Ten years ago, I bit the Alpha and made him my mate. Tonight, he finally took me to his bed. Then he lit a cigarette and said, "I'm marrying the vampire princess." Not me. Never me. And before sunrise, I decided to die. The text had come at dusk. Tower. Moonrise. Don't be late. In ten years, Kaden Blackwood had never let me into the Alpha's tower. I came to him through the back door of an old gatekeeper's cottage at the edge of the woods. Like a secret he was ashamed to keep and too greedy to give up. So I let myself hope. Stupid girl. I wore the green dress he'd bought me. The one that made his eyes go gold. The stairs spiraled up and up. Every step, I thought: He's going to claim me. In front of the pack. Finally. The door opened. Kaden stood against the glass, the whole of Blackwood territory silver under the moon behind him. Pines. Rivers. Three hundred wolves who called him Alpha. He looked like a god. My god. "I've never been up here," I breathed. "No." He crossed to me in three strides. "You haven't." His mouth took mine. Hard. Hungry. He pressed me against the window, the whole pack's lights glittering beneath us, and I let him have me the way I always had. Completely. "Say you're mine," I gasped. He didn't answer. He never answered. Afterward, I traced the scar over his heart. A crescent of my teeth. My mark. The one I gave him the night I turned eighteen and felt the bond snap into place like a lock. He'd never marked me back. "Why tonight?" I whispered. "Why here?" He reached for his cigarette case. "I'm taking a Luna." My heart stopped. Then it soared. "Seraphina Vale," he said. "Lucien Vale's daughter. The wedding is on the Blood Moon. Three months." For a second, I didn't understand the language. "A vampire?" "A treaty. A hundred years of war ends with one wedding." "Kaden." I sat up. The sheet fell away. "I'm your mate. We've been together ten years—" "We've slept together for ten years. Don't confuse the two." "I love you." "You love an Alpha's protection." He exhaled smoke into my face. "You're wolfless, Wren. A wolfless Luna would get this pack slaughtered. You were never going to be anything but convenient." Convenient. Something inside me cracked clean through. "Get out," he said. "This is—" "GET. OUT." He stood, magnificent and monstrous. "Rhys will send you the commission. You'll forge the moonsilver wedding blade. You're the only one alive who can touch the metal." "You want me to make HER wedding blade?" "Your father's debt to this pack isn't paid. Unless you'd like me to call it." There it was. The leash. Always the leash. I yanked my dress on with shaking hands. "That mark on your chest? I bit it into you when you swore you'd never let me go." "Don't be dramatic." "Dramatic?" I laughed, and it came out broken. "You just asked your mate to forge weapons for your bride." His hand closed around my throat. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to remind me who owned whom. "Watch. Your. Mouth." He let me go with a shove. At the door, I didn't turn around. "I hope she drains you dry," I whispered. "The way you just drained me." I made it to my truck before the screaming started. I drove to my forge in the old mill and burned everything. Ten years of letters I never sent. Sketches of his face drawn at 3 AM. A pressed wildflower from the only picnic he ever took me on. Burn. Burn. BURN. Then I called my father. "Little bird? It's late—" "Make me disappear, Dad. New name. New papers. Seven days." Silence. "What did he do?" "He's marrying a vampire. And I just realized I spent ten years as his whore." At 3 AM, my phone lit up. Unknown number. A photo. Kaden and a porcelain-pale blonde in a candlelit restaurant. His hand on her lower back. Her lips at his throat, fangs just grazing. Your replacement. Know your place, mutt. I typed: Noted. Then I threw the phone into the fire. Wren Hale, the girl who loved Kaden Blackwood, had seven days left to live. After that, she'd be dead. And I'd make sure he never found the body.