Chapter 1

Freya's POV

Twenty minutes ago, Zander's hands had been worship and fire against my skin.

His mouth had traced paths along my throat. His fingers had gripped my hips with raw hunger, and when I arched beneath him, he growled my name in that rough, desperate voice that always made my wolf tremble.

"Freya," he breathed against my ear. "God, the way you feel..."

His Alpha scent wrapped around me like silk chains, making my body answer him before my mind could stop it. When he buried his face in my neck and breathed in my scent like he needed it to survive, I let myself believe this was real.

That I was more than his personal guard.

More than his weapon.

More than the woman he wanted only when no one was watching.

But now, the heat was gone.

Now I knelt on the cold marble floor, my knees already numb from the position I had held for far too long. The silk sheets behind me were still warm, still carrying the musky scent of what we had just done, but Alpha Zander Thorne was already pulling on his shirt as if nothing had happened.

As if the past year of nights like this one meant absolutely nothing.

"Ten days, Freya."

His voice was steady, almost businesslike. The same tone he used when giving me assassination orders.

"The Luna ceremony is in ten days. After that, you go back to being my personal guard. Nothing more."

Nothing more. The words hit like silver bullets, but I kept my face blank. Years of training had taught me to hide pain better than most Omegas hide their heat cycles.

"Of course, Alpha." I bowed my head lower, letting my dark hair fall forward to hide whatever expression might have leaked through. "Congratulations on your upcoming bonding with Luna Susanna."

He paused in buttoning his shirt, and for a moment—just a moment. But it was gone so fast I might have imagined it.

"She's arriving from the Northern Territory tomorrow," he continued, completely ignoring the tremor in my voice. "I trust you'll ensure her safety during her stay. Along with your other duties."

Other duties. Right. Like I had spent the last twelve months being his secret bedwarmer under the guise of "practice for the woman he planned to marry." Like I had let him use my body as a practice partner he'd use on the woman he actually wanted to bond with.

"Of course." I forced the word out through gritted teeth.

Alpha Zander finished dressing and moved toward the door, then stopped. "Freya."

My heart did something stupid and hopeful in my chest. "Yes, Alpha?"

"Clean up in here before you leave. I don't want any trace of... this." He gestured vaguely at the rumpled bed, at me still kneeling half-naked on his floor. "Susan can't know."

And there it was. The final nail in the coffin of whatever pathetic fantasy I'd been nurturing.

"Of course not." I kept my voice steady even as something inside me cracked clean in half. "No one will ever know, Alpha. You have my word."

He nodded once, sharp and final, then left without looking back.

I stayed kneeling until I heard his footsteps fade down the corridor, until I was sure he was really gone. Only then did I allow myself to breathe, to feel the full weight of what had just happened crushing down on my chest.

It's over.

The thought should have brought relief. Instead, it just made me feel hollow, like someone had scooped out everything important and left me with nothing but an empty shell wearing Freya Forest's face.

I forced myself to stand on shaking legs and began mechanically straightening the room. Smoothing wrinkled sheets. Picking up discarded clothing. Erasing every trace of the Omega who'd been foolish enough to think an Alpha like Zander Thorne could ever want more than her body.

But as I worked, memories kept flooding back, each one a fresh knife twist in an already gaping wound.

Seven years old, half-frozen in a snowdrift on the outskirts of the Silvercrest Pack's territory. A teenage Alpha with kind eyes pulling off his coat to wrap around my shivering form.

"What's your name, little wolf?"

"I... I don't remember."

"Then we'll give you a new one. How about Freya? Because you're tough enough to survive the cold."

That had been my first glimpse of Zander—not the cold, calculating Alpha he'd become, but a boy who'd seen a dying Omega pup and couldn't walk away. He'd brought me back to the pack house, convinced his father to let him keep me as a personal guard in training.

For ten years, he'd been my whole world. My savior, my trainer, my pack leader, my everything. I'd learned to fight for him, to kill for him, to disappear into the shadows so completely that most wolves forgot I existed.

I'd been so careful to hide my feelings, to never let him see how his rare smiles made my heart race or how his scent could calm me from the worst nightmares. I'd been the perfect weapon, the invisible guard, content to love him from the shadows because that was all an Omega like me could ever hope for.

Until that night a year ago.

He'd been in pre-rut, stressed from territorial disputes and pack elders' increasing pressure to choose a Luna. I'd been reporting on a successful mission when his control snapped. One moment I was standing at attention, the next I was pinned against his office wall with his mouth on mine and his hands tearing at my clothes.

"I need..." he'd growled against my throat, his canines already extended. "Fuck, Freya, I need to know how to please Susanna Voss. Help me learn."

Even then, he had told me the truth.

But I had loved him too much to hear it.

So I said yes.

For twelve months, I'd told myself it meant something. That the way he held me afterward, the gentle touches when he thought I was sleeping, the time he'd pulled me close during a thunderstorm and whispered comfort against my hair—it all meant something more than practice.

I had mistaken that for tenderness.

Maybe it was tenderness. Maybe that was the cruelest part.

By the time I finished cleaning, the room looked untouched. The sheets were smooth. The air had begun to clear. Soon, there would be no sign that I had ever been here.

Exactly how he wanted it.

I stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind me. The soft click echoed through my chest with a finality I could not ignore.

Three days ago, I had received intel that changed everything. A border informant had been asking questions about me—about my origins, my bloodline, and why a seven-year-old Omega had been found alone in the wilderness with no memory of her past.

For years, I assumed I was nobody.

But maybe someone out there knew differently.

Maybe there was a life beyond these walls. A truth beyond the name Zander had given me. A future where I was not someone's secret, someone's weapon, or someone's practice for the woman he truly wanted.

If that was true—if I really did have family, a pack, a life beyond these walls—then maybe it was time to stop clinging to a man who would never want me as more than a training tool.

I needed to leave Alpha Zander.