Chapter One: The Contract
335 Words
Kaelan
The whiskey burned on the way down, but not enough.
Kaelan Blackwood stared at the parchment on his desk—the inked signatures of three dead elders, his own father's name at the bottom, and the seal of a pack he had never visited. The Vance Pack. Dying, insignificant, and now, apparently, his in-laws.
"A marriage contract," he said, his voice flat. "In the twenty-first century. I'm expected to marry a woman I've never met because four old men signed a paper twenty years ago."
His Beta, Silas, stood by the window, arms crossed. He was the only wolf in the pack who could stand in Kaelan's presence during a rage and not flinch. "It's a blood oath, Kaelan. The Vance elders saved your father's life. In return, their granddaughter would marry the next Blackwood heir. That's you."
"They saved his life. Not mine." Kaelan's wolf stirred, restless and irritable. The full moon was three days away, and his temper had been a live wire for weeks. Border tensions with the rogue packs to the east. A drought threatening the pack's crops. And now this.
"The contract was signed in blood," Silas said quietly. "If you break it, the Moon Goddess herself would consider it a violation. You'd lose the pack's blessing. The land's fertility. Everything your father built."
Kaelan hurled the crystal glass against the stone wall. It shattered, glittering like frozen rage.
"Fine," he bit out. "She arrives tomorrow?"
"Her flight lands at noon."
"Then tomorrow, I acquire a wife." He turned to the window, his reflection a mask of cold fury. "She will have the title and nothing else. No claiming. No bond. She'll live in the east wing, and I will pretend she doesn't exist."
Silas opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and left.
Kaelan stood alone in the dark, his wolf pacing beneath his skin. Something was wrong. Something was coming. But he couldn't name it.
He only knew that tomorrow, his life would change forever.
- Writer
