Sold To The Ruthless Werewolf King

4

Snow

The wedding dress was still on.

An hour ago, I had asked Amy to help me change into something simpler, but then I changed my mind. It didn’t feel right to take it off before Sebastian had seen me in it properly.

So I sat on the edge of the bed in my wedding dress and waited.

The candles Amy had lit around the room were burning lower now. The rose petals she had scattered across the sheets, a romantic tradition she insisted on, were starting to look less like a gesture and more like evidence of a plan that wasn’t going as intended.

“Amy.” I kept my voice even. “What is Sebastian doing?”

She hesitated the way she did when choosing her words carefully. “The Alpha is in the pack hall, Luna. He’s... celebrating with the members.”

I stood up. “Celebrating.”

“Yes.”

“On our wedding night.”

She didn’t answer that, which was its own answer.

I wanted to be reasonable and understanding. I knew the significance of today for the pack: the crowning, the transfer of power, and the ceremonial responsibilities that went beyond just our marriage.

Sebastian was Alpha now. He had obligations that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the hundreds of people who had just pledged themselves to his leadership.

I knew all of that.

It still felt like a splinter.

“Go and get him,” I murmured. “Please.”

“Yes, Luna.”

She slipped out quietly, and I stood by the window watching the dark treeline. I tried to locate the version of myself from this morning, the girl who had been so full of joy she couldn’t sleep, who had laughed at her own puffy eyes in the mirror. She felt very far away.

Clara would have known what to do, I thought. Clara would have gone and dragged him out by his ear and made him laugh about it and somehow fixed everything.

But Clara wasn’t here. And I was alone in a room full of dying candles on my wedding night.

Amy came back without him.

I could tell before she even spoke. The careful, apologetic, and bracing look on her face said it all.

“He said—” She stopped, then tried again. “The Alpha said he will come when he is ready.”

I stared at her.

“He said that.”

“Luna, I don’t think he meant—”

“Sebastian said those exact words.”

Amy went to her knees. “Yes. I’m sorry, Luna. I’m so sorry.”

I looked at her on the floor and felt the small, ugly flicker of something I was ashamed of: the thought that maybe Amy was lying.

That maybe my father had placed her here, knowing I’d take her with me, knowing she could report back, could make trouble, could—

I stopped myself. I knew where that thought came from. It came from needing somewhere to put the hurt that wasn’t Sebastian.

“Get up,” I said quietly.

She rose, her eyes still down.

“I’m going to find him myself.”

“Luna, perhaps if you just wait—”

“Amy,” I said gently but firmly. “Stay here.”

I lifted the front of my dress, made of delicate silk and lace that I had carefully chosen months ago, altered twice, and carried to this night like a precious treasure, and walked out.

The pack members I passed in the corridors bowed their heads. Luna. Luna. The word followed me like a shadow. I nodded back without stopping, without really seeing any of them, my eyes ahead and my jaw set.

The packhall guards straightened when they saw me coming.

“Luna,” they said together.

“Where is my husband?”

“He’s inside, Luna. In a meeting with the pack elders.”

I stopped. “The elders.”

“Yes.”

Elders! Why would Sebastian choose today of all days to have a meeting with the elders? He knew what today meant. The most important night of my life, and he dares… do this.

“Not pack members,” I whispered. This wasn’t what Amy told me. She told me Sebastian was drinking with the pack members.

“They left,” one of the guards replied.

“Open the door.”

The guard nearest the door looked at me, just for a second, and I felt my wolf stir in my chest, the instinctive authority of the Luna rising before I had consciously called on it.

“I am your Luna,” I said, my voice vibrating with a low, primal resonance that didn’t sound like me at all. It was the wolf, surfacing with a demand for respect. “Open the door before I make you.”

“Yes, yes.”

He pushed the door open, and I walked in. Sebastian was in the Alpha seat.

He appeared at ease in his seat, as if it had been custom-made for him. The elders were gathered around the table, engrossed in a lengthy discussion with papers scattered about, exuding an air of serious business.

He saw me and stopped mid-sentence.

“Luna.” Surprise moved across his face. “What are you doing here?”

Luna! When did we get married, and he already started addressing me with my title? Not Snow. Not darling, just Luna.

I kept my expression composed. I greeted the elders with a smile and felt them bow in return, and then I looked at my husband.

“I came to see you,” I said.

The way he looked at me, as though the rest of the room had faded into nothing. The quiet, tender smile that followed, and the way he rose from his alpha seat just to come to me—like I was the only place he truly belonged.

He took my hand and lifted it to his lips.

“My beautiful Luna,” he said softly, his voice meant only for me, shutting out the rest of the room. “You missed me that much already?”

It wasn’t a question. And the infuriating thing was that he was right.

“You should be with me tonight,” I responded. “You know what tonight means.”

“I understand,” he murmured, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat of his body against mine.

His scent, his warmth—it all wrapped around me, steadying the chaos in my chest. “I just need a little more time to finish up some business with the elders.”

“Sebastian—”

He kissed my cheek. Then he leaned close, his lips near my ear, and said quietly, “I will come to you. And when I do, I will show you exactly how much I’ve been thinking about you all evening.”

My heartbeat gave me away instantly. I could sense him noticing it, the faint smile forming on his lips next to my cheek.

He pulled back and looked at me with those warm eyes, and I thought, This is Sebastian. This is the man my father doesn’t trust, the man I chose, the man I have known for years.

A few hours of waiting is nothing. He is the Alpha now. Of course, he has obligations.

“I’ll be waiting,” I said.

I turned and walked back through the door, my dignity intact, my heartbeat unsteady. There was something small and unnamed sitting quietly in the back of my chest, like a question I hadn’t asked yet.

“We bid our greetings, Luna,” the guards said, bowing their heads.

With Sebastian still on my mind, I left for my room.

“Luna,” Amy said when I walked back in. She rose quickly. “Where is he?”

“Sebastian. He will be here soon.”

She helped me out of my dress and hung it near the window to catch the moonlight. Then, she assisted me into my nightgown and started unpinning my hair. As I sat in front of the small mirror, I gazed at my reflection, trying to decipher the emotions on my own face.

“Amy,” I said to the mirror. “I’m sorry. For earlier. For what I thought.”

She met my eyes in the glass. “Luna—”

“I thought, for a moment, that my father might have—” I stopped. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. It was wrong of me.”

“You were upset,” she stated. “Upset people look for reasons.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“No.” She set down a pin. “But it is human.”

I reached back and took her hand, where it rested on my shoulder. She squeezed once.

“I will never betray you,” she whispered. “Not for anyone. Not for any reason. You have my loyalty until I have nothing left to give.”

I could feel tears threatening to fall from my eyes. How could I doubt Amy? How could I even think Father planted her beside me as his spy? I had known Amy for so long. We grew up together.

“I know,” I said. “I know you won’t.”

After she finished styling my hair, she returned to her room. I then climbed into the bed that Amy had prepared with rose petals. I sat against the headboard and waited.

The candles burned lower.

The rose petals settled.

Outside the window, the atmosphere was vibrant with distant sounds—voices, laughter, and the unique energy of a community rejoicing in the start of a new era.

I closed my eyes and reassured myself that he was on his way. I repeated it like a mantra until sleep overtook me, long before he ever did.