Dylan POV:
My fingers froze on the edge of the file.
The words on the page blurred. Division of Assets. Emotional Distress Compensation. Breach of Luna Covenant.
It was nonsense. A fantasy.
But the cold, professional tone of the document, the sheer audacity of it, sent a jolt through my system. My mind, reeling, unspooled. It fled the cold, sterile office and the stranger wearing my mate's face, and landed in a sun-drenched garden years ago.
The air was warm, smelling of roses and freshly cut grass. I was eighteen, my first shift still a fresh, aching memory in my bones. I was all coiled power and restless energy, the world my oyster, the Alpha title a certainty in my future.
My mother, Luna Beatrice, approached me. Her hand was linked with a girl's. A slip of a thing, maybe sixteen, with wide, nervous green eyes and hair the color of rich soil. She was dressed in a simple, worn dress that spoke of a small, subordinate pack.
"Dylan," my mother said, her voice soft but firm. "This is Eden Shannon. She will be living with us now."
The moment my eyes met hers, it happened.
A scent hit me like a physical blow. Rain-soaked earth and wildflowers. It was a fragrance I'd never known but had somehow been waiting for my entire life. My heart slammed against my ribs, a frantic, wild rhythm.
And my wolf, the newly awakened beast inside me, roared a single, possessive word in my mind.
Mine!
I saw her flinch. Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson, and a shiver ran through her small frame. She could feel it too. The scent of pine and winter snow that was mine. The undeniable, irrevocable pull of the mate bond. The Recognition Ritual, as brutal and absolute as fate itself.
But I was Dylan Hatfield. An Alpha in waiting. My pride was a fortress.
I would not be ruled by instinct. Not for this... this nobody.
I let my gaze travel over her, taking in the cheap fabric of her dress, the way she wouldn't quite meet my eyes. Disappointment, sharp and cold, doused the fire of the bond.
The Moon Goddess had a sick sense of humor.
I leaned in, my voice a low whisper meant only for her. "A stray from a forgotten pack? This is a pathetic joke."
The fragile hope in her eyes shattered. I watched it happen. The light went out, replaced by a hurt so profound it was almost a physical thing. It was like stepping on a flower.
My mother's hand landed on my shoulder. "Dylan. Your manners."
I just grunted and turned away, leaving her standing there, a ghost in my mother's garden. Her fingers were clenched at her sides, her knuckles white. It was the first time I had hurt her, and I had done it with such careless ease.
To survive in my world, she buried herself. She became what my mother, what the pack, needed her to be. She studied pack law, etiquette, diplomacy. She learned to smile when she was hurting, to be gracious when she was being ignored.
She polished herself into the perfect Luna. A flawless, beautiful, and utterly hollow diamond.
A memory surfaced, sharp and clear. A pack gala, a few years ago. Eden, in a stunning emerald gown, had charmed a stubborn old elder, securing his support for one of my expansion projects. She had been brilliant. A true asset.
Later that night, she'd found me in the library. Her eyes were shining with a hopeful light.
I barely looked up from my papers as I handed her my empty glass. "That's your job, Eden. Do it well, and stay out of my way."
The light in her eyes died again. I had snuffed it out. Again.
Her smile, that perfect, polite smile, never wavered. But from that day on, she never spoke of my business again. She just watched. From the corners of rooms, from behind her mask, she observed everything. The power plays, the financial reports I left on my desk, the whispered conversations.
She was a shadow, a ghost. I had made her that way.
The flashback dissolved, and I was back in my office. The scent of her perfume, a subtle floral I'd never bothered to name, hung in the air.
I looked at the woman sitting across from me. The calm, unreadable stranger.
And I realized, with a sickening lurch in my gut, that I had never seen her at all. I had looked, but I had never seen.
I thought she was a lamb I owned. I never noticed she had been sharpening her claws all along.
