Chapter 10 The three moon bargain

Alpha Vane sat at the table near the window, a stack of border reports spread beneath one hand, the other wrapped around a glass he hadn't touched in an hour. The fire had burned low enough that most of the room sat in shadow, all but the small circle of candlelight where he worked.

The door opened.

Elena stepped through it wrapped in nothing but a towel, her silver hair still damp and dark at the ends, water beading along her collarbone. She didn't say anything at first. She let him look.

Vane turned and saw her, but returned his gaze to the reports.

"Thornewood Academy," he said coldly.

"She leaves tomorrow." Elena crossed the room slowly and perched herself on the edge of the table, directly between him and the reports he'd stopped reading.

"Why there of all places?"

"Because she needs to heal."

Vane let out a sharp, humorless sound that was not quite a laugh. "She is the daughter of the Alpha of Alphas. She does not need healing. She needs to find a proper mate. An Alpha who can erase the stench of that Beta from our history."

"There are wolves at Thornewood," Elena said, her voice deliberately light.

"Southern wolves." Vane stood, and the movement put him close enough that his hand found her waist without either of them deciding it should. "They bow to me because they fear me, but they are rebellious. They resent our Northern laws. They want independence. Putting our heir in their territory is a risk."

Elena's hand cupped his jaw. Her fingers traced the rough stubble, guiding his face down toward hers with no real force at all, only the certainty of a woman who had never once needed to force him. "They fear you too much to touch her, Vane. Lyra is not just your heir. She is your daughter. And she is broken."

"She should have listened to me," he growled.

"She was in love."

"Love." The word ground violently against his teeth. "We are royalty. Love shouldn't be the first thing we consider. We have duty. We do not have the luxury of love when the bloodline is at stake."

Elena's eyes flashed. Amber bled into her natural brown as her wolf surfaced. "And yet you marked me. I wasn't your fated mate, Vane. She died before you could mark her and you chose me. You claimed me. Not because of duty. Because you wanted me," she whispered, a reminder of their history. She let the towel slip a fraction lower at her shoulder, not by accident.

Vane went perfectly silent. His grey eyes searched hers.

"I knew you would be my perfect Luna," he replied, smiling.

"Then just don't lecture me on the weakness of love."

He looked away, his jaw tightening. She pulled his face right back, refusing to let him hide, and this time she didn't stop at his jaw. Her palm slid down his chest, slow and deliberate, watching exactly where his attention went.

"Let her go. Let her find herself before she finds a mate."

"And if she does not find one?" Vane asked, though his voice had already lost half its edge.

"Then she will be like me." Elena leaned closer, her breath warm against his ear. "A chosen mate. Not a fated one."

He stared at her for a moment, and she could see the exact second the argument in his head lost ground to the woman standing in front of him.

"The pack will talk." His voice dropped to a lethal rasp, though it had gone soft for an entirely different reason now. "They look at her and they see a crack in our foundation."

"Then let them talk." Her hand tightened on his jaw.

"Sometimes I wish you had given me a son." Vane said.

"Lyra is better and stronger than any son you could have. Just give her a chance to prove it."

Vane was quiet. The only sound in the chamber was the fire settling in the grate. Then he pulled her against his chest, his teeth grazing her neck in an undeniable reminder of his ownership.

"If she fails again..."

"She will not."

"If she brings shame to this house again..."

"She will not."

He bit down. Hard.

Elena gasped, her claws digging into his shoulders, shredding the linen of his shirt. He held her there, his fangs deep in her throat, her blood hot on his tongue.

The anxiety in Vane's chest did not vanish, but it shifted into something hungrier entirely.

He swept the reports off the table with one arm. They scattered across the floor in a flutter of parchment.

Elena watched them fall. Then she looked up at him. He lifted her, her legs locking around his waist, the towel already lost somewhere between the table and his hands. She met his gaze with a fierce defiance that only fueled his need to break it.

He laid her back on the table. There were no gentle words between them. Their connection was a battle, a constant push and pull of power and surrender. He pinned her wrists to the wood and stepped between her parted thighs.

Elena threw her head back, a raw moan tearing from her throat as he claimed her fiercely. She met his feral pace, her body arching upward to take every ounce of his relentless intensity, and somewhere beneath the pleasure, a small, satisfied thought settled into her.

The vast room echoed with her breathless sounds and his deep grunts. She cried out as he bit her shoulder, marking her anew as pleasure crashed over her in a wave. Vane followed a second later, his body tensing as he poured his strength into her.

He stayed pressed against her for a long time, his breath hitching in the crook of her neck.

Finally, Vane pulled back. He straightened his clothes. Elena sat up, unbothered by her own nakedness, watching him with the calm satisfaction of a woman certain she had already won.

"You think you have won?" Vane asked, his voice low.

"I won the very moment you looked at me." A slow smile pulled at her lips.

Vane smirked. He turned his back to her, walked toward the doors, and barked a single name.

"Enzo."

The Lead Enforcer stepped into the doorway a moment later, careful to keep his eyes on the floor rather than the woman still seated on the table behind his Alpha.

"Send word to the three Northern Alpha heirs. Lukas, Bran, and Jaxon," Vane commanded. "Tell them to withdraw from their current schools. All three enroll at Thornewood, effective immediately."

Behind him, Elena's smile faltered.

"Tell them my daughter is there," Vane continued. "She has three full moons to find a fated mate. If she fails to, any of them who can claim her can take her as a chosen mate."

"Vane." Elena's voice had lost all its warmth. "You said you would let her breathe."

"I am letting her breathe." He didn't turn around. "I never said I would stop watching her do it."

Elena's frown deepened, the first real crack in the certainty she'd walked in wearing. "You planned this before I ever came through that door."

Vane finally looked back at her, and there was nothing cold in his smile at all, which was somehow worse.

"Maybe we both win tonight, my love." He crossed the room and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Depends entirely on what you think victory looks like."