The coldness of the ritual still clung to Selene as Kael dragged her silently through the massive halls of the Mooncrest estate.
Each step echoed harshly off the stone walls, the sound like a cruel reminder of her new reality.
He didn't speak to her.
He didn't even look at her.
Selene stumbled along behind him, her wrist aching where the ceremonial binding cord had been tied — though it was now untied, the invisible mark burned into her skin like a silent brand. Her heart pounded unevenly, the ghost of the priest's final chant still ringing in her ears.
They passed grand portraits of former Alphas — regal, noble, fierce — all staring down with cold indifference. The pack's history was painted into the very stone, but nowhere did she see herself. She didn't belong. She was a shadow dragged across sacred ground.
They reached a heavy wooden door, intricately carved with wolves and moons.
Ancient symbols curled like vines around the frame — protective glyphs, or perhaps warnings.
Kael pushed it open without ceremony and gestured sharply.
"In," he barked, the first word he'd spoken to her since dragging her back.
Selene hesitated, then crossed the threshold on legs that trembled with dread.
The space was large, shadowed, and dominated by a huge four-poster bed draped in dark furs. The walls were stone, decorated sparsely with old banners and a single mounted sword above the hearth. A fire burned low, casting flickering shadows.
She turned slowly, wringing her hands.
Kael remained by the door, his silver gaze cold and unreadable.
"You will sleep here," he said, voice clipped. "I will stay elsewhere."
The words hit harder than any slap.
Selene swallowed the lump rising in her throat.
"I… I understand," she whispered.
She wanted to scream at him, to demand why he hated her so much, but her pride stitched her lips shut. There was no room for vulnerability in this place. No room for softness.
Begging for affection would only make her humiliation complete.
Without another glance, Kael turned and strode away, slamming the door behind him.
The sound echoed through the chamber, final and cruel.
Selene flinched. Her spine stiffened instinctively, but her face crumpled. Tears pricked her eyes, and though she blinked them back, one slipped free, trailing down her cheek like a quiet admission of defeat.
She didn't know what hurt more — the silence he left behind, or how easily he walked away from her.
She was alone.
Still wearing the pale blue dress from the ceremony — now rumpled, smeared with dirt from the forest floor, and torn slightly at the hem — she crossed the room slowly, feeling hollow and small.
The bed was beautiful, but it loomed like a throne she had no right to sit upon.
She sat at the edge, her body weightless, as if she might float away. Her hands lay in her lap, trembling despite her efforts to still them.
Even the walls felt like strangers, watching her suffer and saying nothing.
Her mind spiraled through the night's events — the chase, the forced bond, the humiliation.
She remembered the way Kael's eyes had burned when he caught her in the woods.
That fury. That disgust. As if her very presence offended him.
And yet, he had bound himself to her. Spoken the words. Tied the cord.
Why?
Was it duty? Spite? Obligation?
Certainly not affection.
Her fingers curled tightly into fists.
She had never imagined her wedding night would be like this — cold stone, colder silence, and a mate who would rather sleep anywhere but near her.
Minutes bled into hours as she sat there, too numb to cry properly, too exhausted to move. The silence of the room pressed down on her like a weight, wrapping around her limbs, her chest, her soul.
Eventually, she peeled back the thick furs and crawled beneath them fully clothed, shivering not from cold, but from the yawning emptiness that stretched beside her.
The mattress dipped only slightly beneath her weight. The scent of cedar and musk lingered faintly in the linens, a reminder of Kael — his presence without his presence.
She curled onto her side, staring at the wall.
If this was the beginning, what would the end look like?
The flickering firelight painted ghostly shapes on the stone — wolves dancing, claws raised, always chasing, never catching.
The night dragged on endlessly.
At some point, she heard footsteps outside the door — heavy, deliberate.
Her heart leaped stupidly in her chest.
Was Kael coming back?
Had he changed his mind?
The footsteps paused… and then continued down the hall.
He hadn't even considered entering.
The silence afterward was even louder than the footsteps had been.
Selene turned her face into the pillow, muffling the broken sob that tore free from her throat. Her shoulders shook, each breath ragged and sharp.
She had been forced into a bond that meant nothing to him.
She had been given to a man who would rather abandon her than share the same bed.
Was she that repulsive? That unworthy?
The questions circled in her mind like vultures, poisoning every thought, every memory. They feasted on her confidence, her hope, her dreams.
What had she expected, truly?
A kind word? A touch of comfort?
She was a transaction, not a bride.
A political solution to an unsolvable problem.
Her father had sold her under the guise of loyalty and protection. But in truth, he had bartered her future for a chance at survival. And Kael… Kael had accepted her like one might accept a blade to the gut — inevitable and undesired.
Selene pressed her hand against her wrist, where the cord had been tied, and imagined it still there. A silken noose.
She drifted in and out of a restless, broken sleep. Dreams came in flashes — smoke, teeth, cold hands dragging her beneath the earth. Sometimes she called Kael's name. Sometimes she screamed. But always, she woke alone.
And in her dreams, she wasn't a rejected bride in a cold, foreign house.
She was running — always running — from a shadow that bore silver eyes.
And no matter how fast she fled, she could never escape.