Chapter 94
JESSICA
“Mom, does it hurt?”
“What, honey?”
“When the big wolf bites you… before he claims you?”
I was six. Maybe seven. I had a chipped front tooth and a ragged stuffed fox I took everywhere. I remember Mom’s hands in the laundry, her arms damp, face glowing in the sunset as she laughed. Not a mocking laugh. One of those quiet, knowing ones. Soft, with a kind of sadness underneath.
“It only hurts if you don’t love him,” she said.
And back then I didn’t know what that meant. I thought love was supposed to make you safe. But here I am. In white silk that feels like a noose. Walking toward the firelight. And I can’t stop thinking about her voice.
I wiped my tears with the back of my hand, smudging the ash they painted beneath my eyes. Stared up at the silver slit of the moon hanging heavy above me. The light of the goddess. Striking even though it felt like punishment.
I wanted to scream at her. Ask her if she was proud of this.If this was what fate was supposed to look like–me walking into the arms of a wolf I didn’t want, while the only one I did was either dead or choosing not to come back for me.
I can hear the drums start from the treeline, low and steady, the rhythm of the hunt. My feet move even though I don’t want them to. Even though I’d give anything–literally anything–to turn around, to claw my way back into the cell, back into chains, back into silence. But I don’t. Because this isn’t a choice. It never was. It’s a ritual. It’s law. It’s blood–deep and spirit–bound and there’s no room for mercy when the moon is watching.
I step barefoot into the circle.
The ground is wet from earlier rain, and the earth gives a little beneath my soles, like it’s trying to pull me under. There’s salt scattered along the ritual path, and something metallic inthe air–iron or blood, I can’t tell which. My heartbeat is too loud. My chest feels like it’s caving in, but I keep walking. Past the stone markers, past the elders in their feathered cloaks and bone jewelry, past the warriors and witnesses and whisperers who’ve come to see if I’ll break.
They want a show.
They always do.
And 1-1 just want to survive it.
I step into the center of the ring, where four runes have been drawn in ash and blood and something older. One for the mate. One for the pack. One for the moon. And one for the girl who’s about to lose everything.
No one says that last one out loud.
But we all feel it.
The wind picks up as I kneel thate how obedient the motion feels Like my body’s been trained for this moment even though my heart is screaming I keep my chin lugh, but my hands won’t stop trembling press them to my thighs and close my eyes for half a second, just to breathe, just to remember who I am outside of this nightmare.
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But I don’t know anymore.
I’ve lost too much. Grayson. Myself.
The truth.
Whatever future I thought I had.
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The howl rips through the clearing so suddenly it slices the breath out of me. My eyes snap open. The crowd stills. The elders turn their heads as one, toward the woods.
I don’t want to look.
I don’t want to know.
Because if it’s him–if it’s Riot–then everything changes. If it’s him, then I’m not just grieving anymore. I’m hunted. I’m prey. I’m his.
The trees part.
Branches rustle. The torches flicker. Something massive steps through the shadows, slow and heavy–footed and quiet in the way only wolves can be when they’re about to devour something.
And I–I don’t breathe. I don’t move. I wait. Because deep down I know–the one I prayed for won’t be the one who claims me.The shape in the trees doesn’t move like Grayson.
It’s slower. Heavier. Possessive.
Each pawstep lands like thunder in my ears. The crowd leans in like one body, exhaling all at once as if their lungs were tethered to the same story I was never allowed to rewrite. A murmur ripples through the witnesses, but no one dares speak–not yet. This is sacred. Or at least, they keep calling it that.
But sacred things shouldn’t feel like death walking.
The wolf steps into the light.
And it’s him. Riot.
Huge. Slate gray. Eyes like frostbite.
I forget how to breathe.
He doesn’t charge. He doesn’t lunge. He stares–with the kind of gaze that feels like it’s scraping skin off bone. Every inch of my body wants to flee, but I can’t move. Not with the circle drawn. Not with every elder watching. Not when he’s my so–called fated match.
I hate fate.
“Jessica Wilkinson,” a voice booms behind me–Elder Sarra, her staff tapping once into the dirt. “You have been brought forth by moonlight and bondmark. The claiming shall begin.”
I don’t answer. I can’t
My throat has locked around every syllable I thought I’d say All the brave, defiant things I’d practiced in that cell… gone.
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“Do you come willingly?” she asks.
The entire circle holds its breath.
Riot growls softly as if he’s warning me.
I could lie. I could say yes.
But something in me refuses to surrender that last inch of truth. Not to him.
“No.” I whisper.
Gasps ripple. A few of the younger wolves recoil. Someone hisses a curse. Elder Sarra’s expression barely flinches.
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“The alpha is dead!” I shouted instead, doing more chaos for the crowd. More guards tried to stop me but I ducked the first one, my shoulder crashing into his ribs.
“He didn’t run!” I screamed, louder now. “Grayson didn’t abandon us! He was taken!”
Elder Sarra stepped forward, staff striking the ground hard enough to silence a heartbeat. “You are defiling the sacred rite,” she said, voice cutting. “This is not the time for delusions.”
“It’s the only time,” I snapped back, chest heaving. “Because once this bond is done, no one will care what I remember. What I know. I’ll just be his. And your little cover–up will be sealed with blood and tradition.”
More guards surrounded me now. I counted six, maybe eight, all in formal leathers, half–shifted, fangs bared. They moved like a net, closing in. But no one touched me yet.
They were waiting–for him.
Riot’s voice, when it came, was low. Controlled. But barely.
“Jessica.”
I turned to him.
He hadn’t shifted back. He stood naked in the moonlight, the weight of his birthright ink glowing faintly along his ribs.
“There are things you don’t understand,” he said carefully.
“Then explain them,” I fired. “Say it now. Before you mark me. Before you decide you want to own what your silence destroyed.”
The wind turned colder.
I didn’t flinch.
The crowd had quieted to the point of rupture. The moon above us blazed white, like even the goddess was waiting to see what he would do
Riot took a step forward.
The guards stilled.
I stepped into the center of the circle, alone now, marked by no one, claimed by no one. But seen. Finally seen.
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And I stared up at that pale, cruel moon and whispered, “If you’re real–if you ever were–then let this be witnessed. I do not give myself freely. I do not offer my soul, my neck, or my bond.”
A sharp, cold wind ripped through the trees. The flames on the ritual torches flickered violently, bending low like the forest itself was bowing. Something ancient stirred.
Riot looked like he’d been punched.
Elder Sarra raised her staff again, voice trembling. “That is a refusal under oath.”
I nodded.
“You know the punishment.”
“I was already punished,” I said, eyes burning. “You just want to make it official.”
And then–chaos.
One of the guards lunged. I turned to run, but he caught my arm. Riot moved faster, intercepting him mid–air, slamming the wolf into the dirt with enough force to leave a crater.
Snarls broke out. A shriek. Then the metallic ring of bone cracking.
Half the circle exploded into movement, torn between tradition and truth, blood–loyalty and instinct. Someone screamed my name. Torches fell. Wolves collided mid–shift. A flash of silver–someone unsheathed a ceremonial blade. I stumbled backward, breath ragged, choking on ash and fur and fear.
And then-
A growl.
Every creature froze. Mid–shift. Mid–blow. Even Riot–alpha of the Blood pack, bare–chested and blood–wild–went still.
Another growl followed, deeper, layered–like two throats at once.
I turned. My lungs locked.
The tree line split.
Branches tore back like they’d been pushed apart. Like the forest had bent at the waist for something that didn’t belong to this world anymore.
And out of the dark-
Grayson stepped through.
Not limping. Not broken.
His eyes glowed like lanterns lit from the inside. His chest bare, body dusted in ash, skin scarred and glowing faintly gold like he’d been reforged in flame. His mouth was bloodied. His knuckles torn. And behind him, the shadows moved like they listened to him.
“Jessica,” he said. Not loud. But I heard it over the wind, the war, the heartbeat of the wild. “Step back.”
Riot snarled, stepping in front of me. “You’re dead.”
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Chapter 94
“Try again,” Grayson answered, his voice like a fault line cracking open.
Three wolves charged him at once.
He didn’t shift.
Didn’t blink.
He caught the first mid–air by the throat and threw him sideways into a stone pillar. The second he dodged–barely–and slammed his elbow into the third’s ribcage so hard I heard a scream.
Then he turned to Riot.
“You have something of mine.”
The crowd wasn’t breathing.
The ritual fire roared back to life behind us, flames taller than men now, as if the moon itself had flared in answer.
“She’s not yours,” Riot snapped. “You never marked her.”
“Didn’t have to,” Grayson growled. “I bled for her.”
The moon flared again. The bond pulsed in my chest like a living thing.
And for the first time–Riot stepped back.
His wolf flickered at the edges, uncertain. Not afraid, but… calculating.
“Jessica,” Grayson said again, lower this time, “come here.”
“Y–You’re alive…” I choked, stumbling back a step like the weight of it was too much. “I–Oh my god-”
Tears blurred my vision instantly, hot and fast.
He didn’t look real.
Didn’t look possible.
His hair was longer. Wilder. His eyes darker than I remembered. But it was him. It was him.
“I tried to come back,” he said hoarsely. “They wouldn’t let me.”
A scream caught in my throat.
I ran forward–instinct, gravity, fate–and almost reached him when-
Riot moved.
Fast. Too fast. Faster than thought.
He shifted mid–air. Limbs cracked. Fur ripped through skin. His claws extended before his body even landed–and he was aiming straight for Grayson’s unguarded back.
Grayson didn’t see. He was still looking at me. Still trying to reach me. Still saying my name. And everything slowed.
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Chapter 94
My heart flipped inside my chest.
“No,” I gasped. “No-”
Claws rose. Snarls shattered the air. Torches went flying as the crowd screamed.
“GRAYSON, NO!”
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