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Not even that is enough to pull Idril’s attention away from Daxen. It’s like they’re in their own little world. Both of them are still as statues as they stare each other down.

A tear falls from Idril’s lashes, streaking down her face and glittering in the overhead lights like crystal. When it reaches her chin, it doesn’t fall. Instead, it sways precariously, like a diamond suspended on a chain.

It’s probably only mere seconds, but it feels like an eternity before it finally falls, tumbling through the air like a white flag of surrender. I glance up, shocked to find Daxen’s attention on that single tear with the kind of intensity that has me questioning everything I thought I understood.

That intensity only lasts until the moment it lands, splashing onto the stone inches from Idril’s shaking hands. As if a spell’s been broken, the Alpha’s attention returns to my Mate and a calculating, smug smile tilts the corners of his lips.

My stomach plummets as he leans toward Idril and lifts a single, imperious brow.

“It would seem,” he hisses, “that you have some explaining to do, little liar.”

Chapter 2

Idril

Ispent the last hour in my cell, waiting for someone to come for me—or maybe even tell me that what Silas claimed was just a big misunderstanding.

Despite my exhaustion, my mind refused to shut off. Which means I spent the whole hour spiraling as my brain looped endlessly between questions and worst-case scenarios.

I’ve never met a wolven in real life, but I’ve heard plenty of stories. Supposedly, they’re almost entirely wild, living in secluded packs of hundreds or possibly even thousands, deep in the woods. I’ve heard they live in caves, eat only raw meat, and are more wolf than man.

I try not to think about rumors, but it’s difficult not to imagine a future living in a cave, living off wild berries because I can’t stomach raw meat.

And despite knowing the odds are slim, by the time Vae arrives to take me upstairs, I’ve fully convinced myself that by this time tomorrow I’ll be bathing in streams and teaching myself how to light a fire with nothing but two sticks and a prayer.

Which is absurd. There’s no way even half of that is true. And even if it is… I can’t leave here no matter what this wolven says.

I can’t leave Caelan.

Vae shoves a key in the cell with so much force it startles me. I glance up, only to meet a glare so full of disgust it physically knocks me back a step. When the cell door rattles open, I hesitate, suddenly terrified to leave the unexpected safety of my cell.

“Let’s go,” he snaps, tone dripping with rage.

My anxiety surges, and rather than anger him more than I somehow already have, I do as I’m told.

Vae herds me upstairs, snapping at me the whole way. I do my best to tune him out, but the thread of our Bond is clueless about anything outside of how close we are to our Mate. My Omega whines pitifully with every muttered curse, frantic to do something—anything—to make him happy.

Eventually we come to a room I’ve never seen before. At this point, I’m more empty shell than girl. I could tune out most of his muttered tirade, but not the burnt, bitter scent of anger and disappointment pouring off my Mate in waves, battering against my Omega until she’s nothing more than a tiny ball huddled behind a makeshift wall of bricks.

A pretty illusion of safety.

Fear clings to me like a second skin, and as the door opens and Vae hisses at me to move, my only hope is that maybe… if I just keep my eyes down and refuse to acknowledge what’s happening, it will all go away.

Stupid. Might as well wish for the moon. But it’s all I have.

All I need to do is verify this male isn’t my Mate like he claims, and this will all be over. Just a few minutes. That’s all. I can make it. I’ve made it through much, much worse.

I shuffle into the room numbly, barely registering when Dax shouts some Command, which I follow by rote. The world feels hazy. Staticky. Unreal. I feel like a ghost as I cross the room on shaking legs, extending only as much energy as it takes to edge away from anything larger than I am.

I don’t even make it six feet when it hits me.

Cool pine and chestnuts. Cold, sharp wind and crackly, warm fire. The Alpha’s scent slams into me, and before I’ve decided to move, I’m swaying closer, inhaling deep, greedy lungfuls.

This Alpha… he smells like Christmas.

Like moonlight reflecting off the calm, heavy blanket of the winter’s first snowfall in the middle of the night, like a crackling fire that never burns out, and every brief moment of hope and peace I tried so hard to cling to as a child but could never keep… no matter how hard I wished to.

My eyes are closed, so I don’t see the golden thread of our Scent-Match Bond unspool from my chest the way I did earlier, but I feel the exact moment it explodes, lurching forward with an unshakeable determination. It knocks the air from my lungs, but nothing could prepare me for what it would feel like when, rather than hitting a wall of rejection before painfully rebounding back into my chest, the new thread unexpectedly catches, latches onto something a thousand times stronger than I am...