Sold To The Ruthless Werewolf King

2

Snow

I hadn’t slept at all.

I had tried—closed my eyes, evened my breathing, and told myself to rest—but my mind wouldn’t cooperate.

It kept running ahead to the morning, to the ceremony, to the moment I would stand beside Sebastian as his wife.

So I had lain awake in the dark with a smile on my face like a fool, and now I was paying for it.

“Miss.” Amy’s voice came from the doorway, as it always did first thing in the morning.

“I’m already awake,” I told her.

She came in, set the clothes she was carrying across the bed, and looked at my face. Then she pressed her lips together in the way she did when she was trying not to laugh.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing, miss.”

“Amy.”

“Your eyes,” she said carefully. “They’re a little...”

I was already crossing to the standing mirror.

I stared at my reflection. The girl looking back at me had the puffy, heavy-lidded eyes of someone who had spent the night before her wedding grinning at the ceiling instead of sleeping.

“I look exhausted,” I muttered.

“You look like a woman very much in love,” Amy said diplomatically.

I turned around, and she was already smiling, and I laughed as well.

“Fix me,” I told her.

“That’s what I’m here for, Miss."

I smiled, trusting Amy could do a good job.

“Now, let me help you bathe, Miss," she added.

I straightened as Amy removed my nightdress piece by piece until I was fully naked. She held my hand as she led me into the bathroom.

She drew my bath, helped me in, and washed my hair with the rosewood oil she had started using three weeks ago when I’d mentioned Sebastian had once said he liked the scent. That small, remembered detail made my chest ache with fondness for her.

“Your skin is beautiful, miss,” she murmured as she helped me dry off afterward.

“You say that every time.”

“Because it’s true every time.”

She gently applied cream to my skin, helped me into my underdress and then into my wedding dress, and sat me in front of the small mirror.

“Close your eyes, Miss."

I obeyed. I felt her hands move across my face—cool and deft—and I let my mind wander to Sebastian.

The way he had looked at me yesterday evening at the edge of the path. The almost-sentence he hadn’t finished. It’s one of the things—

I intended to ask him today. There was so much I needed to know.

“Open.”

I opened my eyes and sat very still for a moment.

The girl in the mirror was wearing my face but elevated into something I barely recognized, something polished and luminous, with the dark circles completely erased, my eyes bright, and my lips softened into a color that looked like the inside of a rose.

I stood up and pulled Amy into a hug before I’d consciously decided to.

“Miss—”

“You are extraordinary,” I told her.

She made a small, embarrassed sound against my shoulder. When I pulled back, her eyes were wet.

“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered.

“You are coming with me,” I said firmly. “I already arranged it. Did you think I’d walk into the Alpha house without you?”

“Miss…”

“You’re more like a sister than a maid to me, Amy. That’s not something I leave behind.”

She bowed her head, but I could see her smile. I took her hand and squeezed it once. Then she led me out.

My mother was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

She put both hands over her mouth when she saw me, which was the most emotional I had ever seen her, and that alone almost undid me completely.

“Mother, don’t,” I warned, my own eyes prickling. “If you cry, I’ll cry, and Amy will have wasted an hour of work.”

She laughed and pulled me into her arms instead. She smelled like the same perfume she had worn my whole life, and I held on for a moment longer than I needed to, storing it.

“You are so beautiful,” she said against my hair. “I can hardly believe you’re mine.”

“I’ll always be yours,” I told her. “That doesn’t change today.”

She pulled back and held my face in both hands, the gesture she had been making since I was small enough to fit entirely in her lap. “I wish you every happiness, my love. Every single one.”

I looked past her. “Where’s Father?”

Her expression shifted. “He’s with the Alpha. You know what today means for him as well. Sebastian is being crowned, and your father steps down as Beta.”

I had forgotten, in the blur of wedding preparations, that today carried that weight too. My father had served this pack his entire adult life. Today, he handed that over as well.

“He should be here,” I replied. “He should see me before anyone else does.”

“Snow.” My mother’s voice was gentle but firm. “He has obligations. And you are going to be Luna today. You must begin as you mean to go on.”

I straightened. “You’re right.”

“He’ll be the one to walk you in,” she reminded me. “He’ll see you. He won’t miss that.”

She sat me beside her and began talking, the kind of talking mothers do when they know they’re running out of time to say the things they’ve been meaning to say for years.

About kindness and strength. About the difference between being gentle and being soft. About loving a pack the way you love a person—with your whole self, even the parts that are tired.

“Not every member will love you,” she said. “No matter what you do. Some will test you, some will resent you, some will wait for you to fail. That’s not a reason to harden. It’s a reason to be unshakeable.”

“I know, Mum.”

“And Snow—” She paused, choosing her words. “A Luna is only as strong as her willingness to see clearly. Even when seeing clearly is painful.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. I filed it away to think about later.

“What are you two talking about?” My father’s voice came from the doorway.

He stopped when he saw me. For a moment, just one moment, his face did something unguarded and open that I rarely saw from him.

Something that looked like wonder, grief, and love all pressed together into an expression he didn’t have words for.

He looked at me as if he were already mourning someone who hadn’t died yet.

“Father.” I stood. “I’m sorry about last night.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” He crossed the room and took my hands. His were large, worn, and completely familiar. He looked at me for a long time. “Snow. My Snow.” He exhaled. “Pure soul. Kind heart. Just like your name.”

“Don’t make me cry,” I warned him.

A faint smile. Then it faded. “I only ask one thing of you today. Just one. Be careful. Watch—”

“Careful?”

“Yes.” He tapped the back of my hand. “Seb—”

“Enough, Father,” I cut him off before he could finish. “I know what you want to say, but please. I’m begging you, Father. Allow me to be happy.”

“What are you talking about, Josh?” my mother said as she rose from where she sat. “I think I warned you last night not to mention this matter again.”

Father looked at me, then at her. “Are we all going to pretend it’s a coincidence? Two healthy heirs dying of a ‘strange illness’ just in time for the ‘maid’s son’ to take the throne?”

“What are you trying to say?” I hissed, clenching my teeth together. “That Sebastian killed them?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he spat. “People don’t just die of a ‘strange illness’ out of nowhere. Sebastian was never fit to lead. He was nothing more than a mistake—the result of a drunken night between the Alpha and a maid.”

“He’s no killer. He is a gentle soul who loves me. If my happiness is such a burden to you, Father, then would it please you more if I ended my life here and now?”

I felt the shift as my nails sharpened into lethal claws. The heat of my wolf flared under my skin, answering my anger.

“No!” he shouted in panic. “I agree!”

“Really?” I pressed, the tip of my claw still digging into the soft skin of my throat.

“Yes! Yes!” he choked out, his hands raised in surrender. “Please, just don’t harm yourself. I agree. You have my word—you can marry him.”

I watched his shoulders drop as he sighed in relief, his eyes fixed on my hands as the sharp, dark claws receded back into my fingertips. Only when my nails looked human again did he dare to breathe normally.

“Since you choose him,” he said quietly, “then I choose your happiness.”

He offered me his arm, and I took it.