Sold To The Ruthless Werewolf King

Snow The afternoon light was soft and golden through the trees, the kind of light that made everything look like a memory before it had even finished happening. I watched Clara’s face and tried to memorize it. “I really wish you could be there,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though my chest felt tight. “You’re the only real friend I have in this pack, Clara. You know that.” “Snow.” She took both my hands in hers. Her eyes were already wet. “You think I want to miss this? Your wedding day?” She shook her head. “But my mother, she took a turn last night. I can’t leave her alone, not now. She needs me.” “I know,” I said. “I know she does.” I did know. That was the worst part. There was nothing to be angry about, no one to blame, and yet I felt the absence of her like something being quietly removed from a room. “I’ll be back before you’ve even settled into the Alpha house,” she promised, squeezing my fingers. “And when I come back, I’ll call you 'Luna' to your face until you beg me to stop.” I laughed despite myself and pulled her into a hug. She held on just as tightly, and we stayed like that for a moment, two girls who had grown up side by side in this pack, who had shared every secret and every fear—saying goodbye without saying the word. “What are you two conspiring about?” Sebastian’s voice came from behind us, warm and easy. I pulled back and wiped my eyes quickly. “Clara won’t be at the wedding.” “My mother is sick,” Clara explained as Sebastian dropped onto the grass across from us, completely at ease the way he always was. That was one of the things I loved about him; he carried no tension, no sharp edges. He made every space feel lighter. “Then you go take care of your mother,” he said simply. “We’ll save you the best seat for the celebration when you’re back.” Clara smiled at him, then at me. “By then, I’ll be addressing you as my Luna.” “You will do no such thing,” I told her. The three of us talked until the light shifted and the afternoon began its slow lean toward evening. For a while, it felt like any other day, just the three of us, easy and unhurried. But underneath it, I was aware that this was the last ordinary moment before everything changed. Tomorrow, I would stand before the pack and make my vows and become Sebastian’s wife, his Luna, the other half of everything he was building. The thought filled me from the inside out. When Clara finally left, Sebastian walked with me back toward the pack grounds. He reached over and took my hand without making a thing of it, which was exactly how he did everything. “She’ll be back before you’ve had time to miss her,” he said. “I already miss her.” He smiled. “That’s because you’re loyal to the people you love. It’s one of the things I—” He stopped, glancing at me sideways with that particular expression that still, after all this time, made my face warm. “It’s one of the things.” I rolled my eyes at him, and he laughed. At the edge of the path where it split—one way to the Alpha house, one way to my family’s—he stopped and turned to face me. He brushed a strand of hair back from my face with the back of his hand. “Rest well tonight,” he stated. “Tomorrow changes everything.” “I know.” “Are you nervous?” I thought about it honestly. “No,” I responded. “I’m ready.” He kissed me on the cheek, and I felt the warmth of it travel all the way down. Then he walked away toward the Alpha house, and I stood watching him go. My mother saw my face the moment I walked through the door. “You’re glowing.” “Mother.” I sat beside her and took her hand. “Tomorrow is real. It’s actually happening.” “I know, my love.” She cupped my face with both hands the way she had done since I was small. “My little girl. A bride tomorrow.” “I keep thinking I’ll wake up,” I admitted. “That it’s still months away. That I still have to wait.” She laughed, the soft, full laugh she reserved for purely happy moments, and we sat together as the evening darkened outside the window, talking about nothing and everything, her hand in mine. Then the front door opened. My father came in, and I knew immediately from the set of his shoulders that something was wrong. “Father.” I stood and went to him. “You’re back. Is everything alright?” “Sit with me,” he said. We sat. He was quiet for a moment, his hands folded, his eyes on the floor between us. “Talk to us,” my mother said gently. He looked up at me. “Snow.” His voice was rough with something I couldn’t immediately name. “Is it too late to ask you to reconsider?” The warmth in my chest went very still. “What?” I said quietly. “I’m asking if—” “If what, Father!” “Can’t you choose another man as your husband?” he said quietly, and the words fell like a bomb into the silence. “What!” I yelled, jumping to my feet. “What are you talking about, Father?” “Because I don’t trust him.” He said it plainly, without decoration. “Something about him sits wrong with me. I can’t name it clearly, and I know that’s not enough for you, but—” His voice broke slightly. “I can’t send my daughter into a life I’m afraid of for her.” “You can’t name it,” I repeated. “You have a feeling, and based on that feeling, you want me to walk away from the man I love. The night before my wedding.” “Snow—” "No," I snapped. “Do you understand what you’re asking me? Sebastian has been good to me. He has been kind, patient, and constant. He loves me, Father. I know what that looks like because I grew up watching you love Mother.” My voice cracked on the last word. “Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you just—” “He isn’t your fated mate.” The room went quiet. I had known that. Of course, I had known that. In our world, the mate bond was treated like the only valid form of love—the universe’s endorsement, the spiritual seal that made everything legitimate. I had spent years making peace with the fact that Sebastian and I didn’t share it, and I had concluded, after long and careful thought, that what we had was worth more than a bond I hadn’t chosen. “I know he isn’t,” I muttered. “I’ve always known. And I’ve decided it doesn’t matter to me. My fated mate is a stranger somewhere in the world who may never find me, who I may never find. Sebastian is here. He has always been here. He chose me without a bond forcing him to, and I chose him back.” I looked at my father directly. “That is not blindness. That is a decision I have made with my whole self, and I am not a child.” “If you can’t see reason—” he started. “Bless them,” my mother said quietly. Both of us looked at her. “Our daughter loves him. She is not asking you to love him. She is asking you to trust her.” My father looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at me, and what I saw in his face wasn’t cruelty or selfishness—it was fear. Raw and genuine, the fear of a man who had loved his daughter her whole life and was standing at the edge of something he couldn’t control. That almost made it worse. Because I could fight against unreasonableness. I didn’t know what to do with a father who was simply afraid. “I will marry him,” I added. “With your blessing or without it, I will marry him tomorrow. I would rather have it. But I will not change my answer.” I turned and walked toward the stairs. “Snow.” I stopped but didn’t turn around. He didn’t say anything else. I heard him exhale—long and slow—before I went upstairs. I sat on the edge of my bed in the dark room, pressing my hands together and taking deep breaths. My heart was still pounding hard, not from doubt, but from the argument. It took a lot of effort to stand firm against someone I loved. Tomorrow I would stand before the pack with flowers in my hair and Sebastian’s hands in mine, and I would say the words I had been waiting my whole life to say. And whatever my father’s fears were, whatever unnamed thing sat wrong with him, he was wrong. He had to be wrong.