Strip her. I want to see what three thousand gold buys me."
The command hung in the air, heavy and absolute. Aria's blood turned to ice in her veins.
King Kaelen didn't even look up. He sat on his obsidian throne, idly flipping through the contract in his hands, his voice bored—as if he were ordering a bottle of wine for dinner rather than deciding the fate of a living, breathing woman.
His Beta, a wolf with eyes like chipped flint named Vane, stepped toward her. His fingers were already reaching for the collar of her dress.
"No." The word ripped out of her throat before she could stop it.
Kaelen's movement stopped. Slowly, his golden eyes lifted. It was the look of a predator watching a rabbit make a fatal error.
"No?" He set the contract down and leaned forward, the velvet of his tone barely masking the steel beneath. "You are standing in my throne room, wearing my chains, because your dead Alpha owed me a fortune he couldn't pay. You don't get to tell me no, little wolf."
Thorne didn't wait. His fingers closed around her neckline.
Rrrripp.
The sound of tearing fabric echoed off the marble pillars, loud as a gunshot in the silence.
Aria twisted away, her heavy chains rattling violently. Her shoulder burned where the rough hands and tearing cloth exposed her skin to the biting chill of the hall. "I came here voluntarily! To honor the debt! That doesn't mean—"
"Voluntarily." Kaelen stood. He descended the throne steps, each footfall silent and deliberate. "Is that what you call it when your only other option is watching your baby brother drown in his own blood?"
The world seemed to stop spinning.
He knew.
He knew about Elian. He knew about the wolfsbane. He knew everything.
Aria's knees nearly buckled, but she locked them straight, forcing air into lungs that had forgotten how to work. For a second, all she could see was Elian's face—his gap-toothed smile, his tiny, feverish hand gripping hers three hours ago. Don't let me die like Mama.
Kaelen circled her. He moved with a lethal grace, the way a wolf circles a wounded deer before the final snap of jaws. The throne room reeked of him—clove, rain, and the metallic tang of old blood. Outside the arched windows, a full moon rose over the war-torn kingdom of Shadowmere, casting long, jagged shadows across the floor.
"Let me educate you on what 'voluntary' means in my court," he murmured, stopping directly behind her. His breath ghosted over the sensitive shell of her ear, warm and dangerous. "You had a choice. You chose to walk into my palace. You chose to offer yourself as payment."
His hand slid along her bare shoulder, tracing the line where the dress had been torn.
The moment skin met skin, the air ignited.
Snap.
The Mate Bond didn't just appear; it slammed into her. Electric. Searing. Wrong. It raced from his fingertips down her throat, settling low in her belly like liquid fire. Her wolf—the wolf that had never existed, the one everyone said was dead—suddenly stirred, clawing up from some dark, buried place inside her soul.
Aria gasped, her vision swimming.
Kaelen froze. His nostrils flared, inhaling sharply. His hand tightened on her shoulder for a fraction of a second before he jerked back as if she were made of red-hot iron. He stumbled a step, staring at his own palm, then at her.
"What..." His voice had dropped to a deadly whisper. "No. That's impossible."
"I didn't..." Aria's voice shook, her body trembling from the aftershocks of the contact. "I don't know what—"
"Every oracle I've consulted says my fated mate died years ago." Kaelen's golden eyes blazed with sudden fury. "So tell me why a wolfless nothing reeks of my mate bond."
Thorne shifted uneasily behind her. "Your Majesty, perhaps—"
"Silence!" Kaelen stepped closer, studying her like a puzzle he wanted to smash. "Dark magic.
That's what this is. They sent you here. Someone who knows enough forbidden arts to fake a bond, to get close enough to strike..."
"I'm not a spy!"
"LIAR!"
The roar cracked through the room like thunder. Kaelen grabbed her arm, yanking her forward until their chests were inches apart. The bond screamed in delight, pulling them together even as their minds warred. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Three months ago," he hissed, his voice soft and vicious, "your pack slaughtered fifteen of my border guards. Gutted them. Strung their bodies from trees like festival decorations."
"That wasn't us—"
"Marcus was twenty-three. Newly mated. His wife gave birth to twins last week." Kaelen's eyes were hard, unyielding glass. "She's still waiting for him to come home. He won't. Because your pack tore his throat out and left him choking on his own blood in the snow."
Each word hit her like a physical blow. Aria's stomach lurched. "I swear to you, we didn't—"
"I found rebel correspondence in your Alpha's belongings." His grip tightened, bruising her skin. "Plans. Strategies. Gold transfers funding the northern insurgency." His thumb pressed against her racing pulse at her wrist. "So either you're complicit, or you're too stupid to notice treason in your own pack. Either way, you're worthless to me."
Her vision blurred. She blinked hard, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
"Except," Kaelen continued, his free hand moving to her stomach, pressing flat against the torn fabric. "You might be useful for one thing. This bond—real or faked—means a child between us would carry royal blood. Leverage. Insurance."
Horror flooded through her, cold and absolute.
"You can't..."
"Here is what's going to happen." His voice dropped, intimate and terrifying. "You will stay in this palace. You will answer every question I ask about your pack's treason. You will tell me who sent you, what they want, and how they faked this bond." His hand pressed harder against her stomach. "And you will give me an heir. When you are heavy with my child, you won't be able to run. And if you try..."
He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear.
"I'll make sure your brother's antidote gets delayed. Wolfsbane poisoning is agonizing in the final stages. He'll beg you to end it. But you won't be able to. Because I'm the only one who can save him."
Aria stopped breathing. The cruelty of it stole the air from the room.
"You're a monster," she whispered.
"Yes." Kaelen released her and stepped back, his face a mask of stone. "I'm a monster who keeps his kingdom safe by any means necessary. Even if that means breaking little wolves who wander into my territory pretending to be something they're not."
He returned to his throne, settling into it like a king who had destroyed a thousand souls before her and would destroy a thousand more.
"So, what will it be? Your body and your answers, or your brother's life? Choose now."
Aria closed her eyes.
She saw Elian coughing blood into her hands.
She saw her mother's grave covered in frost.
She saw every future she'd ever dreamed of burning to ash.
When she opened her eyes, something inside her had gone cold. Hard as winter stone.
"I'll stay," she said. Each word cost a piece of her soul. "I'll answer your questions. I'll give you what you want." She lifted her chin, meeting his golden gaze without flinching. "On one condition. The antidote goes to Elian tonight. Not tomorrow. Not after I've 'proven' myself. Tonight. Or I will find a way to kill myself before you get a single thing from me."
Silence stretched between them, taut as a bowstring.
Kaelen studied her for a long moment. Something flickered across his face—surprise? Respect? Whatever it was, it vanished instantly.
"Thorne. Send the healers to the boy. Full treatment." He didn't look away from Aria. "For now."
Relief crashed into her so hard she nearly fell. "Thank you," she breathed.
"Don't." His smile was ice and knives. "I had the last spy flayed alive in the courtyard. It took six days. She begged for death by the third." He tilted his head to the side. "You're my mate, apparently. So when you finally break, I'll have to be far more creative."
Thorne approached with more chains—silver cuffs that burned even before they touched her skin. As they locked onto her wrists with a heavy clank, the mate bond pulsed like a living heartbeat between her and the King.
And then, her wolf surged.
Silver light exploded behind Aria's eyes.
Power—ancient, furious, and undeniably hers—erupted through her veins like lightning striking upward from the earth. The chains on her wrists glowed white-hot.
"Argh!" Thorne yelped, stumbling back and shaking his burned fingers.
For one breathless moment, Aria's eyes weren't human. They flashed pure, blinding silver.
The light reflected off every surface in the room—the marble pillars, the polished floors, the silver dagger at Kaelen's belt.
Kaelen shot to his feet, his hand flying to that dagger. For the first time since she'd entered this hell, something other than contempt crossed his face.
Fear.
"What the hell—" he started.
Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the light vanished.
Aria sagged in her chains, gasping for air, her heart racing as if she'd run for miles. She didn't understand what had just happened. She didn't understand the power that had moved through her like a river breaking through a dam.
But she felt it still. Coiled in her chest. Waiting.
Kaelen stared at her, his chest heaving. His golden eyes were wide, calculating. She watched him think, watched the pieces click together in his mind.
"Take her to the North Tower," he said quietly. Too quietly. "Double the guards. No one enters without my permission." He turned to Thorne, his voice dropping to a growl. "And find out what the hell she really is. Check every bloodline record. Every prophecy. Every legend about silver wolves."
As Thorne dragged her toward the massive double doors, Aria risked one look back.
Kaelen stood motionless beside his throne, staring at his hands. At the place where he'd touched her. At the fading silver light still dancing across
his skin like moon-touched water.
Their eyes met across the vast expanse of the throne room.
And Aria heard it—the voice of the wolf inside her, ancient and patient, whispering like winter wind through bare trees:
Soon. He'll learn what happens to kings who cage wolves they don't understand.
The doors slammed shut behind her.
In the darkness of the corridor, Aria smiled.