Brianna The wedding dress was made for Paige. I knew it the second the maids forced my arms into the sleeves. The satin bodice clamped around me like a closing fist, boning digging into my ribs with every breath I dared to take. "It's too tight," I said. "Could you loosen-" "Deal with it." The maid lacing me up gave the cords a vicious yank, and I choked back a gasp as they bit into my waist. Her eyes found mine in the mirror, her mouth curved into something between pity and mockery. "Marrying Alpha Colton is more luck than you deserve. A girl like you-" she let the words hang, savoring them, "-a wolfless girl? What better future did you think was waiting for you?" The other maid, smoothing down my skirts, gave a low laugh. "Right. Did you actually believe Jax would marry you?" I stared at my reflection and said nothing. What was there to say? Every word was true. In this pack-in any pack-a person without a wolf barely counts as a person at all. Just an empty shell with a name attached. And Jax, the man I'd believed would stand beside me for the rest of my life, had made it brutally clear yesterday that empty shells aren't worth protecting. The bride in the mirror was pale as bone. But her eyes were dry. Good, I told myself. At least your eyes are dry. The maid pinned the veil into my hair. White gauze fell over my face, and the world blurred into fog. I don't remember walking to the chapel. I only remember the doors swinging open and the light crashing down on me like a wave. Hundreds of white candles burned in two rivers from the doors to the altar. The heat of them, thick with the cloying sweetness of lilies, seeped through my veil until my temples throbbed. Every guest turned as one, hundreds of eyes nailing themselves to me-no. To the dress. They thought Paige was under this veil. To everyone watching, it was a picture-perfect moment: a father walking his daughter down the aisle. Only I knew how deep his fingers dug in. Through the thin fabric of my sleeve, his nails sank into my arm like five burning nails. He was making sure I didn't run. Didn't scream. Didn't do anything to shame the Duskwood name. Go ahead. Squeeze harder. You've been doing it since I was a child. And no matter how dark the bruises are tonight, by morning they'll be gone without a trace. As if they never existed at all. My body doesn't scar. Doesn't bruise. Doesn't keep a single mark. And in this whole world, I am the only one who knows it. One step. Another. The red carpet stretched ahead of me like the road to a gallows. My gaze drifted through the haze of my veil, across the front rows of guests- And stopped. Jax sat in the second row of the family section. Right beside Paige. He was leaning toward her, lips nearly brushing her temple as he murmured something. Their hands rested against each other in the shadow between their seats, and Paige's fingertips lingered at his cuff-settling there the way a hand settles somewhere it has rested a thousand times before. So familiar. So natural. So natural that not a single guest found it strange. It was this obvious. It was always this obvious. And I was the only one who spent two whole years blind. One week ago, Colton Westbrook-the Hound of War-sent Duskwood a formal demand for marriage. He wanted the Alpha's daughter. Everyone knew which daughter he meant: Paige. And from that moment, the entire pack plunged into mourning. Even the servants walked on tiptoe. We'd all grown up on the stories about that man. The wives who died under his roof. The blood on his hands that would never wash clean. But that was exactly why his pack grew stronger year after year-strong enough that no one, anywhere, dared to tell him no. And me? For the first time in my life, I was grateful to be worthless. Too worthless to have a name worth remembering. Too worthless for a monster's eye to ever land on. What I never imagined was that even a worthless girl could be thrown away by her own mate. Last night, I learned that the bride walking down the aisle this morning would be me. My parents had spent the entire week locked in the study, scheming a way out of this disaster. And the way out they found-was to feed me to it. Of course. I should have seen it coming. I tried to fight it, at first. Right up until Jax stepped to Paige's side and looked at me with a stranger's eyes. Right up until my father spoke my grandmother's name-in that calm, level voice people use to discuss the price of livestock. Then I pressed my thumbprint onto the contract. I had no choice. Grandma is the only person in this world who ever truly loved me, and I will protect her with everything I have. My thumb curled slightly against the stem of my bouquet. I could still taste the copper from last night, when I'd bitten through the skin. But when I ran my finger over it now, the pad of my thumb was smooth. Whole. The wound had sealed itself without a sound, without leaving so much as a line behind. Small mercies, I thought, clinging to that flicker of warmth. I was not walking into this slaughterhouse empty-handed. There was one thing-one single thing-that no one else in this world knew. One card that was still mine to play. And then the carpet ran out. The road was so short. Too short to even finish one full breath. My father released my arm and stepped back, and though the marks he left burned like fire, my arm suddenly felt weightless-like being let go at the edge of a cliff. I didn't dare look up. All I could see was a pair of black boots, polished to a mirror shine, standing motionless in the candlelight at the altar. But his presence had weight. It pressed down on my head, my shoulders, my spine, until the organ music and the breathing of hundreds of guests all faded into a distant hum. I moved like a puppet on strings-kneeling, rising, giving my hand, listening to the priest drone through the endless vows. Someone answered when the questions came. Maybe it was my own voice. I honestly don't know. Then the priest closed the holy book, smiled, and spoke the words: "You may now kiss your bride." A ripple of cheers rose through the hall. My neck was stiff as I surfaced from the fog, inch by inch, and began to lift my head the way ritual demanded- A low male voice fell first. Soft. So soft it poured into my ear alone, grazing past the veil, mockery wrapped around a blade's edge: "You're not Paige. Are you?" My heart stopped mid-beat. The candles kept burning. The guests kept smiling. The organ's last note still hung beneath the vaulted ceiling. Not one soul in this chapel had heard those words. No one but me knew that the gallows floor had just dropped open beneath my feet. My hand tightened around the bouquet, around the dagger hidden deep inside its stems. I don't know what this madman is about to do. But this time, I will not close my eyes and let someone else decide my fate.

Chapter 2 Brianna The cheers rolled up from the crowd in waves, muffled, like sound heard from underwater. Everyone out there believed we were kissing. Only I knew that beneath this veil, a single whisper had just severed my last road out of here alive. My father's voice from last night came flooding back, unbidden. One lamp lit in the study. He slid this dagger across the desk without so much as lifting his eyes- "If you're found out, kill yourself. Don't drag your family down with you. Least of all-your grandmother." So it was never a threat. It was a eulogy. My family had written my last words for me in advance-because they knew, from the very start, that I would be found out. Of course they knew. How could an Alpha this powerful fail to see through one worthless, wolfless girl? My fingers trembled around the stems of my bouquet, the cold hilt biting into my palm. I opened my mouth. "I-" Then the man actually leaned down toward me. Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. But all he did was press the lightest kiss to my lips through the veil-and in the next breath, his voice grazed across the gauze, low and almost lazily soothing: "Easy, little bride. I'm not going to kill you." A pause. "Yet." Yet. The word started a countdown on my life. He straightened and turned to face the cheering crowd. Through the veil, I watched his profile go dark in an instant-like a candle flame pinched out between two fingers. The cheers below cut off mid-breath. A hall of hundreds fell so silent I could hear wax dripping down the candles. He said nothing. He simply turned and walked, his cloak sweeping down the altar steps, leaving not a single word behind. The two maids trailing him stepped up at once to "assist" me. Their fingers hooked into the crooks of my elbows with the precision of a matched pair of shackles. Half escorted, half marched, I was steered through the side corridor and delivered into the chamber behind the altar. The door closed at my back. The click of the lock was soft-and louder than all the cheering in that hall. Cold seeped from the stone walls. He stood three paces away, his shadow stretched long by the firelight, falling clean across the sweep of my skirts. He reached out and tore off my veil. Pain flared where the pins ripped from my hair, and the white gauze drifted to the floor. The last layer of fog between us was gone. "No wolf." He stared at me, biting off each word. On the altar, those eyes had still held a flicker of mocking warmth. Now there was only the cold of a blade leaving its sheath. "I smelled it from across the hall. You're empty inside." He took a step closer. "They dared send me a wolfless shell." Then he laughed-a short sound far more terrifying than no laugh at all. "Is this their idea of an insult?" Two different men. The one on the altar who had drawled not going to kill you yet, and the one standing in front of me now-two entirely different men. And this one meant it. This one was going to kill me. Strange, then, that a cold calm settled over me instead. Maybe there's a ceiling to how much fear a body can hold. Once the water closes over your head, it doesn't matter how much deeper it goes. And maybe the only way to survive fear is to turn around and look it dead in the eye. Under the crushing weight of his presence, I raised my bouquet. His gaze flicked to it on instinct-and in that half second, my fingers dove into the stems and pulled the dagger free. White roses and lily of the valley scattered with a rush, breaking across our feet. I stood in the ruin of my own bouquet, blade in hand. Wariness flashed through his eyes. But he didn't step back. Didn't so much as tilt his head. The wariness sank as quickly as it had surfaced, and what rose in its place was derision-the look a predator gives cornered prey that has just bared its tiny claws. Bold. And laughable. I flipped the dagger around, hilt first, and offered it to him. With my other hand, I drew back my sleeve, baring my forearm. "I don't know why you demanded a bride from my family. But I know there's something you want." My voice came out steadier than I had any right to expect. "I don't know what it is. But you can test one thing right now-I have something you want." He glanced down at the hilt held out between us. Then he said the last thing I expected. "Prove what, exactly?" He didn't take it. His tone was flat, like a man declining a drink. "Do it yourself." I froze. I'd grown up on the stories. The bloodlust. The dead wives. The heads stacked like trophies on his battlefields. I thought bared steel and offered flesh would excite a monster like him. But he just stood there, calm to the point of boredom, as if the last card I had-the one I'd staked my life on-wasn't worth the effort of reaching out his hand. He seemed to read exactly what I was thinking. He actually leaned back, settling against the edge of the table, and spoke almost idly: "You've heard my reputation." His gaze traveled from the blade up to my face. "And you still walked in here as a substitute bride. You've got nerve." It wasn't a compliment. It was a dissection. He was weighing what my life was made of. "When you have something to protect," I said, "there's nothing left to be afraid of." And on the last word, I turned my wrist and set the edge against my own forearm- -and cut. No hesitation. The blade bit deep. A line of scarlet bloomed, and pain seared up my arm. I saw his body shift-his hand actually came up, as if to stop me-half a beat too late- And then we both stood there, watching the wound. The blood had barely welled up before the flesh began to close. The red line narrowed, sealed, smoothed over-within a few breaths, all that remained on my forearm was a smear of blood. One swipe of my thumb, and the skin beneath was flawless. Unmarked. As if the blade had never touched me. The pain was still there. The wound was already gone. The chamber was silent but for the crack and spit of the fire. I raised my eyes. The mockery on his face was draining away, inch by inch. What replaced it sent a chill crawling up my spine-not admiration. Not greed. It was cold, absolute alarm. He crossed the scattered flowers in a single stride and seized my wrist. His thumb ground over the blood on my forearm, smearing it aside, dragging again and again across the unbroken skin-as if he could dig out a scar that wasn't there. His grip was crushing. I felt my bones creak. He bent down, his face inches from mine, his voice dredged up low from deep in his chest: "What are you-" A pause. "-a witch?"

Chapter 3 Brianna Witch. The word hung in the air-but before I could answer, he rejected it himself. His grip stayed locked on my wrist, thumb grinding across the last inch of skin on my inner forearm. Then the motion slowed, the way a hound stops dead at the end of a scent trail. "No." His eyes narrowed, voice dropping low. "No trace of dark magic on you. You're no witch." I hadn't even finished releasing the breath I was holding when he closed in another step. Those long fingers tightened, and my wrist bones ground together audibly, pain detonating up my arm and into my shoulder. "Then what are you?" "Let go! I just heal fast-" The pain tore the words out of me, my voice cracking. "I still feel it!" To my shock, he actually released me. The instant his grip vanished, the raw burn of it still smoldered on my wrist. But before I could retreat even half a step, his arm was already around me, hauling me in, his other hand clamping the back of my neck-not violence. Control. Restraint measured to the inch: I couldn't move, and I couldn't have pointed to a single mark to accuse him with. He stared down at me, close enough that I could see the light splintering in his eyes like cracked ice. "Talk." Two knocks sounded at the door. "Alpha?" A guard's voice filtered through the wood, hesitant. "Is everything-" " Out." One word. The breathing beyond the door stopped, then footsteps retreated. Silence settled back over the room. Silence deep enough to hear the last log collapsing in the fireplace. Deep enough to hear my own heartbeat slamming, over and over, against the arm he had braced across me. I swallowed against a throat gone paper-dry, and began. "My name is Brianna. Brianna Duskwood." I said it slowly. "Alpha Adam's younger daughter. You weren't wrong-I'm not Paige." I braced for the explosion. For him to demand answers about the switched bride, about the sheer nerve of my father's deception. But not a ripple crossed his face. As if the fact that Duskwood had swapped out his bride mattered less to him than the ruined flowers on the carpet. "The name doesn't interest me," he said. "The power. Where does it come from?" And that was the question I couldn't answer. "...I don't know." His eyes cooled by a degree. I rushed on, spilling out what I'd kept clenched inside me for twenty years- "I've been this way since I was born. Skinned knees healed by the next morning. Burned palms without so much as a mark left behind. No one taught me. No one gave me anything." My mouth twisted. "You won't believe this, but no one ever noticed. In Duskwood, a daughter born without a wolf isn't worth a second glance-not even when she's being beaten. Who's going to count the scars that aren't on a worthless girl's body?" He didn't interrupt. "When I got older, I figured it out on my own." My voice dropped. "The moment anyone learned what I was, nothing good would come of it. Wolfless already makes you worthless. Add one impossible thing that can't be explained-and you're not worthless anymore. You're a monster. So I hid it. From everyone. For twenty years." I lifted my eyes to his. "You're the first person who knows." The words ran out. The room sank back into that thick, viscous silence. He finally released his hold on me, but he didn't move away. I watched him bend down and pick the dagger up out of the scattered flowers. The blade turned a half-circle between his fingers, my blood not yet dry on the steel. A long moment passed before he spoke. "A woman who kept a secret for twenty years," he said, "lays the whole thing bare on the first night she meets me." He looked up, and with a lazy flick, the dagger's point came to rest aimed at my heart. "Tell me why I shouldn't believe you're a spy they planted. Power like yours, in an enemy's hands-that's no small threat." I had asked myself that same question a hundred times, through the long night before they sewed me into this dress. So the answer was ready. "You already know why. You felt it yourself, the moment you saw my arm heal." I stared down the blade and gave him every word, one at a time. "The instant this secret gets out, the world will call me a monster. A witch. They'll bind me to a stake and light the fire-and when the fire doesn't kill me, they'll try something else. And something else after that. One method at a time, until they find the one that finally works." I opened both hands, palms up. Empty. I had already handed over everything I owned. "I have nothing left. Nothing but the one secret that could get me killed-and I just placed it in your hands myself." "Is that not proof enough?" He said nothing. Those eyes moved over my face like a man appraising the spoils of war- threat, asset, or dead weight? Firelight flickered across the hard line of his jaw, and I could read nothing in it. Nothing at all. I stood amid the wreckage of white roses, palms damp, waiting for his verdict.