ISLA'S POV
My hand flies to my stomach as another wave of heat crashes through me.
It's not painful exactly, but it's intense. Like something inside me is stretching after being caged for twenty-three years. Like my body is remembering something my mind never knew.
"What does that mean?" I ask, my voice shaking. "What happens when my wolf wakes up?"
Cassian is still standing at the edge of the bed, his entire frame rigid with tension. When he speaks, his voice is carefully controlled—like he's holding back something dangerous.
"It means you'll be able to shift," he says. "It means you'll be stronger, faster, more powerful than any regular werewolf. It means the bloodline that was hidden inside you will finally reveal itself."
"I don't understand," I say. "I'm wolfless. I've always been wolfless. That's just... that's what I am."
"No," he says, and there's something almost like compassion in his tone. "That's what someone made you be. There's a difference."
He turns away from the bed and walks to the window, creating distance between us. I realize he's doing it deliberately—giving me space. Giving himself control. Because whatever is happening to my body is affecting him too.
"We need to discuss the actual terms," he says after a moment, his voice back to that formal, businesslike tone. "Before your emotions make rational thought impossible."
"My emotions are fine," I say, though the heat coursing through my body suggests otherwise.
He turns back to face me, and even through the mask, I can feel him judging the lie.
"The agreement is simple," he says, moving back to stand beside the bed. "You recover here for one month. During that time, I provide you with everything you need—food, shelter, medical care, protection. At the end of the month, you marry me in a formal ceremony. You become Luna of Shadowveil. And in return, you receive power, safety, and the means to destroy anyone who harmed you."
It sounds like a business transaction. It is a business transaction.
So why does my heart feel like it's going to tear out of my chest?
"That's it?" I ask. "That's the entire deal?"
"That's the entire deal," he confirms.
"What about affection?" I ask, surprising myself. "What if I can't love you? What if—"
"I don't require your love," he says flatly. "I require your agreement and your commitment to this union. Nothing more."
The words should comfort me. They don't. They make me feel oddly hollow.
"Why?" I ask, pushing the question I've been holding back. "Why would the Lycan King want to marry a pregnant, wolfless outcast? There has to be something you're not telling me."
Cassian is silent for a long moment.
When he speaks, his voice is quieter. "You're more than you think you are, Isla. And I need what you'll become."
"That's not an answer," I say.
"It's the only one I can give you right now," he says. "The rest you'll learn when you're ready. When your body has healed. When you understand your own power."
I want to push. I want to demand full honesty before I agree to bind myself to this man. But the heat is intensifying, and my body is starting to feel like it doesn't belong to me anymore, and I'm terrified.
"What if I say no?" I ask quietly.
"Then I'll provide you with supplies, and you can leave," he says, and there's absolute certainty in his voice. "I won't force you. I could never force you. But I hope you'll choose to stay."
The honesty in that statement destroys something inside me.
Because Damien never gave me a choice. Damien made decisions for me without asking what I wanted. And this man—this dangerous, powerful, terrifying man wearing an obsidian mask—is actually asking me to decide my own future.
"If I agree," I say slowly, "what happens to my baby? To Damien's child?"
His entire body goes still.
When he speaks, his voice is absolutely final: "The child becomes mine. In every way that matters. Legally, spiritually, in the eyes of all packs and territories. Damien's claim is severed the moment you become my Luna."
The possessiveness in those words should feel threatening. Instead, it feels like a shield. Like protection. Like someone finally, finally choosing to stand between me and the world that's been destroying me.
"Why?" I whisper. "Why would you do that?"
"Because," he says, and he reaches out. His gloved hand finds my stomach again, spreading across where the baby is. "Your child is carrying my bloodline through you. That makes them mine already. The marriage just makes it official."
I don't understand what he means by "your bloodline through you," but I can't focus on that right now. I can only focus on the fact that someone is willing to claim my baby. Someone is willing to stand up and say: this child is mine, and I will protect them with everything I have.
Everything Damien refused to do.
"I need to think," I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I know they're a lie. I've already decided. There's nowhere else to go. No one else who would want me. And this man—whatever he is, whoever he is—has shown me more kindness in a few hours than Damien showed me in three years.
"Take your time," Cassian says. "You have one month to decide."
But we both know I've already decided.
He turns to leave, and I should let him go. I should use this moment to collect my thoughts, to process what's happening, to figure out how to survive this bargain I'm about to make.
Instead, I call out: "Cassian?"
He pauses at the door, his hand on the frame. "Yes?"
"Thank you," I say. "For saving us. For protecting the baby."
He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer. Then, his voice drops to something almost vulnerable:
"You don't have to thank me, Isla. I would have come for you regardless. I've been searching for too long to let you slip away now."
He opens the door to leave, and I think that's the end of the conversation. But he pauses in the doorway, and without turning back, he says the words that will haunt me for days:
"The child you carry will be mine in all ways that matter."
The possessiveness in those words is absolute.
The promise is unbreakable.
But underneath it, I hear something else—something that sounds almost like hunger. Like he's not just claiming my baby to protect them.
Like he's claiming them to complete something. To fulfill something.
And as he walks away, leaving me alone with my racing heart and my burning skin and my wolf that's starting to wake up inside me, I realize with cold certainty:
Cassian Nightshade doesn't just want to marry me.
He needs me for something.
And whatever that something is, it's powerful enough to make the Lycan King—a being that makes Alphas tremble—willing to tie himself to a broken, pregnant, wolfless girl from the Rogue Lands.
Which means I'm not just walking into a marriage.
I'm walking into something far more dangerous.
Something that could either save me completely or destroy me utterly.
And I have no way of knowing which.