Marked By My Father's Enemy

CHLOE'S POV The sound of a woman moaning stopped me cold outside Brad's private office. I had been holding a glass of champagne, ready to toast the biggest night of my life. Our engagement announcement. The night Brad Armstrong was supposed to claim me as his chosen mate in front of both our packs, our families, and two hundred guests packed into the penthouse ballroom above us. Instead, I stood frozen in the private hallway, listening to sounds that no fiancée should ever have to hear. I pushed the door open. Brad had Vanessa pressed against his desk, her silver dress shoved up around her hips, her fingers knotted in his hair. My best friend of eight years. The woman who had sat with me this morning helping me get ready for tonight. They both froze. Nobody moved for a long second. Then Vanessa turned her head and smiled at me. "Chloe," Brad breathed. He pulled back from her slowly. Not fast. Not like a man caught doing something wrong. Slowly, like a man who had already made his choice. "I was going to tell you tonight." "Tell me what?" My voice came out flat. I did not expect that. "Vanessa and I found out last week." He straightened his shirt, cool as ever. "She is my fated mate." Fated mate. Those two words landed in my chest like stones dropping into deep water. In our world, werewolves could recognize their fated mates by scent. It was most powerful under the Full Mating Moon, which was tonight. A fated bond was ancient and unbreakable. It could override every promise, every chosen relationship, every plan a wolf had ever made. I had always known I was not Brad's fated mate. We had been together for three years on a chosen bond, one our families had built carefully. His billionaire empire, my family name, two powerful packs with decades of shared history. He was the Alpha heir of Armstrong Industries. I was supposed to stand beside him as his Luna. I had believed everything he told me. "You knew last week," I said slowly. He had the nerve to look tired. "I was waiting for the right moment." The right moment. While he held my hand at dinner on Thursday. While he planned tonight's event. While I stood in a fitting room this morning choosing which earrings to wear. "Were you still going to go through with the announcement?" I asked. He opened his mouth. The answer was already on his face before any sound came out. He had been going to stand beside me tonight and announce our engagement anyway. Keep Vanessa somewhere quiet. Have both. My stomach dropped hard. Vanessa stepped away from the desk, unhurried, smoothing her dress with both palms like she was finishing a board meeting. "You were never really what he needed, Chloe. Your wolf is barely there. The whole pack knows it. You know it too." She was not wrong. My wolf had been silent my entire life, buried deep like something that had forgotten how to breathe. I could feel her there, a presence, but I could not connect with her. I could not shift. Pack doctors called it a suppression condition. Other wolves had sharper words for it. "Ghost wolf." "Deadweight Luna." Brad had always told me none of it mattered. That he chose me regardless. Three years of that lie. "I need you to get out of my way," I said. Brad reached for my arm. "Chloe, let me explain this properly." "There is nothing to explain." I set my champagne glass on the side table without making a single sound. My hands were perfectly steady. I was proud of that. I walked back into the party. Two hundred wolves in designer clothes turned at once. The shift in the room was immediate, the way a crowd always senses when something has broken. They read my face. The whispers started before I had taken three steps. I kept walking. Head up. Chin level. I would not give them the satisfaction of watching me fall apart. I reached the elevator and stepped in, jabbing the lobby button hard. The doors closed and cut off the noise. Silence. I pressed my back against the railing and let out one long, slow breath. Outside the tall glass windows, the Full Mating Moon sat low and white against the city sky. I watched it as the elevator descended, floor by floor, and something inside my chest ached looking at it. Then my wolf moved. Not a stir, not a flutter. A full, hard shove from the inside, like a fist against a locked door. I grabbed the railing. My skin felt wrong, too warm, tight across my collarbone and shoulders. My heartbeat changed rhythm, faster and deeper, pressing up into my throat. This was not grief. I had read about mating heat enough to know what it felt like when it started. An unmated wolf, a Full Moon, a compatible mate somewhere nearby. It was uncommon in wolves with suppressed bonds. In three years, it had never happened to me. Not once. My wolf shoved again, harder. The elevator stopped. Floor forty-two. The doors opened. A man stepped in. Tall. All black. Collar open at the throat, dark hair, sharp jaw, and the kind of stillness in his face that did not come from calm but from total control. He moved without hesitation, like every room he entered had already agreed to make space for him. I knew his face. Everyone in this city did. Eric Stone. CEO of Stone Enterprises. The most feared Alpha in the eastern territory. The man Brad had warned me about the first time I ever asked. That man is not someone you want near you, Chloe. Trust me. Eric stepped inside. The doors closed. He did not look at me. Then his body went completely still. I watched it happen. The faint pull along his jaw. The way his hand paused an inch above the panel. The slow, deliberate turn of his head. His eyes found mine and did not move. What was in them was not polite or careful. It was direct and dark and focused in a way that made my throat close, and my wolf slammed so hard against my ribs I actually pressed back against the wall. The lights cut out. The elevator jerked to a stop between floors with a low metallic groan. In the dark, I heard him exhale once through his nose. Then his voice came, low and unhurried, close enough that I felt the warmth of the air between us. "You're in heat."