Bethroted to the ruthless alpha

till had no

n burial ground, and a wreath of black hemlock someone had laid there befo

ssed my palm flat against the dirt, fingers spread, like I could feel him through i

mony. The way they're already calling it peace - li

instead of him.

'd said. I won't make you a widow before you've even been a wife. I'd laughed at him. Told him nothing was going to happen to him, that he'd outlive every one of us ou

t the war. Not some nameless enemy on a battlefield he never got to reach. A duel, in t

he earth until dirt p

l had backed down. Lowered his guard, dropped his challenge, done the thing that was supposed to end it without blood. And Raulph had killed him any

ing to m

uncing themselves so as not to startle me. I di

mething serious was coming, as if my full name could brace

kno

packs." A pause, longer than it needed t

could brush off the last hour of my life along with it. "Doe

hat. There wasn't a

oft, unforgivable grief I'd allowed myself at the grave tucked somewhere no one else would be permitted to see. By the time the doors came into view, I wasn't the girl who

to become her. I hated

ief, the kind of cold that comes from swallowing rage for the sake of survival. On the other side stood the Alpha's court, watchi

ye in that room before I fou

encounters, to hate more than almost anything else about him. Not guilt. Not even discomfort. Just tolerance - like this whole arrangement, th

met acros

k away first.

see it. Let him know ex

both packs moving through the air like they belonged to a different conversation than the one happening in my chest. I barely

I knew Raphael had lowered his guard. I knew there had been a moment, one single moment, where this could have ended with both of them w

t as an itch under the skin, something that wouldn't quite settle. Looking at him, arms crossed, jaw set, utterly unbothered by an en

s, something in him was rotting from what he'd done, slow and c

me now, gentler than I expected and som

ee days learning how to bury someone and

he elders on both sides straightened, and I felt the room hold its breath the way rooms do right be

hadn't noticed from across the Hall. Close enough to see that his eyes, up close, weren't as flat and

come a war neither side wanted. It honors the dead-" here his gaze flicked, brief

nothing honoring about this. This was a deb

was low enough that I don't think an

staring since

just as quietly. "I think I'

ame it. Not shame. I refused to believe it was shame. "He b

ad a c

ightened. "He should h

ct shape. Whatever this marriage was going to be - whatever peace it was meant to purchase for two packs

. I will wear your ring and answer to your name in front of every pack in this territory, because that is apparently the price of peace, and I am apparently th

ooked at me the way you'd look at a t

and the room rose to witness two people who despised

ted him to remember, every single day of this marriage