THE ALPHA’S DEADLY LUNA

Aurelia POV I counted the exits before I counted my own heartbeat, an old habit that had kept me alive for eleven years and would probably get me killed today, in front of three hundred wolves, in a wedding dress. The veil itched against my temple, but I didn't dare lift a hand to fix it. My father hadn't come to see me off. That told me everything about how little I'd cost him. "Breathe," Della whispered, adjusting my train. "You look like you're walking to your execution." "Aren't I?" She didn't answer. Smart girl. The chapel smelled of crushed flowers and candle smoke, and underneath it, the sharp copper scent of nervous guards lining every wall. Somewhere near the front, a man I didn't recognize let his gaze crawl down the length of my gown a moment too long, and before I could decide how to make myself smaller, Alpha Kade Voss shifted half a step, just enough to break the man's line of sight to me, without ever once looking away from the altar. I filed that away too. He hadn't done it for me. Probably. Nobody in that room knew what I actually was. To them I was Aurelia Ashford, the sickly, spare daughter of a defeated Alpha, the girl who fainted at blood, who wheezed after a single flight of stairs, who'd spent her whole life "recovering" in the west wing of a crumbling manor. They didn't know the west wing had a basement, and the basement had mats, and I'd spent eleven years there learning to survive things I still wasn't ready to think about. I kept my shoulders soft. My steps small. My eyes down, the way a broken girl's would be. Stay small, Aurelia. Small girls survive. When I reached him, Kade's gold eyes moved over me slowly, and up close he was worse than the rumors, carved from something harder than muscle, a scar cutting white through one dark eyebrow, a stillness that felt less like calm and more like a held breath before a strike. "You're smaller than I expected," he said. Not unkind. Just factual. "I get that a lot." Something flickered behind his eyes, amusement, maybe, or the first thread of suspicion. He's paying attention, I thought. Don't give him anything. The priest droned through the binding words, old language older than either of our packs. I said mine when prompted, voice small and trembling in exactly the right places. Kade said his like a man signing a shipment order, bored, efficient, done. When he took my hand to seal the vow, his grip closed over my knuckles with a gentleness that surprised me more than it should have. My fingers actually shook in his palm, and for one unsettling second I wasn't sure how much of it was performance. His mouth found mine for the ceremonial kiss, and it wasn't gentle at all, brief and hard and over before I'd finished bracing for it, and the hall erupted into applause meant for the end of a war rather than the start of a marriage. Somewhere behind me, I heard my father's absence louder than any of it. It's done. Now survive the wedding night. He didn't speak to me again until we were alone in his study: dark wood, wolf pelts, embers dying in a fire no one had fed. The room smelled like him, cedar and something colder underneath. "Sit," he said, not looking up. I sat. Small. Obedient. "You know why my father wanted this marriage," he said. Not a question. "To end the war." "And to make sure your pack never has teeth to bite with again." He looked up. "You understand you're a hostage, Aurelia. A pretty word, bride, for something simpler." "I understand." "Do you?" He rose, came around the desk, and crouched in front of my chair so we were eye to eye, close enough that I had to fight the urge to lean away. His fingers found my chin, tilted it, unhurried, like he had every right. "Because you don't smell afraid enough for a girl who understands." My real heart, the one I kept caged behind eleven years of discipline, gave one hard, singular thud. His thumb moved once along my jaw, absent, testing, and heat crawled up my throat that had nothing to do with fear at all. Fix it. Fix it now. "I'm terrified," I whispered, and this time the tremble wasn't only performance. "I just don't know how you want me to show it." Something shifted in his face, and for a moment his hand went still against my skin, and neither of us moved, and the fire popped once in the silence, and I thought, absurdly, that he might actually kiss me again, slower this time, on purpose. Then he pulled back like he'd caught himself doing something he hadn't meant to do. "Careful," he said, low. "I don't like being lied to, little wife. And you lie beautifully." He turned back to his desk, dismissing me with a flick of two fingers. "Rooms are down the east hall. Guarded. For your protection, not to keep you in." I rose on legs that were shaking for more reasons than I wanted to name, and made it to the door before his voice caught me. "Aurelia." I turned. "Your father's man came to me this morning. Before the ceremony." Kade didn't look up, but his voice had gone very still. "He wanted to warn me about something. Said I should keep a close eye on my new bride. During the full moon." The floor tilted slightly under my feet. "He didn't finish the sentence. My men escorted him out, rather more roughly than protocol allows." Kade raised his eyes, and there was nothing sleepy in them now, only a hunter's patient focus. "I intend to have the rest of that sentence, little wife. One way or another. Tonight, if I have to." I held his gaze as long as I dared, then turned and walked out before he could see whatever was left showing on my face.