Mireya
My chest had clenched the moment our eyes met inside the manor’s grand study. And now, seated across from him in a room carved from quiet power and solemn shadows, I still didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or run.
Everything was too much.
My twin sister was dead. Ysabel, who used to hold my hand under the covers when our nightmares were louder than the wind outside the packhouse windows, was now ashes inside the ceramic urn that sat quietly in my mother’s trembling hands.
Dominic… Dominic had left me hollow. Used me, then discarded me. A man who once swore to defy the Moon Goddess herself for me had instead dragged me to the edge of ruin. Had I not escaped, I would’ve been bartered like livestock to some decrepit Alpha looking for a pretty new mate to breed.
But now… this man before me. He is my fated.
No. No, I wasn’t ready. Not for this. Not for anything like this again.
“I felt it the moment you did,” Ross said, his voice deep and controlled, like a storm just barely held back by a dam. “That day. I felt it… soul-crashing and deep. But it stopped when the commotion of the leaked video happened. I was about to look for you, but my presence was called by the Alpha King.”
I didn’t respond right away. My jaw clenched. I was tired. Bone-deep tired.
“You were gone when I came back,” he continued, eyes on mine. “I searched for you. My wolf was half-crazed. I used every contact I had, every damn wolf and crow in the underground, to find out who you were. And when I did… I investigated everything about you.”
He paused, letting the silence stretch as if to acknowledge the weight of my past.
“I know what they did to your sister. I know how your pack treated you. I know about Dominic, and the trial, and Marianne…” His jaw flexed. “The things I read, I wanted to tear someone apart.”
My breath hitched. He leaned forward slightly. “You don’t have to believe me. I just wanted to find you. To offer you something… even if it’s just safety.”
I swallowed thickly. The fated mate bond was humming under my skin, pulling at me, begging me to trust him. To lean in. To feel.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
“I don’t know if I can love anyone again,” I said finally, my voice low, raw. “I don’t think I want to.”
He nodded, not offended. Not wounded. Just… understanding.
“That’s fair,” he said. “Then let me start as something else.”
I raised a brow. “Something else?”
“A client,” he said with a slight smile. “If you still want to practice law. There are… things that require your kind of mind. Wolves who need a sharp tongue, a steady hand, and someone who knows what justice is supposed to look like.”
I blinked. “You want me to work for you?”
“Work with me,” he corrected, leaning back into his seat. “The Moonlight Pack operates in the shadows, yes. But we have our own codes. Our own wars. And we could use someone like you.”
My lips parted, unsure how to answer.
“I’ll think about it,” I murmured, looking away.
He didn’t press. “That’s all I ask.”
That night, after dinner, I stood by the wide window of the guest room I now shared with my mother. The room was warm, clean, and filled with the gentle scent of lavender and cedar.
It felt nothing like home.
My mother sat curled on the edge of the bed, holding Ysabel’s urn close to her chest. Her eyes were swollen from crying, though she tried to hide it behind the calm expressions she always wore for my sake.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly, walking over and sitting beside her.
She nodded slowly. “He seems kind. Alpha Ross.”
I didn’t answer.
“He told me we could stay here as long as we needed,” she continued. “That this could be our new home. That no one would harm us here.”
I looked down at the floor. After everything, it was strange how kindness now felt more suspicious than cruelty.
My hands curled into fists. “I don’t know if I can believe in safety anymore.”
My mother’s hand found mine. “We survived, Mireya. That counts for something.”
I looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t want to just survive.”
She stayed silent, waiting.
“I want revenge.”
Her grip tightened, but she didn’t scold me.
I turned to look at the urn in her lap. “Dominic. Marianne. Alpha Voren. The pack members who turned their backs. I want to see them fall. I want to tear their empire down. Bit by bit. Brick by brick. Until it all burns.”
There was a storm building in my chest. My mother just nodded, as if she understood the darkness growing in me. Because it had grown in her, too.
Later that night, I found myself outside Alpha Ross’s study again.
I wasn’t sure if it was the bond pulling me in or the fury inside me, begging for an outlet. But my feet carried me to him, heart hammering so loud I could barely hear my own thoughts.
The manor was quiet, the hallways dimly lit with old sconces. As I approached his door, it opened before I could knock.
He stood there in a dark robe, embroidered with silver thread at the collar. His silver-white hair looked nearly luminous under the hallway light. And his eyes, sharp, piercing, locked onto mine as if he had been waiting.
The scent of pine and frost swept over me, intoxicating and dangerous.
He tilted his head. “Couldn’t sleep?”
I didn’t answer. I stepped inside. He closed the door behind me.
We stood there for a few heartbeats, the bond sparking faintly between us. I ignored it.
“I don’t care about the bond,” I said. “Not now.”
His expression didn’t change.
I walked closer, slow and steady. “I don’t care what I have to do. Who I have to become. I want revenge. I want every last wolf who destroyed my family to bleed.”
Something shifted in his eyes, approval, perhaps. Or understanding.
“I’ll do anything,” I whispered. “Anything you ask. If it means I get to rip them apart myself.”
There was silence. Then he stepped forward, a faint smirk curling at the edges of his lips.
“Very well,” he said, voice like steel wrapped in velvet.
