Chapter 3 Chapter 3: The Price of a Name

I didn’t wake up. I clawed my way back to consciousness.

The first thing I felt was the silence. It wasn't a peaceful silence; it was heavy, like the air right before a lightning strike. I stayed perfectly still, my eyes squeezed shut, trying to remember if I had screamed in my sleep. If I had cried out for my sister, or called myself Nina, the game was over before the sun even hit the floor.

I slowly opened one eye. The room was cold. The kind of cold that stays in the stone of a castle no matter how big the fire is. And the bed... it felt like a desert. I rolled onto my side, my hand brushing against the silk pillowcase next to mine.

It was empty.

A breath I didn't know I was holding escaped my lips in a shaky huff. He was gone. Fenris. The man who had looked through my veil and saw a stranger, yet decided to keep me anyway. I sat up, pulling the heavy duvet around my bare shoulders. My skin felt sensitive, every nerve ending on high alert.

On the nightstand sat a single glass of water and a small, silver dagger. No note. Just the blade. Was it a gift? A threat? Or a suggestion?

I stared at the dagger, my reflection warped in the polished metal. I looked exhausted. My eyes were bloodshot, and there was a faint purple bruise on my collarbone from where the heavy wedding jewels had pressed into my skin for hours. I looked like a girl who had survived a shipwreck.

A sharp, rhythmic rapping at the door made me bolt upright.

"Luna? It is time."

The voice was thin and reedy. I didn't recognize it. I cleared my throat, trying to find that sharp, biting edge that Elena always had. Elena didn't ask; she commanded. Elena didn't whisper; she hummed with the sound of someone who knew she was the most important person in the room.

"Come," I said. I tried to make it sound bored. I hoped it didn't sound like it was shaking.

The doors creaked open, and three women shuffled in. They didn't look like the friendly servants from the storybooks. These were Lycan maids—strong, tall, and smelling of iron and lye. They didn't bow. They just stood there, eyes fixed on the floor, waitng.

"The King has ordered the morning greeting," the one in the middle said. She finally looked up, and her eyes were a milky, clouded blue. She was old—older than anyone I’d seen in my pack. "He is waiting in the High Court. Your father is with him."

My stomach dropped. The water I’d just sipped felt like lead.

"My father?" I managed to say. "He was supposed to leave at dawn."

"The Alpha of Blackwood stayed to witness the Confirmation," the old woman said, a tiny, cruel smile tugging at her mouth. "He wanted to see his daughter's new life for himself."

Confirmation. The word sent a jolt of ice through my veins. In the Lycan world, the morning after a royal wedding was a public event. The couple was expected to show the mark. The bite. The soul-bind that proved the King had accepted his Queen.

But there was no mark on my neck. Fenris had bitten my hand—a blood contract—but that wasn't a mate bond.

"Dress me," I said, my voice cold. I had to move. If I sat in this bed any longer, I would start screaming.

They moved in silence. It was the most humiliating twenty minutes of my life. They stripped me, washed me with water that was far too cold, and began to lace me into a gown of dark, bruised purple. It was stiff, boned with whalebone that dug into my ribs, making it hard to take a full breath.

"The collar is too low," I said, watching in the mirror as the old woman began to paint my face.

"The King requested the Open Throat style, Luna," she muttered, her fingers smelling of stale tobacco as she blended powder into my skin. "It is tradition. To show the King's favor."

I stared at my reflection. My neck was bare. Smooth. Pale. And completely unmarked.

I looked like a lie waiting to be told.

The walk to the High Court felt like a mile. My heels clicked on the stone, a lonely sound in the vast, echoing hallway. Every guard we passed seemed to lean in, their nostrils flaring. They were smelling me. They were looking for the scent of Fenris on my skin. They were looking for the musk of a completed bond.

The doors to the High Court were massive, carved with scenes of wolves tearing into the throats of their enemies. Pleasant.

The guards pulled them open, and the roar of the room hit me. It wasn't a roar of shouting; it was the roar of a hundred powerful predators breathing in the same space.

Fenris was sitting on a throne made of dark, twisted wood. He looked different today. More lethal. He wore a crown of black iron that looked like thorns. And standing to his left, looking smug and far too comfortable, was my father.

Alpha Silas of Blackwood. The man who had locked me in the cellar when I didn't shift at thirteen. The man who had told me I was "spare parts" for my sister.

As I walked down the long aisle, his eyes locked onto mine. For a second, his confidence wavered. He squinted, his head tilting to the side. He was looking for Elena’s walk. He was looking for that specific, swaying hip-movement she used to tempt men.

I didn't give it to him. I walked straight. I walked like a woman going to an execution.

I reached the dais. Fenris stood up, his height casting a shadow that swallowed me whole. He reached out, taking my hand. His grip was firm—almost painful.

"You look... radiant, my Queen," he said. His voice was like a saw against wood. He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear. "Your father is suspicious, Nina. He’s been asking why I didn't let him see his daughter before the ceremony ended."

"He's looking for the mark," I whispered back, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would burst through the purple silk. "Fenris, the maids... everyone can see. There’s nothing there."

Fenris pulled back, his silver eyes flashing with a wicked, dangerous light. He looked over at my father, who was now stepping forward, his eyes narrowed at my throat.

"Alpha Silas," Fenris boomed, his voice shaking the rafters. "You seem anxious. Is something wrong with your daughter?"

My father cleared his throat, his gaze darting between me and the King. "It is only that... Elena usually wears her hair down, Your Majesty. And I noticed... the mark. It seems remarkably well-hidden."

The room went silent. You could hear the crackle of the torches. My father was calling the King out in front of his entire court. He didn't care about me; he just wanted to make sure his "merchandise" was properly signed for.

Fenris laughed. It was a dark, terrifying sound.

"Hidden?" Fenris stepped toward my father, his aura expanding until people in the front row began to whimper. "I don't hide what belongs to me, Silas."

He turned back to me, his hand moving to the back of my neck. His fingers were hot, pressing into my skin.

"Show them, Nina," he whispered.

"Fenris, please," I gasped.

He didn't listen. In one swift movement, he yanked the collar of my dress down and tilted my head to the side.

I waited for the collective gasp of the room. I waited for my father to point his finger and scream Traitor!

But instead, the room went dead quiet. Then, a low murmur of awe spread through the court.

My father’s face went pale. His jaw dropped, his eyes bulging as he stared at my neck.

I risked a glance at the mirror standing near the throne.

There, on the side of my neck, was a jagged, angry red mark. It looked like a bite. It looked like a mate bond. But as I looked closer, I realized... it wasn't a bite.

It was a burn.

Fenris had used the silver dagger from the nightstand to brand me while I slept. He hadn't marked me as a mate. He had marked me as his property.

And from the look in my father's eyes, he knew exactly what kind of monster he had sold me to.