Chapter 1
I was the only white wolf in the history of Silver Moon Pack. My fur was the color of moonlight running over a stream. My eyes were a rare ice-blue.
My wolf, Angel, was stronger and faster than any other wolf in the pack. She was also impossibly loud.
“Elara, those berries over there look so sweet!”
“Elara, I think I smell rabbit ahead!”
“Elara, is Alpha Caelum walking this way today? I want to catch his scent!”
For as long as I could remember, my wolf Angel had been chattering nonstop in my head.
Mom said it was the curse of white wolves. They were too powerful, so they always needed something to keep them busy.
And Angel’s favorite thing in the world was collecting information about Alpha Caelum.
Caelum. Alpha of Silver Moon. He had taken the pack from his father at twenty, the youngest leader we’d ever had.
His wolf was charcoal-grey, massive and brutal. Almost untouchable in a fight.
Everyone said he was the Moon Goddess’s favorite son.
Then five years ago, everything changed.
Rogues attacked along the border. Caelum led the warriors out to meet them. Nobody expected those crazed beasts to scatter wolfsbane powder across the battlefield.
Caelum threw himself in front of his little brother, Alexander. The wolfsbane burned him.
The poison ate through his throat. He could no longer speak.
His wolf fell into a deep sleep. He could no longer shift.
Overnight, the proud Alpha became a “mute” who only spoke through ink and paper.
The Moon Goddess witnessed his sacrifice. As compensation, she granted him a fated mate.
Me.
On the night of that battle, I had just turned eighteen. I shifted into my wolf for the first time, my bones cracking and reshaping while I screamed into the dirt. And then a light fell over me.
The Moon Goddess’s decree.
“Elara. The new Angel of Silver Moon Pack.”
“Heal him.”
“Fill his silence with your voice.”
When I came to from the pain, I was told that I was Alpha Caelum’s mate. The whole pack would witness our mating ceremony in three months.
I was eighteen. He was twenty-seven.
We had never met. There wasn’t a shred of feeling between us.
But I accepted without hesitation.
Because from that day on, my wolf Angel never stopped howling in my head:
“Mate! Caelum is our mate!”
“Find him! Now!”
Driven by something I couldn’t name, I walked into his cabin for the first time.
He was sitting in a leather chair, head down, writing something. His charcoal hair fell loose around his face, hiding half of it.
He heard my footsteps and looked up. Those amber eyes widened, just a fraction, the moment they landed on me.
I caught his scent. Pine. Snow. A thread of bitter herb from whatever medicine he was on.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Angel was howling inside me. “Mate! He’s our mate!”
“Caelum. I’m Elara.” I forced my voice steady. It shook anyway. “Starting today, I’ll be by your side. I’ll stay until you can speak again.”
He didn’t answer.
He just lowered his head, scrawled a few words on a strip of paper, and held it out to me.
“Do what you want.”
Back then, I was naive enough to tell myself his coldness was just a wounded man closing himself off.
I told myself I would take it slow.
That I would prove I meant it. With time.
