The iron-bound contract sat between them like a silent executioner. Elara stared at it, heart thudding hard enough to echo in her ears. The fortress chamber around her felt colder than before—its stone walls too thick, its air too still, as if the room itself understood the weight of what Rhys Kaelen had just declared.
"You will be my Luna," he'd said.
Not a request.
A decree.
Rhys stood on the opposite side of the table, arms crossed loosely, his expression a mask carved from frost and iron. His presence filled the room with a pressure that coiled around her ribs, making each breath tight.
Elara swallowed, unable to tear her gaze from the contract's dark, metallic surface. "This is insane."
"Insane," Rhys said calmly, "would have been leaving you in the hands of the Vaelor heir after his public display of incompetence."
Her head snapped up. "You didn't take me to protect me."
"No," he said without hesitation. "I didn't."
The bluntness stung more than she expected. He didn't soften it. Didn't pretend. He simply laid the truth before her like another piece of the contract.
Elara straightened, trying to gather the fragments of her pride. "Then explain it. Why bring me here? Why force this marriage on someone you clearly don't want?"
The air tightened. Not with anger—Rhys didn't show anger the way other wolves did. On him, emotion was a faint shift in the shadows behind his eyes, a subtle drop in temperature.
"You misunderstand," he said. "Desire has nothing to do with this."
"Obviously," she muttered.
His gaze sharpened. Her pulse tripped.
"You will speak without sarcasm," he said. "This is not a negotiation."
"I didn't think it was," she shot back, "but if you expect me to sign a life-binding contract, you could at least treat me like I matter."
His silence was heavy. Too heavy.
Then—
"You matter," Rhys said quietly, "because my pack is dying."
The words cracked the air.
Elara froze.
Rhys stepped closer, his shadow stretching across the table toward her. "A genetic decay has begun spreading through the Shadow Pack. Wolves are losing their shifts, their senses, their strength. My pack will not survive another generation if it continues."
Her throat tightened. "A curse?"
"A flaw," he corrected. "Something broken in our blood. Something my ancestors hid until it was too late for me to correct."
She could hear the bitterness under his control. Hear the exhaustion he didn't show on his face.
"And you think I can fix it?" she whispered.
"No." His gaze was icier than before. "I know you can."
The certainty in his tone sent a ripple of something—fear? confusion?—down her spine. "Why me?"
Rhys walked around the table, stopping only once he stood inches from her. The air between them felt electrified, charged with tension she didn't understand.
"Because your lineage," he said, "carries something mine does not."
Her brows pulled together. "I'm nothing. Cassian made that clear. Everyone made that clear."
Cassian's name sparked a flicker of disdain in Rhys's eyes. "Cassian is a child who mistakes arrogance for insight."
"Elara," he continued, ignoring her rising confusion, "your bloodline is rare. Faded. Nearly extinct. But not useless."
She bristled. "I'm not useless."
"I didn't say you were." A pause. "I said your lineage is not."
That distinction landed like a slap.
"What does that even mean?" she asked.
Rhys studied her for a long, quiet moment. "Your power does not manifest through shifting."
Elara's breath faltered. A chill crept through her veins, colder than the fortress walls.
"My… power?" she echoed. "I don't have—"
"You do," Rhys said. "You've simply never been taught what it is."
Her scar throbbed then—sharp, sudden, pulsing like something alive under her skin.
Rhys's eyes flicked to the movement beneath her ribs. "It reacts when you're under pressure, doesn't it?"
She stiffened. "How do you know that?"
"Because it's what your lineage is known for."
Her heartbeat stumbled. "You know what I am?"
"No," he said. "But I know what you are not. You are not weak. You are not genetically deficient. And you are not a mistake."
Elara wasn't sure how long she stood there, absorbing the weight of his words. It felt surreal. Impossible. Too sharp to hope for, too strange to believe.
She exhaled slowly. "If I sign this contract… what happens to me?"
Rhys didn't blink. "You become my Luna by oath and by law. In two days' time, the ceremony will bind us. Your presence will stabilize the decay in my pack's bloodline."
"And if I refuse?"
His answer was immediate. "You won't."
"That's not an answer."
Rhys exhaled once, the closest he'd come to showing exasperation. "If you refuse, you go back to the Vaelor pack."
A cold spike of fear shot through her. She remembered Cassian's smirk. The cameras. The laughter. The rejection.
Rhys leaned closer. "And they will not forgive your humiliation. You would not last two days."
Her pulse pounded in her ears. "So my choices are slavery or death?"
"No," he said sharply. "Your choice is survival through purpose… or death through pride."
It wasn't kinder than her phrasing, but it was more honest.
Elara's throat tightened. "You said this marriage was a contract. What exactly does it say?"
Rhys tapped the iron-bound surface. "That your life is tied to the success of your role. If you fail to stabilize the pack…" His voice dropped. "Your contract is terminated."
Her stomach turned. "Terminated… meaning—?"
"You die."
The words hit harder than Cassian's rejection ever could.
He didn't flinch. Didn't apologize. Didn't soften the brutality of it.
"That's monstrous," she whispered.
"It's necessary," he replied. "My pack's fate outweighs your comfort."
She stared at him—this cold, controlled alpha who spoke of death with calm certainty. And still… somehow, she sensed no cruelty in him. No malice.
Just duty. Crushing, relentless duty.
He wasn't claiming her for desire.
He wasn't claiming her for power.
He was claiming her because he believed she was the only piece left on the board that could keep his people alive.
Elara's pride twisted painfully inside her. She could walk away. She could choose death by refusal. She could choose humiliation, exile, and slow decay.
Or she could choose something else.
Something desperate
Something reckless.
Something that might prove she wasn't weak after all.
Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Fine."
Rhys stilled. "Fine?"
"I'll sign it."
His eyes flickered—an emotion she couldn't read, gone almost instantly. "Why?"
"Because I won't let my life be defined by Cassian's rejection," she said, lifting her chin. "And I won't die crawling."
Rhys studied her, the faintest shift in his expression—approval or calculation, she couldn't tell.
"Then read it," he said.
Elara scanned the document. It was dense, brutal, uncompromising. Her obligations were absolute. Her failure meant death. Her success meant becoming Luna of the most feared pack in the realm.
Her hands trembled once.
Only once.
Then she signed.
The moment the pen lifted, the room felt colder.
Rhys closed the document with a heavy thud. "It's done."
The words echoed.
Final.
He picked up the iron-bound contract and turned toward the door. "Follow me."
Elara did, though her legs felt unsteady, her breath tight. Rhys led her through a different corridor this time—a narrower, darker passage lined with thick stone and metal symbols carved into the walls.
They climbed a staircase that wound upward like a spine, each step colder than the last. At the top, Rhys pushed open a reinforced door.
A suite.
Large, dark, imposing—but undeniably crafted for someone of status. A massive bed. A private hearth. A balcony overlooking the fortress cliffs.
Elara stepped inside cautiously.
Rhys followed.
The door shut behind them with a deep, echoing thud.
Then—
click.
The lock slid into place.
Elara's breath hitched. "Why did you lock the—"
Rhys turned toward her, shadows gathering behind him.
"Start earning your life, Elara," he said, voice low and unyielding. "The wedding is in two days."