You Want My Crown: Fine, Take the Trash Too

Chapter 2 Shattered Vows

Caleb tightened his arm around Elara and addressed the hall. “For a century, an ancient pact has choked this pack.”

“We were taught to bow to a promise made by weaker ancestors and call the chain a blessing.”

He looked at me. “It ends today. The Nightfall Pack answers to its Alpha. We won't wear the shackles of dead wolves or accept their cast-offs as tribute.”

He grabbed the black cord around his neck. The Blood-Oath Insignia hanging there was his half of the bond, the pact that had kept plague and famine from his lands for generations.

He tore it free. The dark stone, twin to mine, struck the marble altar.

“This is what I think of your oath!”

His boot came down.

The c***k carried to every corner of the hall. A dozen dull fragments scattered across the altar, all that remained of a stone that had held the lifeblood of the vow.

The nobles gasped. Few understood what Caleb had destroyed, but every wolf in the room felt the sudden chill and looked toward the closed doors.

I looked at the fragments that had governed my life since childhood. Relief loosened something in my chest.

I had carried that duty for a family that despised the woman sent to honor it. There would be no wedding, no lifetime spent feeding my power into land ruled by Caleb.

Caleb had freed me from them with one stamp of his boot.

I smiled.

“Thank you, Caleb.” I held his triumphant stare. “You have no idea what you've just done.”

Elara's pleasure disappeared. She had been waiting for tears or begging. My smile gave her neither.

“You think this is funny?” she shouted. “You still dare to mock us?”

Caleb narrowed his eyes. He took my relief for defiance.

“Teach her some respect, Elara.”

Elara drew a dagger from a sheath in her boot. The pure silver blade caught the altar light.

Two of Caleb's guards blocked my path. One seized each arm and forced me to my knees.

Elara approached with the silver dagger held upright, using it as another piece of coronation regalia.

“A pretty face is wasted on a worthless b***h. Let's give you a mark to remember your place. Everyone will see what it costs to disrespect your Alpha.”

She lifted the blade.

I held still and watched her. That unsettled her more than a struggle would have.

The silver edge touched my cheek, cold enough to hurt before it cut. A few feet away, Caleb folded his arms and watched his intended mate about to be scarred.

None of them understood what the broken oath and a silver wound on consecrated ground would complete.

The broken vow had opened the first lock.

My blood would open the last.