Chapter 3

"Alpha Eliot already said it himself — I'm just having fun."

"Seren, don't be such a killjoy."

She turned to face the wolves on the deck and raised her voice.

"Everyone, the bet is officially open."

"If she cries and calls out for Alpha Eliot to save her within thirty minutes, I lose."

"If she holds out and doesn't beg, I'll transfer one hundred thousand dollars to each of you."

The crowd erupted.

"Lola, you're the best!"

"Then we're all betting she breaks."

"She's got no father, no backing — does she really think putting on a nice dress makes her Frost Pack's Luna?"

"Is Alpha Eliot actually going to marry her? I always figured it was just a political deal."

My fingertips went numb.

Rain ran into my eyes and the sting made it hard to keep them open.

I pounded on the gate.

"Eliot! I'm saying it one last time — tell someone to open this door!"

Eliot finally looked up at me.

His expression held no guilt. Only irritation at being called out in front of everyone.

"Seren, do you really have to make this so ugly?"

"Lola grew up spoiled. Why are you letting her get to you?"

"Besides, aren't you the one who's always handling crises? You can't manage something this small?"

I stood there frozen for a moment, then felt the corner of my mouth pull into a smile.

So in his eyes, my fear of being locked in the storm was nothing. Just something small.

Three years of blocking border threats for him, negotiating every resource deal for him, rewriting pack development plans for him at four in the morning — all of it had somehow become the reason he felt entitled to humiliate me.

When Lola saw me smile, her expression flickered.

She hated this. She hated that even at my lowest, I wouldn't bend.

She raised the remote and pressed a button.

A second later, the rain system at the top of the canyon surged.

A colder, heavier torrent came crashing down. My knees buckled and I nearly fell.

The observation deck erupted — not in concern, but excitement.

"She's going to break!"

"Hurry, get it on video — this is going to spread to every pack by morning!"

"Alpha Eliot's fiancée is something else, I'll give her that…"

Lola moved close to the glass and dropped her voice so only I could hear.

"Seren, drop the act."

"I know exactly what you're afraid of."

"Alpha Eliot told me himself."

My stomach dropped.

Her smile got sweeter.

"You think he kept your wounds as secrets?"

"Sorry, he tells me everything when he's trying to get me to sleep."

"He said you got trapped somewhere when you were little, so you never sleep well when it rains."

"He said you seem tough, but deep down you're still that scared little wolf who's afraid of the dark and afraid of water."

Something in my ears started roaring.

Those words were colder than the storm.

Three years with Eliot.

I had shielded him from enemy ambushes, negotiated the northern mineral rights for him, held a starving territory together in the dead of winter.

The night his stomach bled, I sat with him in the medical tent until morning.

When the Frost Pack elders tried to frame him for misappropriating pack resources, I was the one who found the accounting discrepancies and pulled him out of that hole.

He knelt in front of me and said: "Seren, without you, I wouldn't be here."

"Once I've secured the Alpha seat, I'm going to marry you."

I thought that was a promise.

But it turned out I was just a useful tool.

Lola tapped the glass.

"Seren, don't blame me."

"I just wanted you to understand your place."

She glanced up at Eliot and let her voice go soft.

"Alpha Eliot, you're not upset with me, are you?"

Eliot put out his cigarette.

"Don't go too far."