Sold To The Ruthless Werewolf King

3

Snow

The walk to the ceremony grounds was quiet between us. The guards and pack members we passed bowed their heads—to me, I realized with a small jolt. Already to me. I was not yet Luna, and they were already bowing.

I glanced at my father’s face. He was looking straight ahead, jaw tight, eyes forward. He was here. He had chosen to be here. I decided that was enough.

The doors to the ceremony hall were tall and carved with the old pack symbols: wolves and moons intertwined, the ancient markings of our bloodline.

I could hear the murmur of the gathered pack beyond them, the low hum of an occasion that had been anticipated for months.

The guard announced us.

The doors opened.

The hall was full—every seat taken, every face turned toward the entrance, toward us, toward me. I felt the weight of all those eyes and straightened my spine the way my mother had just taught me to. Unshakeable.

And then I saw Sebastian.

He was standing at the altar with his hands clasped in front of him, wearing the deep green and silver of the pack colors, and his eyes found mine across the length of the hall. His expression softened something in me, settling every remaining nerve in my body.

He looked at me like I was the answer to something he had been asking for a long time.

My father walked me forward in silence. At the altar, he stopped and placed my hand in Sebastian’s, and for a moment the three of us existed in a small, still space—my father’s weathered hand, mine, Sebastian’s. Three different people making three different choices in the same moment.

My father released his grip and walked away without glancing back.

I turned to face Sebastian.

“We gather today,” the high priest's voice filled every corner of the hall, deep and resonant as a bell, “to celebrate the union of Snow Ravencrest and Sebastian Sterling. A day of double joy—for today a husband is made, and today an Alpha rises.”

The priest spoke the old words, the ones that had bound our pack’s couples for generations, and I listened to every syllable.

The high priest then gestured for Sebastian and me to join hands. “By the ancient laws of our blood and the moon that watches over us, I bind these two souls. Let no man, no rival, and no shadow come between them.”

When he wrapped the silken cord around our joined hands, I felt the warmth of it and thought, ‘This is real. This is actually real.’

As the cord tightened, I felt the steady pulse in Sebastian’s wrist against my own. It was a human rhythm, calm and sure, and in that moment, it drowned out the memory of my father’s warnings.

I let the beat of his heart become my own, a silent promise that everything would be alright.

“With this bond, Snow Ravencrest and Sebastian Sterling are no longer two, but one. I pronounce you husband and wife.”

The hall broke into sound—applause, howls, and the particular joy of a pack celebrating itself. I was laughing, and I didn’t know when I had started.

Then the priest raised his hand, and the hall went quiet again. He lifted the silver circlet from its velvet cushion.

“A husband must also be a protector. Sebastian Sterling. Your path to this throne was not easy. It was questioned. It was mourned by some and resented by others.” He paused. “But blood speaks. Lineage holds. And the Moon Goddess does not make mistakes.”

He held the crown above Sebastian’s head.

“Rise. No longer the third son. No longer the one who was never supposed to lead. Rise as Alpha of the Ravencrest-Sterling Pack.”

The crown settled onto Sebastian’s brow.

The howl that started at the back of the hall was single and low, and then another joined it, and another, until the sound filled the room from floor to ceiling and vibrated in my chest like a second heartbeat.

Pack recognition—ancient and involuntary, the sound a people make when they accept their leader into their bones.

Sebastian turned to face them.

And something changed.

I caught a glimpse of it—just a brief flicker—the way his eyes scanned the crowd. The familiar softness was still present, but now there was a new layer underneath it.

A hardness and distance that hadn’t been there before. These were the eyes of a man who had just been given power and knew exactly what it meant.

It was only a second. Then he turned back to me and smiled, and he was Sebastian again, my beloved Sebastian, warm and kind.

I smiled back.

I told myself the flicker meant nothing. That every leader has to find the steel inside themselves eventually.

That this was simply what it looked like when someone stepped into who they were always meant to be.

The hall roared around us, and I was his wife, and he was my Alpha, and everything was exactly as it was supposed to be.