The echo of his boots on stone haunted me down the corridor like a funeral dirge. I moved barefoot over the cold flags, my hastily donned robe clinging to skin still marked by his brutal claiming. The mate bond pulsed in my chest—a silver thread of agony that pulled me forward even as every rational part of me screamed to turn back, to crawl into that massive bed and pretend none of this had happened.
But I couldn't. The bond wouldn't let me.
His scent lingered in the air like a ghost—storm clouds and steel, pine forests and something darker that spoke of violence barely leashed. Each trace of it sparked against the raw wound in my chest where our souls had been forcibly welded together, making me gasp with pain that had nothing to do with my body and everything to do with the shattered fragments of my heart.
The corridors of Ironfang Keep stretched endlessly before me, a maze of shadows and flickering torchlight that seemed designed to swallow hope whole. Ancient stones pressed close on either side, carved with the snarling wolf heads that marked this as Drevyn territory—a constant reminder that I was surrounded by his power, his legacy, his absolute dominion over everything within these walls.
Including me.
Guards dozed at their posts, heads bowed against their spears, but their eyes tracked my movement with the lazy interest of predators watching wounded prey stumble past. None dared question their Alpha's new Luna, but I caught the flicker of curiosity in their gazes, the barely concealed speculation about why I was wandering the halls in nothing but a robe, my hair tangled and my lips swollen from my husband's brutal kisses.
My cheeks burned with shame, but I forced myself to keep walking. I needed to know where he'd gone. Needed to understand what could possibly be more important than the mate he'd just claimed with such cold efficiency.
The silver thread in my chest pulled taut, leading me deeper into the keep's heart. Down a spiraling staircase carved from black stone. Past tapestries that depicted ancient Drevyn victories, wolves tearing throats and claiming territory that would belong to their bloodline for generations to come. Through corridors that grew narrower and more intimate, meant for family rather than the grand displays of power that dominated the public spaces.
His scent grew stronger with each step, mingling now with something else. Something that made my stomach clench with a dread I didn't yet understand.
Honey and jasmine. Silk and soft skin and the particular kind of confidence that came from knowing you were desired.
Serenya.
I froze at the entrance to a side corridor, heart hammering against my ribs so hard I was sure it would burst. Voices drifted from an open doorway ahead—one I recognized with devastating clarity, the other like poisoned honey sliding down my throat.
"So tense, Jasper." My half-sister's laugh was like crystal shattering, bright and sharp enough to cut. "Was duty so very unbearable?"
The mate bond flared white-hot in my chest, carrying his emotions like acid through my veins. Not the cold indifference I'd felt during our consummation, but something infinitely worse—relief. Genuine, overwhelming relief to be away from me and in the presence of someone who actually mattered.
I pressed myself against the stone wall, bare feet silent on the ancient flags. Through the crack in the doorway, I could see them—my husband and my sister, standing close enough that the golden light from the fireplace painted them in shades of amber and desire.
Jasper's posture had transformed completely. Gone was the rigid, duty-bound Alpha who'd taken me with such brutal efficiency. In his place stood a man I'd never seen before—relaxed, almost vulnerable, his storm-gray eyes soft in a way they'd never been for me.
"I did what was required," he said, but there was no coldness in his voice now. Only weariness, and underneath it, something that sounded dangerously close to regret.
Required. The word hit me like a physical blow, driving the air from my lungs in a sharp gasp that I barely managed to muffle with my hand. That was what I was to him. What our marriage bed had been. Not a sacred joining of souls, not even simple desire—just another obligation to be endured, another box to be checked in his endless list of Alpha responsibilities.
Serenya moved closer, her silk nightgown flowing around her like liquid moonlight. Even from this distance, I could see her beauty—the kind of effortless perfection that made other women feel like pale shadows in comparison. Golden hair that caught the firelight like spun sunbeams, green eyes that sparkled with intelligence and cruel humor, curves that belonged in marble sculptures celebrating feminine divinity.
Everything I wasn't. Everything I would never be.
"She'll never satisfy you," Serenya purred, reaching up to trace the line of Jasper's jaw with one perfectly manicured finger. "We both know that, don't we? Poor little Araya, so desperate to please, so eager to be whatever you need her to be. But she can never be me."
The silence that followed was deafening. I held my breath, pressing so hard against the wall that the rough stone scraped my skin through the thin robe. Any second now, he would push her away. Any second, he would remind her that I was his mate, his Luna, chosen by Selene herself to stand at his side.
Any second, he would defend me.
But the seconds stretched into eternity, and still he said nothing.
Through the mate bond, I felt his emotions shift and swirl like storm clouds gathering on the horizon. No anger at Serenya's presumption. No loyalty to the woman he'd just claimed. Instead, there was something far more devastating—agreement.
He thought she was right.
My knees nearly buckled as the full weight of that realization crashed over me. This wasn't just duty or political necessity. This was active preference. He didn't want me not because I was wolf-less or weak or politically inconvenient—he didn't want me because she existed.
Because next to Serenya's golden radiance, I would always be nothing more than a pale, inferior shadow.
"You don't have to pretend with me," she continued, her voice dropping to an intimate whisper that carried clearly in the night air. "I know how you really feel. How you've always felt."
She stepped closer, close enough that her perfume would be filling his lungs, close enough that the heat of her body would be seeping through the thin silk of her nightgown. Close enough to kiss, if he wanted to.
And goddess help me, through the silver thread connecting our souls, I felt that he did want to. The desire hit me like a physical blow—raw, desperate, everything he'd never felt for me condensed into a single moment of devastating honesty.
"Serenya," he said, and her name on his lips was a prayer, a benediction, everything mine had never been.
"Yes?" She tilted her head up toward his, lips parted in invitation.
The mate bond screamed in my chest as he reached for her, his hands settling on her waist with a gentleness he'd never shown me. Through our connection, I felt his pulse quicken, felt the way his entire body came alive in a way it never had during our brutal consummation.
This was what desire looked like. This was what it felt like to want someone so badly that your soul caught fire just from touching them.
And I would never have it. Not from him. Not from anyone.
"I should go back," he said, but his hands tightened on her waist, pulling her closer instead of pushing her away.
"Should you?" Serenya's smile was pure sin wrapped in silk and honey. "Back to that cold bed? Back to pretending that political necessity is the same as passion?"
She pressed herself against him then, and the bond shattered something inside my chest as his desire spiked to levels that made our wedding night look like a child's game. His mouth found hers in a kiss that was everything ours had never been—hungry, desperate, full of years of suppressed longing finally given voice.
I watched my husband kiss my sister with a passion that belonged in epic poems, and felt the last pieces of my foolish dreams crumble to ash in my chest.
Through it all, the mate bond sang its cruel song, forcing me to feel every spike of his desire, every flutter of genuine emotion, every moment of the connection I would never have. It was torture in its purest form—to be bound forever to someone who would spend eternity wishing you were someone else.
"She's nothing," Serenya gasped against his mouth, her hands fisted in his hair. "Less than nothing. A political necessity that you can lock away and forget about."
I waited for him to correct her. To remind her that I was his mate, his Luna, bound to him by forces older than their petty human desires.
Instead, he kissed her harder.
The sound that escaped my throat was barely human—part sob, part scream, part the dying cry of something beautiful being murdered in cold blood. I clapped my hand over my mouth to muffle it, but the damage was done.
Two pairs of eyes snapped toward the doorway where I stood frozen in my thin robe, bare feet rooted to the stone floor like I'd grown there. For a moment that lasted an eternity, we stared at each other across a chasm that could never be crossed.
Jasper's face went through a dozen emotions in the space of a heartbeat—surprise, guilt, irritation, and finally settling on cold indifference. Through the bond, I felt his walls slam down, shutting me out so completely it was like being buried alive.
Serenya, on the other hand, looked absolutely delighted.
"Oh," she said, not bothering to step away from my husband's embrace. "Hello, sister. Shouldn't you be in bed?"