***ADRIAN'S POV***
I woke on the cold floor, the air thick with the stench of sweat and leftover alcohol.
Every muscle in my body ached in places I didn't want to acknowledge, my temple pounding like a cruel reminder of the night before. My vision swam when I blinked. The room was dim, spinning and for a fleeting moment I couldn't remember where the hell I was. Everything felt too loud and too quiet all at once.
And then it came to me like a flood bursting through a dam.
The searing heat of a mouth on me. The sharp tug of fingers in my hair. The reckless moans—not just pleasure but surrender. The hunger. The way I'd given in.
My chest seized and I shot up like I'd been scalded, breath tearing from my throat as though someone had driven a stake clean through me.
My head whipped around, desperate and frantic. My trousers were still around my ankles, my shirt crumpled on the floor. Shame wrapped around me like a second skin.
I couldn't stay here.
I couldn't even think.
Somehow, I staggered to my feet. My fingers trembled violently as I yanked my clothes on, clumsily and weakly. My legs felt like they'd give out beneath me at any second but I forced them forward.
I forced myself to forget. To bury it behind the same iron walls I'd lived behind since childhood.
I barely made it out of the lounge without throwing up. The morning sun had already risen over Ravenshore, golden and cruel, mocking me with its brightness. A perfect day for a wedding.
My wedding.
I didn't look back. Nor wait to see the two men still tangled in the sheets. I ran. I just ran as that was the only option.
By the time I reached my family mansion, chaos had already taken over. Guests were streaming in, arriving in gleaming black cars that lined the driveway. The scent of fresh flowers clung to the air, heavy, suffocating.
Staff rushed in every direction. A seamstress actually gasped when I burst through the door.
"Sir—you weren't at the morning blessing ceremony!" someone shouted after me but their words barely pierced through the pounding in my skull. Maybe I heard them. Maybe I didn't. Either way, I didn't care. My feet carried me upstairs, sweat slicking my back, every heartbeat a thunderous reminder that my life was about to be chained forever… and not for the better.
No one stopped me. Maybe they noticed how pale I was. Maybe they didn't. Or maybe silence was easier.
I slammed into my room, locked the door and collapsed against it,my chest heaving.
Then came the frantic shedding of clothes. Peeling them off my skin like they were soaked in poison.
I stumbled into the bathroom and turned the shower on full blast, gripping cold. I let the water fall on my skin, hoping it would sear the memory away, burn away the taste of lips I couldn't forget. Burn away the sin carved into my flesh.
But water can't wash that deep.
Even beneath the spray, I remembered. I felt it. The strength that had pinned me down, the mouth that had taken everything from me. I gasped, teeth clenched and pressed my forehead to the tiles until it hurt.
Later, back in my room, my hands shook as I unlocked the hidden drawer and fished out a vial and took two pills. I swallowed them dry, my throat burning. I stood by the door afterward, keeping watch like some madman, as though I could guard my secret from the entire world if I just stood there long enough.
***
When I stood at the altar, it was as though I were being led to execution.
My bride stood before me in silver and white, tall and graceful, her smile polite. Like practices females were giving during their trainings on how to become Lunas. She took my hand as though it were nothing more than a duty.
I'd made it just in time, walking onto the raised dais with all the poise of an heir who'd never faltered in his life.
Her name was Elizabeth. Pleasant face. Sculpted features. Eyes that didn't quite meet mine.
We said our vows like strangers reciting lines from a play. Hers carried something—maybe pride that she was still marrying into wealth despite coming from one herself, maybe naivety. Mine cracked halfway through.
"I promise to honor and protect you," I muttered.
"I promise to submit and support you," she replied.
Our lips brushed dryly like a robotic performance. A greeting between acquaintances, not a kiss between husband and wife
The crowd clapped. The packs roared. Crimson Moon and Obsidian Howl—united at last after their centuries years old feud.
But all I felt was nausea.
Because in my mind, I wasn't kissing Elizabeth. I wasn't standing in front of my pack. I was still trapped in the loop of last night. Hands tangled in another man's hair. Lips wrapped around me with hunger. My body shuddering in raw, forbidden freedom.
Everything else blurred. The vows, the cheers, the flash of cameras.
This wasn't a marriage like they all thought. It was a contract.
An alliance.
Our fathers had signed the terms long before I stood here. Elizabeth would give me heirs. That was the deal. The mating ceremony would come later, under the full moon when I will claim her with blood and teeth binding us in truth.
If only they knew.
But they wouldn't. They couldn't.
Afterward, my father droned on with a speech I didn't hear. My pulse was too loud in my ears. My focus too fractured.
Elizabeth smiled beside me, perfect and serene. I stared at her, studying the curve of her lips, the grace in her posture. She looked too innocent for what she was being dragged into by my side.
She deserved better. That was the cruelest part.
But so did I.
And yet here I stood, shackled in silk and vows that meant nothing. All because our fathers had built a future I didn't choose.
I needed air. Or maybe just wine. Something to drown me quickly.
I slipped away from the crowd reaching for a glass at the drink table.
That's when I felt a shift in the air. A presence behind me.
"Didn't think I'd see you again so soon."
The voice slid against my ear like smoke.
My stomach dropped to stone as it sounded like something I'd heard before somewhere.
I turned around slowly, too slowly, because part of me already knew where
When I eventually did, I saw him leaning casually against a column, his lips curved in that same half-smile. The same lips that had devoured me. The same eyes that had pinned me to the dark.
The blood drained from my face. The stem of the glass trembled violently in my grip.
My mouth opened but the words strangled and died before they left me.
Run. I had to run again I told myself but fate wasn't done with me.
"Adrian!"
Her voice. My wife's voice. Soft and cheerful, cutting straight through me.
I turned stiff as Elizabeth walked up, smiling radiantly, slipping her hand through my arm. I flinched under her touch, but she didn't notice. Or maybe she chose not to.
Her gaze flicked between us, oblivious.
"I see you two have already met," she said lightly.
My blood froze. My heart lurched into my throat.
What did she mean?
Her next words gutted me.
"Adrian, meet my brother, he's been abroad for a decade now… Landon Hayes."
Air whooshed out of me and I felt my lungs collapsing.
Landon's smile deepened, almost knowingly.
And I… I felt the ground tilt away.
The man from last night—the one whose mouth I couldn't forget—was my brother-in-law.