Chapter 1

"I told you to SEDUCE Prince Alaric, not let him fuck you!"

The whole kingdom knew Lycan king's only son, Prince Alaric, was savage, bloodthirsty and coldly indifferent to women.

Alpha Rowan feared his precious Seraphina would suffer if she married Alaric, so he forced me to pretend to be Seraphina and seduce him.

"Just act slut enough, and Alaric will be so disgusted and dissolve the arrangement. Then I'll come bring you home."

The morning after that one feral, ruinous night, I walked out of the Lycan Prince's palace with one hand pressed flat against my lower back just to stay upright.

Rowan rushed up to check my neck—no claiming mark, but covered in dark red bruises—and he exploded in rage.

"I told you to perform," he snarled, shaking where he stood. "Who told you to actually give yourself to him?!"

"Are you that desperate for a male? You'd bait a man who kills without blinking?!"

I met his fury with quiet, smoothing my collar back into place.

"Alpha Rowan, you are wrong."

"Prince Alaric was..." I held his gaze. "...quite gentle."

Rowan lunged.

His hand locked around my throat, grip designed to crush.

"Gentle?" His voice cracked apart. "The man who put three Fated Mates in the ground—and you call him GENTLE?"

"I sent you there for Blackwood Pack's future. Not so you could offer yourself like some willing sacrifice!"

"You belong to me. How DARE you let him touch you?!"

I was forced to tilt my head back, face flushing red from the pressure building at my throat.

But I didn't fight him.

I simply lowered my lashes and watched the rage consuming his face.

"Alpha Rowan..." My voice stayed level. "Since the task is complete... the money you promised me..."

He released me like I was something rotten, a sharp fling of his wrist.

My legs buckled and I stumbled backward, colliding hard with the storage shelves behind me.

He pulled a cloth from his pocket and wiped his fingers.

Then dropped the cloth into the fire basin at his feet—watched the fabric curl, blacken, dissolve.

Three years ago, when my family was convicted of treason, it was him who had knelt in the snow outside the Council Hall for three days and three nights, begging his father to spare my life.

He had promised—no title, no formal bond, none of that mattered. He would protect me for the rest of my life.

And now he had sent me into another male's bed—and wouldn't honor the money he'd promised.

He stared at me, pain and jealousy churning raw in his eyes.

"If Grandfather hadn't demanded the Alliance, and if Seraphina hadn't been too terrified of Alaric to go herself, I never would have—"

He caught the blankness on my face. Saw I was looking only at the purse at his belt.

The guilt in his expression curdled immediately into rage.

He ripped the purse free and hurled it at me.

"You only want money? Fine. Consider it a reward."

Coins exploded across the floor, rolling into the dust at the room's edges.

"Take it and go scrub yourself clean."

"Alaric is dangerously perceptive. If he suspects the deception, don't come crying to me."

He turned to leave.

I braced against the shelves and slowly lowered myself to the floor.

My fingers moved across the cold stone.

One coin. Two.

I gathered each coin, blew the dust from them, and pressed them carefully against my chest.

Rowan stopped at the door. Looked back.

The contempt on his face sharpened into something vicious.

"Of course. A traitor's daughter—even if it's money earned from selling yourself, you still treasure it."

It does.

Because this gold keeps Caden breathing.

I looked at him steadily and said nothing else.

"Alpha Rowan. The birth control pill—"

Rowan went still.

He turned.

Something complicated moved through his eyes. Fleeting.

As if remembering the ghost of the girl I used to be—who once dazzled the kingdom at banquets with a single look.

Then my poverty stabbed him, and the flicker hardened into deeper revulsion.

"What—afraid you're carrying the Lycan Prince's pup?" He almost laughed. "Relax. The pack healer said your body ran cold too long in captivity. You'll never carry a pup. Not in this lifetime."

"Stop worrying about impossible things."

The den curtain slammed shut behind him.

Cold wind flooded in.

I clutched the gold tighter against my chest.

This amount—added to what I'd saved before—was just enough for one month of Caden's medicine.

I pulled myself to the small table, poured a cup of tea that had long gone cold, pressed a pinch of cheap pain-dulling herbs to my tongue, and swallowed both together.

Bitterness spread across my throat.

I didn't care what Rowan thought of me.

As long as Caden survived, I would gladly spend the rest of my life as Alaric's unseen slave.