Chapter 3
(Serena's POV)
He was young. That was my first thought. Twenty-four years old — younger than most of the Pack's senior figures in the room. Yet standing there, no one would have questioned his right to be.
Six-foot-three, shoulders broad enough to fill a doorframe. He wore a black button-down with the cuffs rolled up, baring forearms sheened with a faint layer of sweat, the tendons and veins rising along the backs of his hands. His jaw was sharp enough to cut glass. His lips were pressed into a flat, hard line.
His dominance was completely unrestrained.
A dense, aggressive cedar scent radiated off him — not a fragrance so much as a force, like an invisible hand closing around the back of every neck in the room.
The round-faced man beside me swallowed, and without quite meaning to, began to bow.
The entire hall was bowing.
I didn't bow.
These were the hands from my dreams. The ones that had pinned me down into the mattress, gripping my sides so hard the bruises took three days to fade.
Fear? I waited for it to surge up. It didn't come.
Instead — and I couldn't explain it — my heart slammed against my ribs, wild and completely out of my control.
Clara let out a strange, low whine.
I didn't have words for it. Rather than bristling at him the way she would at an enemy, she was straining forward, frantic, desperate to throw herself at him.
"Settle down," I snapped at her internally.
"But his scent—" She whimpered, plaintive.
"Shut it. That's just pheromone suppression from a high-ranking Alpha. Every she-wolf reacts this way." I forced her back down.
Clara retreated, reluctant and sulking, but the restlessness didn't fully leave — it smoldered in my chest like an ember that refused to die.
This wasn't a Mate bond. It couldn't be.
Her reaction was nothing more than an instinctive response to a dominant Alpha. That was all.
I drew a slow breath and pulled my attention away from my own body.
Dominic moved through the crowd toward the head table. The crowd parted for him automatically. He didn't look at anyone as he walked — gaze fixed straight ahead, chin lifted slightly. This was a man who had probably never needed to watch where he was going. The path simply cleared itself.
Miles had found his way back to my side at some point.
His arm slid around my waist again. His fingers tightened briefly, then went loose.
I glanced at him.
His eyes were locked on Dominic's retreating back, and what lived in them was hunger — a naked, unguarded craving for power.
"Where did you go?" I asked, keeping my voice light.
"Sorry." His tone was dismissive. "Ran into someone from my department. We talked for a minute."
The words were barely out before his arm dropped from my waist. He had already half-turned toward Howard — then stopped, as if he'd just remembered something.
"Don't wander off. I need to go work the room."
I watched his barely-contained excitement carry him away, and slowly lifted a glass of champagne from the table.
If everything from that dream was real — if Miles was already this eager to throw me into the pit — then I was not going to make the same mistake twice. I was not going to smile and drink the glass he handed me, let myself be moved around like a piece on a board, and end up branded a whore while my mother paid the price.
Pack law was clear: a bonded pair could only be dissolved with both parties' consent, or by direct Alpha intervention.
I looked toward Dominic.
He had taken his seat at the head of the room.
A cluster of elders had already descended on him — pushing, as they always did, on the matter of choosing a Luna.
His jaw was rigid. The fingers holding his glass had gone white at the knuckle. Behind his eyes, an irritable fury was gathering.
Now.
In the moment he turned his head away from them, impatient, his gaze sweeping across the floor below — I raised my champagne glass and smiled at him.
Just the faint lift of a corner of my mouth. The outside corners of my eyes curved into soft crescents. Like I was carrying a secret meant only for him.
Daisy's smile.
In that nightmare — before they sent me to his room — Howard had handed me an old photograph and made me practice it. Made me learn how to wear that dead girl's expression.
So when it surfaced on my face now, it came as naturally as breathing.
Dominic's pupils contracted. Something passed through them — a flicker of shock he nearly couldn't contain.
He recovered in two seconds, looked away, and tipped the rest of his drink back in one swallow. But I saw it clearly. His breathing had gone unsteady.
I dropped my gaze, brought the champagne to my lips, and let it hide the cold curve of my smile.
This time, no one was carrying me in like cargo.
This time, I was going to make the Alpha come to me himself.
Less than two minutes later, Dominic set down his glass, rose from his seat, and came down the steps.
He didn't even acknowledge the elders calling after him. He walked straight through the crowd toward my table, those eyes with their faint undercurrent of dark gold never once leaving my face.
My pulse kicked up. Clara went very, very still inside me, every sense sharpening.
I was about to stand when a hand shot in from my left and closed around my wrist.
Miles stepped in front of me.
His face was alight with a joy he couldn't even bother to disguise. He pulled me toward the staircase to the second floor. "Come with me."
I followed him up the steps, obedient and unhurried, and caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye: Dominic had stopped a few paces back. He was watching, cold and still, staring at the hand wrapped around my wrist.
As soon as we rounded into the quiet corridor on the second floor, Miles pressed close to my ear, his breath warm and rushed, like a dog angling for a reward.
"Serena, this is our shot. Howard just told me — the Alpha's in a foul mood tonight because of the elders, and he wants company. Go up and keep him entertained, get him in a good mood, and the Gamma assistant position next month is mine."
He steered me forward, lowering his voice to an urgent murmur. "When you go in, be good. Don't say anything to upset him."
Word for word. The exact same script as the dream.
The only difference was that the version of me in the dream had already swallowed the drugged drink, gone soft and compliant, and let him steer her wherever he wanted.
Right now, my mind was clearer than it had ever been.
I stopped walking.
"Miles."
He turned. His eyebrows lifted. That gentle, attentive smile was still in place.
"What? Don't drag your feet — the Alpha won't want to be kept waiting."
"Do you remember what today is?" I held his gaze. "One month since our wedding. I'm your wife. The Mate you swore to take care of for the rest of your life."
The smile froze. His eyes slid away from mine.
"Serena, can you not do this right now?" He kept his voice low, but the irritation was bleeding through. "You think this doesn't cost me anything? Every day I'm in Admin fetching tea and hauling files around for people, pulling a salary that's barely worth mentioning. I'm sick of it. I am done with being nobody."
He exhaled and put both hands on my shoulders, pulling his face into something pitiful.
"I'm begging you, sweetheart. It's just conversation. I swear to the Moon Goddess, no one will ever know. Everything I'm fighting for — isn't it all so that you and your mother can have a better life?"
When I heard my mother come out of his mouth in that tone, my whole body began to shake. My eyes burned. I nearly laughed in his face.
I had already seen through him downstairs. I had known exactly what he was. And yet hearing it out loud — hearing him say these words while actively trying to push me into another man's bed — carved something out of my chest anyway. A dull, tearing thing, like flesh cut with a blunt edge.
"All right," I said.
I raised one finger, brushed the single tear that had escaped the corner of my eye, and looked back up at him with a soft, yielding smile.
"I'll do whatever you say. But Miles — don't come to regret this."
Something flickered in his expression. Then greed smothered it.
He reached into his pocket and pressed a small glass vial into my palm.
"Drink this before you go in. It'll smooth out your voice — you might need it later."
Enchanted Herb.
Colorless. Odorless. Within five minutes of ingestion, it strips away every last trace of a person's will, leaving nothing but want.
