Talia's POV
He stood at the front of the hall.
Tall. Broad. Shoulders filling out his black suit like he had been carved from something harder than stone. His hair was dark-almost black-and his jaw was sharp enough to cut glass.
But it was his eyes that stopped me.
Gray. Not a soft gray like morning fog. Not a warm gray like old silver. A hard gray. Like steel. Like ice. Like something that had never been warm in its entire existence and never would be.
Kaelen Frost. The Alpha of Shadowfang.
I had never seen him before. I had never even seen a picture of him. But something inside my chest pulled-a tug, a string, a hook buried somewhere behind my ribs that yanked hard toward him like my body knew something my mind did not.
I did not understand it.
His gray eyes locked onto mine.
Something flickered across his face. Just for a moment-so brief I might have imagined it. A widening. A recognition. A fracture in all that ice.
Then his expression sealed shut again, cold and unreadable.
But I saw it. And I knew, with a certainty that had no business existing between two strangers, that he had felt the pull too.
I looked away first. I had to. Because I did not want to draw attention to myself, and I was already drawing more than I could handle.
The elder gestured for me to approach.
I walked forward on shaking legs. The bonding stone sat on a pedestal of black marble-smooth, dark, like a piece of the night sky had been carved into a perfect circle. Every wolf in the hall held their breath as I stepped closer.
I stopped in front of it.
The stone began to glow.
Soft at first. A pale blue shimmer, like moonlight trapped under water. Then brighter. Then brighter-so bright I had to raise my hand to shield my eyes. The light filled the hall, washing over every face, every wall, every shadow. Wolves gasped. Someone screamed. The crystal chandeliers above us caught the glow and shattered it into a thousand silver needles.
Then the light faded.
And the silence that followed was louder than any sound.
What I did not know-what no one would tell me until much later-was that before I was pulled from the kitchen, other servants had already been made to stand before the bonding stone. Nothing happened. Celeste had stood before it. Nothing happened. Kaelen's fury had grown so vast that Marta, desperate, had dragged me from the grease and the gray water as a last resort.
I was not chosen.
I was leftover.
The elder stared at the stone. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Alpha Kaelen," he said, and his voice was barely a whisper. "This woman... Talia Ashford... she is already bonded to you."
A pause. The kind that swallows rooms whole.
"From two years ago."
The world stopped.
My mind raced. Two years ago. That was when I turned eighteen. I remembered that year vividly-the year Piper snuck me a book about the outside world. The year Celeste broke my favorite cup just to watch me cry. The year I stopped hoping my father would ever look at me.
But I did not remember any ceremony. I did not remember leaving Cresswood. I did not remember meeting anyone, let alone an Alpha. Let alone this Alpha.
How could I be bonded to someone I had never seen?
It made no sense. None of this made sense.
But the stone did not lie. The elder said so himself-the bond was registered, and it was unbreakable.
I was tied to Kaelen Frost. A stranger. A cold-eyed Alpha who looked at me like I was a problem he had not asked for and did not know how to solve.
"The ceremony has already been completed," the elder said again, louder this time, for the hall to hear. "Two years ago. The bond is registered. It is unbreakable."
I shook my head. "That is not possible. I have never met him. I have never left Cresswood. I have never-"
But no one was listening.
Celeste was screaming. Vivienne was arguing. And Edmund-my father-stood frozen, saying nothing, his hands hanging limp at his sides like a man who had already given up on everything, including me.
Celeste's face was red, her perfect makeup ruined by tears. "This cannot be happening!" she shrieked. "She is nobody. She is nothing but trash. I am the one who deserves to be Luna. I am."
Vivienne grabbed her daughter's arm, trying to calm her, but her own face was pale with fury. Her eyes found mine across the hall. And I saw it there-pure, burning hate. The same hate she had fed me for fifteen years, spoonful by spoonful.
"The stone is wrong," Vivienne insisted, turning to the elder. "There must be a mistake. We demand another reading."
The elder shook his head. "The stone does not make mistakes."
Edmund still said nothing. He just stared at the floor.
And Kaelen Frost was still looking at me.
His gray eyes did not leave my face. His expression did not change. But I knew he felt the pull too. He just did not show it. He wore his silence like armor, the same way I wore mine.
I was confused. I was afraid. I had spent fifteen years keeping my head down, staying invisible, surviving. And now this-a bond I did not remember, to a man I did not know, in front of every wolf who had ever called me worthless.
I did not ask for this.
But I also knew one thing, standing there in my too-big gray dress with raw hands and a bruised cheek.
Whatever was coming, I would survive it.
I had survived fifteen years of them.
And I still had a list to finish.
