Alessandra POV
The brittle silence in the room stretched until it snapped. Angelo’s scent—sour musk and sweat—thickened as the phantom terror of Damien Blackwood faded, quickly replaced by a flush of humiliated rage. He straightened his collar, his chest heaving as he tried to salvage his fractured Alpha pride.
"You think you're clever, Andra," he sneered, stepping away from Cecelia to loom over me. "But I am still the Alpha of this pack. Here is the compromise. I will take Cecelia as my chosen mate, but I won't reject you. You will remain here, manage the pack's finances, and accept her presence for the harmony of the pack."
I stared at him, utterly repulsed by the audacity. "A desecration of the Moon Goddess," I said coldly. "Tell me, Angelo, did Alpha King Antonio bless *this* specific arrangement? Two mates under one roof?"
His jaw clenched. His eyes darted away for a fraction of a second. "Not yet."
A fatal flaw. He was bluffing, building his empire on a foundation of sand.
Seeing the absolute contempt in my eyes, Angelo’s facade crumbled into vicious cruelty. "Defy me, and I cut off the monthly stipends to your father's pack today. Let's see how long your wolfless little brother and sister, Leo and Clara, survive your stepmother Evelyn's tender care without my gold."
He didn't wait for my response. He grabbed Cecelia's hand and stormed out of the suite, the heavy oak door slamming shut behind them.
He thought he had won. He thought he had found the one chain that could still bind me.
"Oh, my lady..." Cressie, my loyal human maid, rushed out from the adjoining room, her hands trembling. "Your mother, the White Wolf, would weep to see this."
Her words were a key, unlocking a vault of buried nightmares. Suddenly, I wasn't in the Luna's suite. I was back in the Vaughn Packhouse. The air reeked of my stepmother Evelyn’s cloying scent—honey and rotting flowers—smothering the lingering memory of my mother’s moonlight and white roses.
I remembered the cellar. Whenever my spoiled stepsister Erika threw a tantrum, I was the one dragged down into the dark. The walls of that damp room were lined with trace amounts of silver foil. To a wolfless pup, the metallic tang was a poison that left me violently ill, shivering and weak on the cold stone. I learned then that tears and begging only brought more pain. Silence and endurance were my only armor.
I blinked, the cold reality of the suite returning. Angelo thought this broken mate-bond was a chain I couldn't break. He was wrong. It was just another silver-lined cellar, and I was no longer a helpless pup.
"We have to do what he says, Andra," Cressie sobbed, wringing her apron. "He is your mate. He has the power."
I turned to her, my voice a blade of ice. "He is nothing, Cressie. He made a fatal mistake."
She looked up, her tear-filled eyes confused.
"According to ancient Pack Law, a bond is only absolute when it is sealed," I said, my voice steady. I reached up and brushed my heavy hair aside, exposing the smooth, unblemished skin of my neck. "He left the morning after our ceremony. He never Marked me."
Cressie gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.
An unmarked bond. In the werewolf world, a mate-bond without a Marking, coupled with public betrayal, was grounds for a forced Rejection by the Alpha King himself. Angelo had been so arrogant, so dismissive of his wolfless bride, that he hadn't even bothered to claim me properly.
He had handed me the very weapon I needed to destroy him.
"Go to my private study," I commanded, the dormant authority of my White Wolf bloodline straightening my spine. "Bring me the mahogany box with the Silvermoon crest."
