lifted the heavy cedar chest, draped in pitch-black velvet.

"Stay close," he muttered under his breath.

"Always," I said.

I adjusted my slate-grey shift dress and stepped onto the gravel path.

The moment our shoes hit the dirt, the laughter started.

Jemma White stood near the front row of chairs, surrounded by her clique. She pointed right at us, her red-painted lips curling into an exaggerated sneer. "Look who crawled out of the kitchen!" she loudly whispered, nudging the she-wolf beside her. "Did she come to beg? Or is she serving drinks?"

Giggles rippled through the front rows. Whispers spread like fire through dry grass. The crowd parted as we approached, their faces twisted in a mix of smug mockery and uncomfortable fascination.

I didn't slow down. I didn't look down at my shoes.

I kept my chin level, cataloging the space just as Eduardo had taught me since childhood. Three exits: the main gravel road behind us, the narrow deer trail past the sound booth, and the dense treeline behind the altar. Twenty-two rogue guards along the perimeter, all carrying sidearms under their jackets, their stances sloppy and undisciplined. Bodie was nowhere in sight yet.

And directly ahead, standing on the raised wooden ceremonial platform, was Lainey Pierce.

She wore a strapless white gown that flared at the waist, dripping in crystal beadwork. But what caught the light—and the breath in my throat—was the pendant resting against her collarbone. The stolen twin moonstone. A priceless Lycan royal relic, glowing with a soft, milky light, strung on a platinum cord.

When Lainey spotted me, her eyes lit up with predatory delight.

She picked up her skirts and descended the wooden steps, moving down the center aisle with the dramatic grace of a crowned queen greeting a peasant. The crowd fell silent, watching the show.

Lainey stopped three paces away. Her eyes flicked down to the black-draped box in Eduardo’s arms.

She tilted her head and let out a bright, ringing laugh.

"A cedar chest draped in black?" Lainey called out, making sure every elder and warrior could hear. "A traditional death offering? Oh, Serenity. You really didn't have to announce to the whole territory that you already know you're dead in the water."

Snickers erupted from the Ironvale rows. Jemma was practically shaking with glee.

Lainey stepped into my personal space. The heavy scent of artificial gardenia washed over me, thick and cloying.

She leaned close to my ear, keeping her voice low enough that only the first few rows could catch the blade in her tone.

"Take your little wooden box and get lost," she whispered, her smile sharp enough to draw blood. "Turn around and walk away before Bodie comes out and makes this more embarrassing than it already is. Have a little pride."

I didn't blink. I met her smug, hazel eyes with a stillness that was cold as glacier ice.

"I wouldn't miss this for anything in the world," I said quietly.

My voice was calm. Perfectly level. It carried no tremor, no anger, and no plea.

Lainey’s smile tightened at the edges. A flicker of irritation crossed her face, replaced instantly by venomous spite. She hated that I wasn't weeping. She hated that I hadn't dropped to my knees.

"Still pretending you're something, aren't you?" Lainey hissed.

Her hand shot out.

Her manicured fingers hooked into the thin silver chain around my throat. With a vicious, deliberate yank, she ripped it upward.

The metal snapped, biting painfully into the back of my neck.

I gasped as she ripped the ancestral moonstone amulet away.

Lainey held the milky, rough-cut stone up in the air between two fingers, displaying it to the crowd like a dead rat.

"Look at this pathetic piece of garbage!" she announced, her voice ringing off the pines. "A cloudy, cracked rock on a five-dollar chain! She wore this cheap trinket every single day, thinking it made her special. Thinking she was worthy of an Alpha!"

Lainey sneered, looked down at me, and opened her fingers.

The stone hit the packed dirt.

Before I could breathe, Lainey brought the heavy heel of her white bridal shoe down on top of it.

*Crack.*

The suppressing amulet shattered into a dozen chalky, white fragments. She ground her heel back and forth, turning the pieces into dust.

A loud round of whoops and cheers went up from the Ironvale wolves.

"Good riddance!" someone shouted.

A physical shudder tore through my body. My knees buckled slightly, my chest heaving as a sharp, wrenching flinch jerked through my ribs.

Lainey saw the flinch. Her chest puffed up with triumphant satisfaction, convinced she had just stomped out the last shred of my dignity.

She thought she had broken my heart.

She had no idea what she had actually broken.

Beneath the surface of my skin, the icy suppression field that had chained my blood for three long years dissolved into nothing. The heavy iron gate inside my soul shattered into dust.

Deep in my chest, a monstrous, silver-white wolf stretched her colossal paws, opened her jaws, and let out a silent, earth-shaking roar.

The barrier was gone.

Lainey wasn't finished.

Her cruel eyes slid past me, landing directly on Eduardo. The old Beta still stood there, his back straight, holding the black-draped cedar chest against his chest like an ancient shield.

"And take that filthy box with you," Lainey sneered, turning her nose up. "Get this old dog out of my sight."

She snapped her fingers.

Two of the thick-necked rogue mercenaries stepped out from the aisle. They moved fast, grabbing Eduardo by his upper arms and pinning him before he could move. Eduardo didn't fight back. He didn't drop the chest.

Lainey stepped forward. With a vicious, deliberate motion, she drove her knee hard into the small of his back.

A dull thud echoed across the grass.

Eduardo’s breath left him in a sharp gasp. His knees slammed into the dirt.

The crowd broke into snickers. Jemma White clapped her hands in delight from the front row.

"Eduardo!" The word ripped out of my throat, raw and panicked.

I moved to reach him, but Eduardo lifted his head. His weathered face was tight with pain, dirt smudging his cheek, but his dark eyes were steady as granite. He met my gaze, shaking his head just a fraction of an inch.

*Don’t,* his eyes told me. *Not yet.*

He could have ripped those two rogues apart with his bare hands. Even in his advanced years, he was a seasoned Lycan-trained Beta. But shifting would blow our cover before the trap was fully sprung. So he stayed on his knees in the mud. He endured the humiliation in front of hundreds of wolves, swallowing every ounce of shame just to keep me safe for five more minutes.

Looking at him—the man who had raised me, bandaged my scrapes, and spent twenty years guarding my life—something inside me went entirely dead.

The grief was gone. The hurt was gone.

A quiet, terrifying cold rushed into the empty space. Beneath my ribs, my untethered wolf went completely still. She stopped pacing. She stopped waiting.

"Drag them both out," Lainey ordered, waving a dismissive hand as she stepped back. "Throw them in the dirt road outside the gates where they belong."

The two mercenaries reached for me.

Before their rough hands could graze my skin, the clear, resonant blast of a brass horn cut through the clearing.

The mercenaries froze. The laughter in the crowd died down instantly.

From the stone steps leading down from the high pavilion, Bodie Mason made his entrance.

He looked every bit the conqueror. He wore his tailored midnight-blue coat with silver trim, his shoulders broad and posture imposing. Flanking him were six rogue warriors in matching black tactical vests, marching in tight, synchronized formation to give him the illusion of commanding a lethal royal guard.

The crowd parted like water. Wolves dipped their heads respectfully as he passed.

Bodie bathed in the reverence. His chin was held high, his hazel eyes gleaming with the thrill of unearned power. He had built this entire moment on the invisible back of my father's empire, and he genuinely believed he had achieved it on his own.

He walked down the grassy center aisle, his heavy leather boots crunching against the scattered flower petals. He looked like a man who had rehearsed this walk a hundred times in his head.

Then, he stopped three paces away from me.

For a split second, our eyes locked.

Beneath the polished Alpha facade, something flickered in his gaze. A tiny twitch at the corner of his jaw. A faint, uncomfortable shadow—shame, perhaps, or the fleeting hesitation of a coward who knows he is about to cross a line he can never walk back from.

I held his stare. I didn't flinch. I didn't look down.

The shadow vanished from his eyes, swallowed whole by cold ambition.

Bodie didn't offer a private word. He didn't offer an apology. Instead, he pulled back his shoulders, puffed out his broad chest, and projected his voice so it echoed against the tall pines.

He used his Alpha tone. It was loud, smooth, and steady. Horribly, disgustingly practiced.

"I, Bodie Mason, Alpha of Ironvale," he declared to the silent clearing, "reject you, Serenity Collins, as my mate and Luna."

The words struck the air like a hammer.

On the left side of my throat, the mate mark didn't simply fade.

It went white-cold.

A searing, icy agony ripped through my flesh, spreading through my collarbone and down into my chest like liquid silver poured directly into my veins. It felt as if a vital organ had been violently torn out of my ribs with bare hands.

My vision blurred into a wash of gray. The air evaporated from my lungs.

A choked, ragged gasp tore from my mouth.

My knees buckled. I staggered back three steps, clutching my throat as the agonizing shockwave of a shattered soul-bond tore through every nerve in my body.

Silence hung over the clearing, thick and suffocating.

Some of the older pack members shifted uncomfortably, looking away from the brutality of a public rejection. But most didn't. Jemma White stood with a wide, triumphant smirk on her face. Up on the wooden platform, Lainey smoothed down her white lace gown, her smile practically dripping with venom.

Bodie let out a long, heavy exhale.

His shoulders relaxed. His boyish grin crept back onto his face. He looked at me staggering in the dirt like I was a piece of trash he had finally managed to scrape off his boot. He thought he was free. He thought he had won.

He turned his back on me, taking a step toward the platform where Lainey waited.

Behind me, in the damp grass where Lainey had ground her heel, something shifted.

The crushed white dust and cracked pieces of the ancestral moonstone began to stir.

A faint, pulsing silver light bled through the dirt, growing brighter with every beat of my racing heart.