Secretly Married to the Lycan Tycoon

The moon never lies. It hangs like a polished blade over the Stone Court, spilling cold light on elders in silver-trimmed cloaks, on ranked wolves holding their breath, on the onyx sigil beneath my bare feet. “Lynn Xi,” Elder Celes says, voice clean as ice. “Step into the circle and let the moon judge.” I’m a healer. I believe in pulse, breath, numbers. Rituals are a different kind of anatomy—but I walk into the circle anyway. Moonlight tightens to a point, then lashes down. Heat bites my wrist. I keep my mouth shut while a crescent rises under the skin, a slim vein of starlight running through it as if the dawn decided to live in me. The glow stretches outward, seeking its other half. Across the circle, Clay Mercer flinches. For one blessed heartbeat, silver threads braid between us. We were right, I think. We were always right. Then Veronica Hale puts a perfect hand on his sleeve. The hum of the court sharpens. Everyone knows the Hale name—votes on the council, money in every committee. Elder Celes’s expression doesn’t change. It doesn’t have to. “I request to speak,” Clay says, not looking at me. “Granted,” Celes replies. Clay faces me like a stranger who borrowed my childhood. “For the future of the Ridge,” he says, smooth now, “I—Clay Mercer—reject you as my mate.” The world doesn’t end. It goes quiet. No wind in the pines. No shifting paws. Only the hum of moonlight against my skin and the echo of words that don’t un-say themselves. Protocol waits. So do a hundred eyes. “I accept,” I tell the night, and my voice doesn’t c***k. I’m grateful for that. The bond snaps—wet silk tearing in winter. Pain rings my ribs and then drains away, leaving a faint silver scar where a promise should have burned. “On what grounds?” Elder Celes asks, gaze on Clay. “Stability,” Clay answers. “The Ridge needs alliances the council will respect. The Luna must be… more.” “More what?” I ask. He looks at me for one breath. Regret flickers and dies. “More than you.” I nod once because if I don’t I’ll break in a way that pleases the crowd. Veronica’s lashes lower. The moon crowns her hair like she earned it. Celes turns at last, assessing me the way he assesses budgets and border reports. “By protocol, rejection severs bonds and rights,” he says. “Your place in the Ridge is forfeit. The clinic the Xi line maintained may continue to serve, but not under pack protection.” “No guards. No stipends. No supply priority.” I translate my sentence because I’m a practical woman. “A creative woman will adapt,” he says, already done with me. I bow because I refuse to leave without ritual. Then I walk away. No one stops me. The path down from the court is a tunnel of wet pine. My grandmother’s stone house waits behind the lodge, small, neat, and full of ghosts. Herbs dry on strings above the sink. The ledger drawer opens the way it did when I was eight. The numbers don’t care about my scar. Rent due for the alley clinic in the human city—two days. Supplier past due—again. Noor Street orphanage low on fuel. Numbers show their teeth and wait to be fed. The ancient wall phone vibrates like a trapped insect. I lift it. “Xi Clinic.” “Ms. Xi? Noor Street.” A woman’s voice, too brisk to be kind. “Landlord says if the donation isn’t here by Friday—well. You know what he’ll do.” Change the locks. Again. “I know,” I say, swallowing air and fear. “Tell Mrs. Bennett to double-lock the back. Put the little ones in the middle room. I’ll handle it.” “You always say that.” “And I’m always right.” She hangs up before I can confess that angels don’t get thrown out of packs. I peel off the ceremonial dress and shove it into the fireplace. Silk shrivels into lace-thin ash. Jeans. Rain jacket. Stethoscope. Ledger. Habit feels like armor. Outside, rain slides in sideways. The lodge windows glow warm. I don’t look at them. A black sedan whispers by on the ridge road, glass dark as a lake at night. A still figure sits in the backseat—too composed to be ordinary. My wolf lifts her head, curious. The car doesn’t slow. At the gate, the guards pretend not to notice my shaking hands. I’m a civilian now. Civilians aren’t logged. The human city hits like breath after drowning. Diesel and hot bread and wet iron. On the skyline: WALCOTT GROUP in ten stories of glass. The crown marquee rolls over: ANNUAL CHARITY GALA — TONIGHT — KESTREL HOTEL, SKY BALLROOM. I tip my face into the rain. Walcott money funds the bright parts of darkness and paves over the rest. None of that keeps children warm. At the bus stop, a flyer hangs crooked. Someone has scrawled across it: THE MOON DOESN’T CHOOSE WRONG. PEOPLE DO. I laugh. It sounds like something cleanly cracked. The bus coughs up to the curb. I drop coins, take the last seat by the fogged window. As we lurch forward, a second black sedan slides into the next lane, twin to the one on the ridge. In the glass, a pair of winter-sea eyes meet mine for a heartbeat. They don’t flinch. The bus jounces away. The sedan falls behind like a thought I can’t afford. My wrist itches under the thin silver scar. I press it to the cold window. The Kestrel’s glass facade glows ahead—gold chandeliers, lilies, people dressed like they’re immune to weather and consequences. The doormen watch the rain with prey patience. A single gunshot cracks the night. The bus jerks. The driver shouts. People duck, scream, film. I’m already moving—down the steps, into air that tastes like metal. The alley beside the hotel opens like a throat. There’s no second shot. A man in a security uniform is on the ground, shoulder bleeding hot and red. Two bystanders press in the wrong place. “Hands off,” I say, dropping to my knees. “You—pulse. Palmar side, yes. You—scarf.” “It’s silk,” she says, horrified. “It’s absorbent.” I wad the scarf, slide my fingers under the shoulder blade, feel the path and the absence of an exit. High and lateral. No frothing breath. Better than bad. He jerks, teeth bared. “Stay with me,” I tell him, steady. “Name?” “Roth,” he grinds out. The name clicks—news crawls, Walcott’s security. “Team—” “No talking. Breathe.” I lean pressure and count with the rise of his chest. “Call an ambulance,” I snap without looking up. “GSW, stable airway, possible subclavian. Two minutes is ideal.” “Step away,” a man with an earpiece orders, skidding to a stop. “Unless you can clamp a vessel I can’t see,” I say, “don’t.” “Listen to her,” another voice cuts in—low, even, used to obedience. I glance up. Arden Walcott looks exactly like the billboards promise—sharp lines, expensive quiet—and somehow more dangerous. Rain slides off his coat like weather knows better. He doesn’t crowd me. He doesn’t look away from the blood, either. “Make space,” he says, and the crowd obeys. Roth’s pulse bucks; I adjust pressure. “Show me you can follow directions,” I tell him, because humor thins panic. The ambulance arrives in a flare of light and competence. I give the medics a crisp summary. On three we swap my scarf for their bandage. The wound oozes instead of fountains. Not safe. Better. They load Roth and roar off. The alley exhales. I stand, soaked to the knees. The silk scarf, ruined and black, goes into my bag because evidence shouldn’t wash down a drain. “Name,” the earpiece man tries again, less sure. “We’ll need a statement, Ms.—” “Xi,” Arden says before I decide how anonymous I want to be. He files information like other men breathe. “Lynn Xi.” The way he says it puts weight on the syllables. “I don’t have time for a statement,” I tell him. “You have cameras.” “Walk with me,” he says. “No.” He takes one step closer, heat reaching me through rain and adrenaline. He isn’t touching me. It feels like gravity anyway. “You stabilized my head of security outside my event,” he says, calm as a balance sheet. “If I let you vanish into the dark, the board calls me negligent and my lawyers invent new words for it. Five minutes.” Noor Street needs fuel, not pride. “Five,” I say. The Sky Ballroom is another planet—lilies, galaxy chandelier, a hum of money. A banner reads Annual Charity Gala; a smaller sign below it promises Vow Renewals & Civil Ceremonies Available — Sponsored by Walcott Group. Of course the mayor wanted photos. Arden steers me through a service door into a small lounge. He doesn’t sit. He braces his hands on a chair back like a man who never fidgets, except for now. “Thank you,” he says, and I can tell he doesn’t say it often. “Roth’s wife won’t have to bury him because of you.” “Because we didn’t move him wrong,” I correct. “And because luck slowed down.” He studies me—wet hair, scuffed jeans, a stethoscope that refuses to be subtle. “You were heading somewhere.” “People always need something.” He accepts the non-answer. “I need something too.” “Let me guess,” I say, tipping my chin toward the ballroom. “You need to be seen as a man who never loses control.” “I am that man,” he says simply. “But tonight the room is five rooms—board, donors, investors, and other interests who prefer the moon to the market. They all think they have claims. The fastest way to quiet rumor is to give it a better story.” “And I’m the story?” I laugh once. “I’ve done my spectacle for the night.” “You’re not a spectacle,” he says. “You’re useful.” I should hate that. I don’t. Usefulness pays for heat. “What do you want, Mr. Walcott?” “For the next three hours, a date the cameras can’t pre-write,” he says. “After that, a personal life the board and council read as stability instead of a blank space they can fill.” “Hire a model.” “I’ve hired models.” His mouth tilts. “They travel with men who think they own stock in their smiles. I need a spine. Preferably one that tells me no.” “What’s in it for me?” His gaze flicks to my bag—the shape of a ledger is obvious to anyone who’s ever carried one. “What do you need?” “Noor Street’s fuel. Rent. The clinic’s stipend vanished with my pack name tonight. Supplies. And space to work without your PR swallowing me.” “Numbers,” he says. I give them. In this room they sound absurd. He doesn’t blink. “Done,” he says. “In writing.” “My counsel is upstairs. You will read before you sign.” “Why me?” I ask, hating that I need to know. “Because you didn’t look at a bleeding man and see a headline,” he says. “Because you told me no. Because my instincts are interested.” He inhales, barely, like the air itself is data. The wolf inside me goes very still. “Because you smell like rain and iron and something I don’t have a name for.” “Terrible reasons.” “They’re mine.” A discreet sign over my shoulder promises Civil Ceremonies Available with the same cheer hotels use for Restrooms Downstairs. Arden follows my glance, then meets my eyes. “There’s a clerk in the next room,” he says. “I have counsel. You have a cause. This city has cameras. And I have a problem that requires, immediately, a wife.” The word lands like clean metal. “You can’t be serious.” “I’m efficient.” He closes the distance until breath is a shared thing. “Three hours,” he says. “Smile where I need you to smile. Walk where I need you to walk. One dance if the music tries to embarrass me. You will be paid, and your causes will be covered.” “And after three hours?” “Then we talk about a year.” I choke on nothing. “A year of what?” “Order,” he says. “You make mine look unassailable. I make yours possible. Paper first. Feelings optional.” “What are the rules?” “One year. Public where necessary, private where we prefer. No touching without consent. No lies that wound beyond repair. No interference with your clinic. You don’t ask me to be a savior. I don’t ask you to be an ornament.” “If I break one?” “You lose the cushion. I’ll still pay fuel and rent. I’m not a monster. I am, however, a man with a board and”—a tiny glance ceiling-ward, like he can see the moon through marble—“neighbors.” “And if you break one?” “Then I lose the thing I hate losing,” he says simply. “Face.” Rain drums softer on the window. Somewhere outside, the quartet starts a love song for people who mistake performance for safety. I remember Celes saying creative like a sentence. Veronica’s hand on a sleeve that wasn’t hers. Clay’s more than you. Thirty-seven names. Arden Walcott looks at me the way a man looks at a contract he intends to honor. “Marry me,” he says, quiet as thunder. “Tonight.” The silver scar on my wrist warms, like the moon is listening. “Show me the papers,” I say.