Chapter 7

Rowan

When I woke the next morning, the girl was gone.

Last night's wildness and pleasure felt like a dream, but it was too real, too consuming to dismiss.

I tried to recall what had happened before that.

She'd knelt beside me, her palm pressed to my shoulder, blood from her hand seeping into my wound, trickling between her fingers.

Blood resonance.

I closed my eyes.

That ancient healing technique. I'd only seen it in the ancient texts in my father's study. It could bring the dying back to life. But the practitioner had to have an iron will, or the resonance would backlash the moment it connected.

She'd done it.

A wolfless healer. She'd done what many Alphas couldn't.

Unbelievable.

My thoughts stopped there, because the rest of the memory flooded in.

My wolf Oren had taken over. Sunk his teeth into that soft, pulsing spot.

I clenched my fist, pressing it hard against the stone floor.

Damn it. I'd claimed her.

In a state of complete lost control, I'd claimed a girl whose face I hadn't even been able to see clearly.

From childhood, I'd been raised as the heir to the Alpha King of the Blackwood Pack. Elite education. Strict discipline. My father had told me when I first awakened at twelve: a claim isn't instinct run wild. It's the highest commitment an Alpha makes to another life. Every Luna chosen by the Blackwood Alphas had been carefully considered, approved by the Pack Council, confirmed by bloodline resonance.

And I, on the floor of an abandoned chapel, half-dead from poison, had sunk my teeth into my savior's neck.

The most unforgivable part: I'd claimed a wolfless girl.

I lifted my hand and covered my face.

In wolf society, a claim meant declaring ownership. The marked person's scent would change, carrying the marker's scent.

For a normal wolf, an Alpha's claim was glory. Protection. A blood pact.

For a wolfless girl, it was a brand of shame.

One she couldn't answer, couldn't remove, couldn't explain.

She might not even know what it meant. Without a wolf, no one would tell her she'd found her mate.

She might think it was just an unconscious bite during my loss of control, might think the indentations would heal like any normal wound. But they wouldn't.

Her life would change because of it.

She'd walk into a crowd, and everyone would smell her scent. They'd know she'd been claimed. They'd know it was an Alpha. Then they'd see she had no wolf.

I'd seen too many cases like this. Alphas or betas indulging for a night, seeking out wolfless girls, or even human girls, marking them with their scent, wearing it like a trophy.

But what did those girls face?

Mockery. Pity. Or contempt.

A wolfless waste, claimed by an Alpha? What a desperate slut.

I could almost hear it.

My fist slammed into the floor, and for the first time in my life, I felt lost.

I was Rowan Blackwood. Raised and trained to be the next Alpha King.

In twenty-one years, I'd never done something that made me feel ashamed.

Until today.

I got up and looked for the exit.

The girl's scent still lingered in the air, faint, mixed with the chapel's must and the moonbells' cool fragrance. Like sun-dried cotton, threaded with a bitter herbal note.

I memorized it.

I didn't know who she was. Didn't know her name. Didn't know why she'd been in the middle of the night at a forbidden chapel in St. Lawrence Academy.

But I knew one thing.

I had to find her.

Not to ease my own guilt. Not to preserve the Blackwood family's dignity.

Because I needed to look her in the eyes and tell her I would bear the full weight of what happened.

I owed her my life. I would be grateful forever. And I would take responsibility for everything I'd done, give her the position of the next Luna Queen.

I took a deep breath, gathered my clothes, and walked toward the chapel door.

Morning light was sharp. Beyond the fence, the faint sounds of Combat Division students training at St. Lawrence Academy drifted over. I left the ruined courtyard and ran toward the main administrative building.