ALPHA 'S CONTRACT BRIDE

Chapter Nine: The First Attack

The black feather on Elena’s pillow had not moved by the time the first light of dawn slipped through the narrow window of her chambers. It lay there like an accusation, black as soot and sharp at the edge, and it did not belong to any bird that hunted in Blackwood territory. Elena knew that much because Kiera had drilled it into her for days. _Brown for forest hawks. White for snow owls. Black for border rogues._ And rogues did not leave gifts on a Luna’s pillow unless they intended to kill her in her sleep. Elena did not touch the feather. She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands clasped tight in her lap and stared at it until her eyes burned because if she touched it, it would become real, and if it was real, then someone had been inside the wall, inside her room, and close enough to slit her throat while she breathed.

Damien was gone. His side of the bed was cold to the touch, and his sword was no longer in its stand by the door. That told her more than words ever could. When the Alpha left his sword, he intended to return quickly. When the sword was gone, he intended to kill. She dressed in silence. The leathers she now wore fit better than they had a week ago. Her hands did not shake when she strapped the knife to her thigh. She braided her hair back until it would not catch on anything, and she walked out of her chambers with her shoulders back because a Luna did not cower when there was blood in the air. The feather remained on the pillow. She would show it to him when the estate was not bleeding.

Guards stood at every intersection with their hands on their weapons and their eyes scanning the stone walls as if the stone itself might betray them. Kiera intercepted her before she reached the great staircase, and the older woman’s face was drawn tight with worry that she was trying very hard to hide.

“You saw it,” Kiera said, and it was not a question.

“I saw it,” Elena said. “The wall was sealed last night. So how did it get in?”

“That is what the Alpha is trying to break out of someone’s skull right now,” Kiera said. “He is at the east wall. You will not go to him.”

Elena opened her mouth to argue because every instinct in her body screamed to run to him, but Kiera put a hand on her arm and held her still. “Luna do not run to the fight,” Kiera said. “Luna hold the estate together while he is gone. If you run now, you tell the pack that you are still a girl and not a Luna. Do you understand me?”

Elena swallowed and nodded because she did understand. She hated it, but she understood. So she followed Kiera to the kitchens instead, where the ovens were already hot and the long tables were covered with cloth for bandages and bread for a siege that no one wanted to name out loud.

---

By midmorning the entire estate knew something was wrong, and by noon no one was pretending otherwise. Warriors who had been on outer patrol were called back in pairs. The great gates were locked and barred. No one entered or left without the Alpha’s mark on their wrist, and even then they were searched twice. Elena worked beside the other women without pause. She cut cloth until her fingers were raw. She boiled herbs until her eyes stung from the steam. She stacked bread and filled water skins because a Luna did not sit on a chair and wait to be protected. A Luna made sure her pack would not starve if the walls were tested.

A young warrior burst into the kitchens with blood on his sleeve and fear in his eyes. He could not have been older than seventeen. “Tracks,” he said to Kiera, breathless. “East wall. Three sets. Human boots leading to the stone, then nothing. They shifted after they climbed.”

Kiera’s mouth thinned into a line. “Rogues,” she said.

Elena’s knife slipped and opened a thin cut across her finger. She did not cry out. She wrapped the cut with a strip of cloth and kept cutting because if she stopped, her hands would shake. Three rogues. Human form to climb. Wolf form to kill. One of them had stood over her bed last night and decided not to finish the job. She did not know why, and that was worse than knowing.

The kitchen girl she had taught to chop carrots two days ago looked up at her with wide, terrified eyes. “Luna… are they coming for you?”

Elena set the knife down and met the girl’s eyes. She forced her voice to be steady even though her heart was pounding against her ribs. “Then we will be ready,” she said. “Keep working. Fear does not fill bellies. Work does.”

---

*Damien returned at noon, and when he walked into the estate the noise died.* His shirt was torn at the shoulder. Dirt was ground into his boots. Blood that was not his own was dried on his knuckles. His silver eyes were cold in a way that made even the elders step back. He did not speak to the crowd. He did not give orders to the warriors. He walked straight to Elena as if no one else existed.

“You left the chambers,” he said. His voice was low and rough.

“I held the center,” Elena said. She did not drop her eyes. “Like you told me a Luna must.”

He studied her for a long second, and something in his jaw worked once before he nodded. “Come,” he said.

He took her to the Council room where Rowan and two other elders were already waiting. The black feather lay on the table like a dead thing. Someone had found it and brought it there. Damien did not sit. He planted both hands on the table and leaned forward until the wood groaned.

“Three rogues crossed the east wall last night,” he said. “They shifted to human, climbed the stone, shifted back inside, and one of them stood over the Luna’s bed. They left a feather and they left alive. Explain that.”

Rowan looked at Elena instead of Damien. “How did they know where she slept?”

“I do not know,” Elena said. “But I know who sent them.”

Damien’s head turned to her slowly. “Say it.”

“Selene,” Elena said. “No one else uses black feathers. No one else has a reason to risk the wall for a human girl.”

The room went quiet.

Damien picked up the feather and closed his fist around it until the quill snapped. “Then we hunt tonight,” he said.

---

*The afternoon was lost to preparation, and Elena was not put aside this time.* Damien found her in the armory and handed her a sword that was real steel, not wood, and armor that had been fitted to her body overnight.

“You are Luna,” he said. “You will be in the second line. You will fight. You will not die.”

Elena took the sword. It was heavier than she expected, and it felt right in her hand in a way that frightened her. “And if Selene comes?”

“Then I will kill her,” Damien said. “But you will not be alone when it happens. Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

They trained until her arms burned and her lungs ached.

---

Night fell hard and fast, and the forest beyond the wall was wrong. It was too quiet. Damien led twenty warriors to the east wall, and Elena walked in the second line with her sword at her side and her heart beating too loud in her ears. She did not pray. She did not beg. She watched.

They waited.

An hour passed. Two.

Then the wind shifted, and Elena smelled it before anyone else did. Smoke. And beneath it, something sweet and rotten, like flowers left to die in water.

“Fire,” a warrior said.

On the far side of the estate, on the west wall, flames climbed into the sky.

“It’s a trap,” Damien said. “They pulled us east to hit us west.”

He turned without hesitation. “All of you, back. Now.”

They ran.

---

The west gate was chaos. Smoke filled the air until it was hard to breathe. Wolves shouted orders. Water was being thrown on stone. And on top of the burning wall, with the fire behind her like a crown, stood Selene.

Her silver hair was loose and bright in the firelight. Her ice blue eyes found Elena across the courtyard as if there was no one else there.

“Luna,” Selene called, and her voice carried over the roar of the flames. “You took what was mine.”

Elena stepped forward before anyone could hold her back. “You were never Luna,” she said. “The Moon chose.”

Selene smiled, and it was not kind. “We will see what the Moon thinks when you are dead.”

She lifted her bow.

Damien moved. He did not think. He did not shout. He crossed the space between them in one motion and drove Elena to the ground, and the arrow that would have taken her heart sank into his shoulder instead.

“Alpha!” warriors screamed.

Elena crawled to him on her knee, her hands were shaking so hard she could not touch him without hurting him. “No,” she said. “No, you don’t—”

Damien caught her wrist with fingers that were strong despite the wound. “Look at me,” he said. “Breathe. I am not dying tonight. Not for her.”

Selene laughed from the wall. “You cannot shield her forever, Alpha.”

Damien did not look at her. He only looked at Elena. “Get up,” he said. “Luna do not kneel in fire. Luna end it.”

Elena’s tears were hot on her face. Her hands were shaking. But she stood. She lifted her sword. And she looked up at Selene with fire in her own eyes.

---

The attack broke. Warriors flooded the gate. Arrows flew. Selene vanished into the forest before anyone could reach her.

But Damien’s blood was still on Elena’s hands when they laid him on a bed in the infirmary.

Kiera worked without speaking. Rowan stood in the corner and watched.

Elena did not move from his side.

Hours passed in silence.

When Damien’s eyes opened, the room was dark except for a single lamp.

“You bled for me,” Elena said.

“You lived,” Damien said. His voice was rough, but his hand found hers. “That is all that matters.”

He touched her face with fingers that were cold but steady. “The first attack is over,” he said. “But she will come again. And next time, you will be ready.”

Elena pressed his hand to her forehead. “I will be,” she said.

Outside, the estate was quiet. The fire was out. The wounded were being tended.

But near the west gate, in the wet ash, a warrior found a second black feather.

It was not Selene’s.

It was marked with a silver crescent that did not belong to any pack Elena knew.