Hiding the Alpha's Heir

Elara Vale waited at the foot of the Blackwood dais for Darius to call her up beside him. Three hundred pack members filled the tiered galleries. Silver lamps threw restless light across the black floor, and above the dais, wolves carved into the stone lowered their jaws over the gathering. Darius stood beneath them in ceremonial black. The chain of the Blackwood heir crossed his chest. The space at his right hand had been left open. For her. Elara touched the silver clasp at her throat. It had warmed against her skin, but she could still feel the small ridge where her blood had dried into its center. Darius had fastened it there on the night they registered their mate bond. There had been no witnesses beyond the registrar, no feast, no pack kneeling to welcome her. Only Darius pressing his forehead to hers and asking her to trust him until he could stand against his father. Until today. The doors behind the dais opened. Celeste Vane entered wearing Luna white. Elara's hand fell from the clasp. The white gown might have been dismissed as court fashion if not for the Blackwood moonstones at Celeste's throat. They were old stones, worn only by the woman a Blackwood Alpha intended the pack to recognize. A murmur climbed the galleries. Darius did not look at Elara. Celeste mounted the steps. When she stopped at his right hand, the space was no longer empty. Elara's wolf surged toward him so hard that pain shot through her ribs. Mate. The instinctive cry made no sense beside the sight of his hand closing around another woman's. Alaric Blackwood came forward. Darius's father wore no crown, yet the elders straightened when he moved and the murmuring died before he raised his hand. “A strong pack survives because its leaders choose duty over private desire.” Private desire. Not the bond Darius had sealed with her blood. Not the vows he had made when no one powerful was listening. Elara looked at the people nearest her. Some had scented Darius on her for months. The kitchen steward had asked how she wanted the Luna table arranged. A patrol captain had once left his feverish daughter in Elara's care through an entire winter night. Two young Omegas had smiled at her when she entered the hall, because they too had believed one of their own was about to take the highest female seat in Blackwood. Now the steward studied the floor. The captain's wife drew her daughter closer. One of the young Omegas still held her hands half raised, caught between applause and horror. “For the security of Blackwood,” Alaric continued, “my son has chosen a Luna whose alliances will protect our borders and strengthen our bloodline. Welcome Celeste Vane.” The front row obeyed first. Applause spread through the hall in ragged waves. Celeste lowered her eyes. Darius lifted her hand, and only then did he look at Elara. His eyes asked her not to make this harder for him. The request was so familiar that for one sickening moment, she almost answered it. He had always needed a little more time, one more private concession, one more proof that she trusted his love more than she feared his father. Elara stepped into the central aisle. The applause thinned and stopped. “Why is she wearing Luna white?” Her voice reached the rafters. Darius's fingers tightened around Celeste's. “Elara.” Alaric kept his tone low, as if soothing someone unreasonable. “This is not the time.” “You chose the time.” She looked at Darius. “You told me I would be recognized today.” Someone in the gallery gasped. Darius came down one step, then checked himself. “We'll speak in my study,” he said. Of course they would. The love had been private. The promises had been private. Now he wanted her humiliation private too, safely removed from the people applauding his replacement for her. Elara unclasped the silver token and held it up. The nearest elders leaned forward. Across the hall, the registrar's gaze fixed on the blood mark in its center. Alaric followed his look. “Registrar,” he said, “remove the mate registry from the hall. These proceedings concern succession, not private petitions.” The registrar rested both hands on the open book. For a breath, he did not move. Then he closed it. The leather cover struck the pages with a flat, heavy clap. Two guards lifted the registry from its stand and carried it toward the side doors. Elara watched it vanish between their shoulders. Cold slid under her skin, quieting the panic. They were not only replacing her. They were taking away the object that could prove she had a place to lose. Darius descended another step. “Please, Elara. Go to my study. I'll explain.” “Explain what?” His jaw flexed. “The council would never accept—” “The council did not register a mate bond with me. You did.” Heads turned toward Darius. A moment ago, the pack had watched Elara as an Omega who did not understand her rank. Now they were watching their future Alpha struggle to answer a simple charge. Darius's shoulders squared, as if he had felt the room turn. “You knew my position,” he said. “I knew your promise.” Celeste's grip tightened on her skirt. She looked at Darius, waiting for the same answer as everyone else. Alaric flicked two fingers toward the guards. They advanced on Elara. Heat crowded behind her eyes. She locked her knees before they could tremble. If she left now, Alaric would call the scene a misunderstanding. Darius would come after her and explain how cornered he had been. By morning, the pack would remember a nameless Omega interrupting a lawful ceremony with a desperate claim. They would not remember what he had done unless she made him say it. “Don't touch me.” She had no Alpha command to put behind the words. The guards paused anyway. They could remove her, but they could no longer do it discreetly. Elara walked toward the dais. The bond pulled at every step. Her wolf strained toward Darius, confused by the beloved scent threaded through the pain. Instinct offered its own humiliating answers: plead, bargain, remind him how he had held her in the dark and sworn she was his. She climbed the first step instead. “If you've chosen her, say what that choice makes of me.” Darius's face lost color. “You know what you are to me.” “Do I?” She raised the blood-sealed clasp between them. “Am I your lawful mate?” He said nothing. “Answer her,” one of the elders ordered. Alaric's mouth hardened. “This spectacle has gone far enough.” “Not yet.” Elara turned so the pack could see her. “You welcomed another Luna before telling the mate she was replacing. You called our bond a private desire. If I leave quietly, you'll use my silence to pretend none of this happened.” She faced Darius again. He stood close enough to take her hand. He could tell the pack the truth. He could challenge his father. He could do one brave thing without first asking Elara to make it easy for him. His gaze moved past her to the elders, then to Celeste, then to the side doors through which the registry had disappeared. He was measuring what each choice would cost. He had never measured Elara's cost at all. “Say it completely,” she told him. Her voice shook once; she steadied it. “No council. No duty. No explanation later, where no one else can hear you. Use my name, Darius. Let them know exactly what you chose.” The bond drew tight beneath her breastbone. Gold flashed in his eyes. For one heartbeat, hope rose by habit, raw and stupid and alive. Darius lifted his chin. He looked over the gathered pack, then down at the woman he had promised to raise beside him. “I reject Elara Vale.”