Winter's Claim

Chapter One: The Title I Never Got

The scar on my collarbone had been there for three years before I even knew it was coming.

I stood at the back of Emberfall's great hall in a dress Damon had chosen for me, smoothing the fabric down because my hands needed something to do. Three years of waiting had led to this single night, and I had convinced myself that if I looked calm enough, felt certain enough, the universe would reward me for it.

Damon stood on the platform in his formal robes, and when his eyes found mine across the crowd, something in my chest still tightened the way it had the very first time I saw him. That was the cruelest part of a mate bond. It did not care what a person had done to earn it.

"Three years ago, I found my mate," he said, and the whole hall quieted to hear him. "Aria has worked harder than anyone I know. She has proven her dedication to this pack over and over."

People turned to look at me. I kept my spine straight and my chin level, the posture I had practiced in mirrors so many nights I had lost count.

"But the truth is," Damon continued, and something shifted in his voice that made the floor tilt slightly beneath me, "this pack needs an heir. And Aria, for all she has given us, cannot provide that."

I stopped walking toward the platform. I had not realized I'd started.

"Which is why I am pleased to announce that Celeste Marchetti will stand as Luna of Emberfall."

The hall erupted into applause before I had even processed the sentence. Celeste walked up the opposite side of the platform in white, an actual white gown, and Damon took her hand and raised it for everyone to see. Her other hand rested, unmistakably, over the curve of her stomach.

Three years. Every late shift I had covered without complaint. Every whispered insult from pack members who thought an omega had no business standing that close to their Alpha. All of it had been building toward a door that had just been shut in my face, publicly, with applause.

I did not remember walking out. I remembered the corridor wall against my back, and my own hand pressed over my mouth to keep the sound in.

Celeste found me there. Of course she did. She did not bother pretending sympathy for long.

"You really thought the pack would accept an omega Luna," she said, not unkindly, which somehow made it worse. "I'm carrying his heir. Tell me. What exactly were you bringing to this?"

I did not answer her. I walked past her, into Damon's office, and asked him one question.

"How long have you been sleeping with her?"

He did not deny it. A year, he told me, like it was a reasonable thing to confess. The pack needed stability. I could not give him an heir. He had made a choice.

"Then reject the bond," I said.

He went very still. "Sera, you're not thinking clearly—"

"If you have any respect left for me at all, reject it. Let me go."

He would not agree, not at first, so I did the only thing left to me. I reached for the bond itself and started tearing it loose with everything I had, even though both parties are supposed to need to consent, even though it was not supposed to be possible for one person alone.

Silver light broke from my skin. Damon's breath went ragged. He was in as much pain as I was, which told me everything I needed to know about how much he actually loved me, because he still hesitated.

"Say it," I told him, "or I finish this and it burns us both down."

"I accept the rejection," he said, and the bond tore.

I woke up on the floor with a raised scar across my collarbone where a lifetime of hope used to sit. Damon was slumped against his desk, staring at me like he did not recognize what he had done.

I stood. Everything hurt, but I could stand.

"Where are you going?" he asked as I reached the door.

"Home," I said, and I did not look back.

I called my father from the road, in the cold, with the scar still burning under my collar.

"I'm coming home," I told him.

There was a pause, and then, in the same even tone he used for trade negotiations, he said, "The three years are up. Time to honor our agreement."

He did not ask if I was hurt. He did not ask if I was safe. He only reminded me of the debt.

I stood there in the dark a long time after he hung up, because I already understood that whatever came next would not be softer than what I was leaving behind. It would only be colder.