After My Mate Sold Me to the Lycan Prince

The wolfsbane touched my tongue at exactly 8:02 on a Saturday night.

Alpha Hudson pressed the silver goblet into my hands right in the center of the Ironvale banquet hall. He smiled, leaning close enough that I caught the thick, cloying stench of sweet jasmine clinging to his wool collar. It was Lillian Gibson’s perfume, layered over his skin like grease.

"Drink it, Aria," Hudson whispered, his dark eyes warm with a promise he had dangled for seven years. "Tonight, we announce our Mate Ceremony."

I trusted him. He had pulled me from the fire that took my family, or so he always claimed. I tilted my head and drank the dark wine down.

Two seconds later, fire turned into liquid ice.

My limbs seized. The goblet fell from my fingers, shattering against the marble. I tried to gasp, but my lungs turned to lead. The poison locked every muscle, every nerve, every breath. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't even blink. But inside my paralyzed skull, my mind was screaming, wide awake.

Before the venom froze my fingers completely, I shoved my right hand into my skirt pocket. My stiffening knuckles clamped hard around my dried bundle of white cedar and the master formula for our border antitoxin—the single herbal cure Lillian had never managed to decipher. With my last shred of physical control, I ground my pack-healer pendant into the stone floor under my heel, shattering the stone. The energetic ward snapped. In that single act, I severed my healing bond to Ironvale. The warriors at the borders would have no wards tonight.

Hudson didn’t notice. He stepped back and smoothed his lapels.

The hall went dead silent.

"Pack of Ironvale," Hudson announced, his voice ringing off the rafters. "I, Hudson, Alpha of the Ironvale Pack, reject you, Aria Ward, as my mate and Luna."

The words hit like a physical axe.

The half-formed mark on my neck burned white-hot, then turned freezing cold and hollow. It felt like a heavy iron door slamming shut in an abandoned room. Inside me, my fragile wolf didn't whimper. She reared back on phantom hind legs and snarled, snapping her jaws with pure, murderous fury at his severed link before the heavy wolfsbane dragged her down into darkness.

"Quiet," Hudson commanded, dropping his Alpha tone like a hammer.

The command pressed against my skull, trying to force my head down. I fought it. Locked in poison, my chin stayed level. My eyes remained fixed on his face, unblinking and dead cold.

In the front row, Lillian Gibson stepped up to his side. She smoothed her satin gown, a small, triumphant smile curving her painted lips. She had my stolen herbal notes in her clinic, and now she had my mate.

Hudson didn't look at me again. He turned toward his second-in-command. "Grant. Take her upstairs. Penthouse suite."

Grant, Hudson’s sneering Beta, stepped forward. "To the Lycan Prince, Alpha?"

"Prince August demands a concession for the northern border dispute," Hudson said coldly. "Give him the wolfless stray. Let the Silverfang royal do what he wants with her."

Grant scooped me up like a sack of grain. My body hung rigid across his shoulder. I was entirely trapped in my own flesh, but my ears caught every murmur from the crowd.

*Wolfless parasite.*

*She's finally getting thrown out.*

*Good riddance.*

Grant hauled me out of the hall, down the long corridor, and into the private elevator of the adjacent luxury high-rise. He carried me across the Ironvale pack line into neutral territory, stepping out onto the top floor. He threw open the double doors of the presidential penthouse, dumped me onto the sprawling king mattress, and left without a word.

The heavy door clicked shut.

I lay faceup on the silk sheets. Terror clawed at my chest, but my face remained an unmoving mask. I had survived the fire. I had survived Hudson’s lies. I would survive whatever monster this Lycan Prince was.

Ten minutes later, the door handle turned.

A man stepped into the suite. He was tall, broad-shouldered, carrying the suffocating, ancient dominance of pure royal blood.

He took two strides into the room and stopped dead.

His nostrils flared. His head snapped toward the bed.

The air shifted, vibrating with raw power. I smelled him instantly—crisp mountain pine and the crackle of ozone right before a thunderstorm. And then, he caught mine.

Wild honeysuckle and white cedar.

August’s eyes ignited. They burned a brilliant, terrifying crimson as his Lycan wolf surged to the surface. The pressure of his aura filled the room until the floorboards groaned under the weight.

*This is it,* I thought. *He’s going to tear me apart.*

He crossed the floor in a blur. But he didn’t strike. He didn’t rip my clothes.

August stripped off his heavy wool jacket and wrapped it around my stiff shoulders. His large hands slid under my neck and knees, lifting me against his chest with a gentleness that didn't make sense for a beast of his size. His hands were steady. They didn't shake.

"Seal the floor," August barked toward the open doorway, his voice low and dangerous. "No one leaves. If an Ironvale wolf steps past the elevator, tear their throat out."

Footsteps rushed outside. A woman in a grey coat appeared at the threshold, carrying a medical kit.

"Maren," August said, his voice dropping into something tight and fiercely protective. He pulled me tighter against his chest, shielding my frozen body with his own. "Get it out of her system. All of it."

Maren unscrewed the metal cap of a silver syringe, the long needle catching the chandelier light as August’s fingers gently brushed the hair from my eyes.