Seraphina POV
His kiss tasted like smoke and danger and freedom.
I kissed him back desperately, my fingers digging into his shoulders, needing this connection to someone who didn't know about my humiliation, who didn't pity me, who just wanted me in this moment.
He pulled back, breathing hard, his golden eyes searching mine. "Are you sure? Once we do this, there's no taking it back."
"I don't want to take it back," I said fiercely. "I want to forget. I want to feel something other than this horrible pain. Please."
Something in his expression softened. He brushed my tears away with his thumb. "What's his name? The one who hurt you?"
"It doesn't matter. He doesn't matter anymore."
"He's an idiot," the stranger said quietly. "Anyone who would hurt you is a complete fool."
Those words broke something open inside me. Thorne had never talked to me like that—like I was valuable, like losing me would be the tragedy, not the other way around.
The stranger lifted me easily, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He carried me deeper into the forest, away from the border, away from my old life.
We reached a small cabin hidden among the trees. He took me inside, and I barely noticed anything except him—the way his hands trembled slightly as he touched my face, the way he looked at me like I was something rare and precious.
"I don't even know your name," I whispered as he laid me down on soft furs.
"Maybe that's better," he said, his voice rough. "Tomorrow you'll go back to your pack. I'll stay in mine. We'll be enemies again. But tonight..."
"Tonight we're just two people," I finished.
"Just two broken people trying to feel whole again."
He kissed me again, slower this time, deeper. His hands explored my body like he was memorizing every curve, every scar. When he touched the mark on my shoulder—the place where Thorne was supposed to give me his mating bite tomorrow—his eyes flashed with anger.
"Someone claimed you?"
"Almost. The ceremony is tomorrow." I laughed bitterly. "Was tomorrow. I don't think there's going to be a ceremony anymore."
"Good," he growled. "You deserve better than 'almost.' You deserve someone who looks at you like you're their entire world."
The way he was looking at me right now.
What happened next was intense and overwhelming and perfect. He touched me like I was something sacred. Kissed me like he was drowning and I was air. Made me feel beautiful and wanted and chosen in a way I'd never felt with Thorne.
When it was over, we lay tangled together, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"For what?"
"For seeing me. Not the Beta's daughter, not the future Luna, not some political piece to be moved around. Just... me."
His arms tightened around me. "I see you, Seraphina. And you're extraordinary."
I fell asleep in his arms feeling safe for the first time in forever.
When I woke up, dawn light filtered through the cabin windows.
The stranger was gone.
I sat up, panic flooding through me. The furs still smelled like him—pine and smoke and that wild masculine scent—but the cabin was empty.
Had he left? Just disappeared without saying goodbye?
Then I heard voices outside. Male voices, angry and aggressive.
"Alpha, we found fresh Silvercrest scent on the eastern border. Female. She crossed last night."
My blood turned to ice. Alpha? The stranger was an Alpha?
"I know," came the response, and my heart stopped. That gravelly voice I'd recognize anywhere now. "I dealt with it. She's gone."
"Should we track her? Send a message to Silvercrest that their wolves aren't welcome?"
"No. She was just a lost female running from something. I escorted her back to the border. It's handled."
Lies. All lies to protect me.
I peeked through the cabin window. Five Shadowfang wolves stood in the clearing, all facing the stranger—my stranger—who stood with his back to the cabin.
He was dressed now, wearing black clothes that screamed authority. The other wolves kept their heads slightly lowered in submission.
Because he was their Alpha. Their leader.
And I'd just slept with the enemy pack's Alpha.
"Sir, we also got word from the Silvercrest Alpha," one of the wolves said. "He's requesting an emergency meeting. Something about his daughter running away and needing our help to find her."
My father. Looking for me. Using pack politics to get Shadowfang's help.
The stranger—the Alpha—tensed. "His daughter?"
"Yeah. Apparently she was supposed to mate their future Alpha today, but she ran off last night. Crossed into our territory. The Silvercrest Alpha is worried she's hurt or... dead."
"What's the daughter's name?" His voice was carefully controlled.
"Seraphina Crane."
The Alpha went completely still. Then slowly, very slowly, he turned toward the cabin.
Our eyes met through the window.
The recognition on his face mirrored my own shock. He hadn't known who I was. I hadn't known who he was.
We'd both lied by omission.
But the worst part? The absolute worst part?
When our eyes locked, I felt something snap into place in my chest. Like a rubber band pulled tight and then released. A connection that hummed between us, ancient and powerful and absolutely wrong.
My wolf surged forward, whimpering one word: Mate.
No. No, this couldn't be happening.
The Alpha's eyes blazed pure gold, his wolf rising to the surface. His hands clenched into fists, his entire body rigid with shock.
He felt it too.
The mate bond. The sacred connection that the Moon Goddess only gave to true fated pairs.
I was fated to mate the Shadowfang Alpha.
The enemy of my pack. The one person in the entire world I could never be with.
And judging by the horror on his face, he was thinking exactly the same thing.
One of his wolves stepped forward. "Alpha Corvus? Are you alright?"
Corvus. His name was Corvus.
And I was completely, utterly, impossibly screwed.