"Put the amulet away, Alpha. The girl is gone."

I kept my grip on the carved wolf-fang. The leather cord dug sharply into my palm. Just three days ago, Sienna had stood on her tiptoes, laughing as she tied it around my neck before I rode out to the border. *Come back to me,* she had smiled, her eyes bright with a future we were supposed to share. *I will be waiting.*

Now she lay on a marble slab in the catacombs.

"I will not bury her until I have answers, Silas," I rasped. I kept my gaze fixed on the rain lashing against my study window.

The Elder crossed his arms, his boots shifting on the hardwood floor. "The Mercer family is tearing the estate apart. They want the witch's head on a spike. They demand justice by nightfall."

"Aria is a healer, not a witch."

My chest rumbled as I spoke her name. A low, traitorous whine echoed from my inner wolf. I hated it. I hated *him*. My fiancée was dead, her body withered to dry skin and brittle bone, and my beast only cared about the scent of pine and rain. The sickening pull in my gut disgusted me. I was mourning my mate, yet my body vibrated with a desperate need to find the girl who had stitched my heart together.

"The magic residue on Sienna's heart matches the spell used to close your chest," Silas stated. He dropped a charred silver needle onto my mahogany desk. "A dark exchange. Aria siphoned the Luna's life force to save yours. The timing is undeniable. You heal, Sienna dies."

"Where is she?"

"Cell block four. The interrogators are waiting for your command."

"Call them off," I ordered, pushing past him. "I will handle her myself."

The descent into the dungeons offered no comfort. The damp air clung to my skin, but it did nothing to cool the boiling rage in my blood.

I shoved the heavy iron door open.

Aria sat on the edge of a metal bench in the center of the interrogation room. Her clothes were still stained with my dried blood from the clinic.

"Stand up," I commanded.

She rose, her chin lifted. No trembling. No tears.

"You murdered her." I crossed the stone floor in two strides.

"I saved you," she replied, her voice steady.

"By draining my fiancée?"

"I used my own vitality, Alpha. Not hers."

I lunged. My hand clamped around her throat, and I slammed her against the granite wall. The impact knocked a sharp gasp from her lungs, echoing in the cramped cell.

The moment my skin pressed against hers, a violent jolt of electricity shot up my arm. My wolf roared, throwing himself against the bars of my ribcage. *Mate.* He wanted to drag his teeth along her jaw. He wanted to bury his nose in her neck and shield her from the damp cold. The sheer force of the Bond threatened to buckle my knees.

I clamped down harder, fighting the nauseating urge to protect the woman I was currently choking. "Liar."

"Look at me," she choked out. Her hands came up, fingers wrapping around my thick wrists. Not clawing. Just holding.

Her eyes held zero fear. Only a devastating, quiet grief—and it was entirely for me. The sheer honesty in her gaze made my stomach twist.

"The Elders found your magic inside her chest," I snarled, leaning in until our noses almost touched. "Her body was completely drained. Withered like dead leaves. Explain that."

"I cannot explain what I did not do."

"You wanted her out of the way."

"I wanted you breathing!"

"So you cursed her!"

"I anchored your soul to mine!" she shouted, her voice breaking. "Life for life. My life, Nikolai. Not Sienna's."

Hearing my given name on her lips sent another shockwave through my nervous system. My thumb brushed the frantic pulse at the base of her throat. The urge to soothe her, to lick away the phantom pain I was causing, made my chest heave with shame.

Sienna's lifeless face flashed behind my eyelids. The hollow cheeks. The black smoke Marcus had described pouring from her mouth. She died screaming while this girl healed me.

I shoved myself away from Aria, ripping my hands back as if her skin were made of fire.

"What kind of malicious mind control is this?" I paced the length of the cell, dragging a hand through my hair. "What spell did you cast on my mind?"

Aria rubbed her reddened collarbone. "It is no spell. It is the Bond."

"I already chose my mate!" I punched the iron door. The metal dented inward with a deafening crack. "Sienna was my Luna. You are a common healer who dabbles in witchcraft."

"The Moon Goddess decides the Bond. Not you."

"Do not speak of the Goddess. You reek of dark magic."

"I reek of the magic that kept you from a grave."

I spun around, pointing a finger at her. "You will confess to the Elders. You will tell them exactly how you siphoned her life."

"I will not confess to a lie."

"The Mercers want you burned at the stake. If you do not give me the truth, I will hand you over to them."

"Then hand me over." She stepped away from the wall, closing the distance between us. Her golden aura flared, invisible but heavy in the cramped room. "But you know the truth, Alpha. Your wolf knows it."

"My wolf is infected by your sorcery."

"He is recognizing his mate."

"Stop saying that!"

"Make me."

The challenge hung in the air, thick and volatile. I stared at her defiant expression. She was an orphan. A nobody I had pulled from the ice years ago. Now she stood before me, claiming a sacred tie while the woman I loved lay dead because of her magic.

"You think this bond will save you," I said, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You think I will spare you because my beast whines for you."

"I think you are a just leader blinded by grief."

"I am an Alpha who just lost his future wife." I stepped closer, looming over her. "Tomorrow at dawn, you face the tribunal. If you do not provide a cure for this connection you forced upon me, I will let the Mercers have their justice."

"There is no cure for a Fated Bond."

"Then burn at the stake."

Her jaw tightened. She didn't flinch. She didn't beg. Instead, a grim smile touched the corner of her mouth.

"If I am burned, my life force ends," she stated, her tone chillingly calm. "And since your heart is tethered to mine, you will follow me straight into the ground."

I froze. The rhythmic thumping in my chest suddenly felt like a ticking clock.

"Test it," she offered, tilting her head. "Kill me, Nikolai. Let us see how long you survive."

Before I could formulate a response, the heavy iron door creaked open behind me. Silas stood in the threshold, his face pale and slick with sweat.

"Alpha," the Elder interrupted, his eyes darting between Aria and me. "You need to come to the catacombs. Now."

"I am in the middle of an interrogation."

"It is Sienna," Silas urged, his voice trembling. "Her body... it is gone."

The iron door had barely closed behind Silas when the distant roar of the pack reached the cell. Panic. Shouting. The sound of boots hammering against stone.

I remained on the bench, wrists still raw from where Nikolai's fingers had dug into my skin. The Bond throbbed between us like a second heartbeat, even with the thick walls separating us. I felt the exact moment he reached the catacombs—felt the sharp spike of disbelief, then the colder, heavier wave of dread.

Hours crawled past.

When the door finally opened again, it was not Nikolai who entered. Two enforcers dragged me upright and marched me through the corridors in silence. The entire pack reeked of fear. Outside the high windows the sky had already begun to darken toward the blood moon.

They brought me to the council hall.

Nikolai stood at the head of the long table, flanked by the elders. His eyes were bloodshot, the gold of his wolf flickering in and out of control. Dark veins of feral energy crawled along his forearms. The moment I stepped into the room the Bond flared so violently that both of us staggered.

Silas spoke first, voice tight.

"The slab is empty. No trace of flesh, no scent trail, only residual magic burned into the stone. The same golden signature that closed the Alpha's wound in the clinic."

A murmur of horror ran through the gathered wolves.

"The timing cannot be ignored," another elder said. "You heal. Sienna vanishes. The magic is identical."

Nikolai's gaze locked on mine. There was no mercy left in it.

"Explain," he demanded, the word more growl than speech.

I lifted my chin. "I told you the truth in the cell. I used my own life force. Nothing more."

Before anyone could answer, the western warning bells began to toll. Three long strikes.

Invasion.

A scout burst through the doors, blood streaking his face. "Alpha—enemy packs have crossed the outer wards. The barrier is failing. They're coming for the heart of the territory while we are leaderless."

Nikolai's control snapped.

He seized the edge of the oak table and the wood cracked under his claws. A wave of Alpha rage flooded the hall. Wolves dropped to their knees, choking on the pressure. The Bond between us screamed in answer, trying to anchor him, trying to pull the feral darkness back.

Silas's face had gone white. "He is tipping into full feral. Without a completed mating bond the wards will collapse before dawn. The Goddess has already marked them. The resonance is perfect—one hundred percent. There is no other choice."

Nikolai's head jerked toward me. For a single heartbeat something almost human flickered behind the gold. Then it vanished.

"Do it," he snarled.

They took us to the Alpha's chambers under the blood moon.

The door sealed. The red light poured through the windows and painted everything the color of fresh wounds. Nikolai did not speak. He crossed the room in three strides, caught the collar of the thin shift the elders had forced on me, and tore it open with one violent pull.

The Bond detonated the instant skin met skin.

Golden light erupted between us, raw and merciless. Every place his hands touched sent white-hot current racing through my nerves. He drove me backward onto the bed, mouth open against my throat, not kissing—claiming. His weight pinned me. The pleasure hit so hard my vision whited out. My wolf, silent since the rejection threat in the cell, howled in pure recognition.

He pushed inside me in one deep thrust.

The world narrowed to the brutal, perfect fit of our bodies and the golden tether that tightened with every movement. His hips drove forward again and again, each stroke dragging a broken sound from my throat. I felt him everywhere—inside my body, inside my soul, inside the cracked places he himself had made. The physical ecstasy was absolute. The emotional agony was worse.

Nikolai buried his face against the side of my neck. His breath came in ragged, animal gasps. His claws tore the sheets beside my head.

"Forgive me," he rasped, voice shredded. "Sienna… forgive me."

He never once said my name.

Tears slid from the corners of my eyes into my hair. I turned my face away so he would not see them. When his fangs sank into the mating gland at the base of my throat the pain and pleasure collided so violently that a raw cry tore from my lungs. The Bond locked fully into place—irrevocable, eternal, burning.

He shuddered through his release with a sound that was almost a sob. For one suspended second his arms tightened around me as if I were something he could not bear to lose.

Then the moment shattered.

He withdrew, rolled away, and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me, head bowed, shoulders heaving.

I lay still, the fresh mark on my throat pulsing in time with my heart. My body still trembled with residual pleasure even as something inside my chest felt hollowed out and cold.

He spoke without looking at me.

"This changes nothing. You are Luna because the pack requires it. Nothing more."

I closed my eyes.

"I know."

Weeks slipped past in a strange, careful truce.

The border raids slowed once the completed Bond stabilized Nikolai's power. The wards held.

By day I ran the clinic and sat through council meetings as the new Luna. By night I returned to a bed that still felt like borrowed ground. He rarely touched me again after the blood-moon night, yet the Bond kept us painfully aware of every flicker of guilt and reluctant need that passed between us.

In the days that followed, the sharp edges between us began to dull. Nikolai no longer looked at me with open hatred; sometimes, when he thought I wasn't watching, his gaze lingered with something quieter, almost careful. At night,

if the Bond flared too painfully, he would stay within reach instead of turning away.

One quiet morning I locked the clinic doors early, pressed my fingers to my own wrist, and let the last of my healing sense sink inward.

The tiny spark of life nestled low in my abdomen glowed clear and strong.

A pup.

Ours.

I sat alone in the empty examination room for a long time, one hand resting protectively over the place where our child already slept.

Outside, the first snow of the season began to fall. Somewhere in the main hall, Nikolai was speaking with the elders about the coming Moon Festival and my formal coronation.

I did not tell him.

Not yet.