Her words hung in the night air between us, ancient and binding, carrying more weight than any royal decree I had issued in two centuries of rule. My fingers tingled where they rested against her waist, but I felt a warmth in my chest, an expanding heat that I recognized as something powerful: belonging. Two centuries of waiting, and now she stood before me, this werewolf woman with forest-green eyes and unimaginable courage, offering the one thing my crown could never command – her choice, her trust, her heart.
"I, Alpha Emeline Maxwell of the Blood Moon Pack, accept you, King Theodore Lykoudis, as my mate."
For a heartbeat, I couldn't move, couldn't speak, could only feel the reverberations of those words traveling through my body like ripples across still water. Emma's voice had emerg
