Avia Cooley POV: "Avia is a defective wolfless piece of trash without an Inner Wolf. How could she ever compare to you?" The man's ragged breathing echoed from the last stall of the luxury hotel restroom, thick with the foul stench of cheap perfume and a rutting Alpha's musk. I stopped cold on the marble floor. My stomach twisted as I recognized the voice of my fiancé, Freddy Costa, the heir to the second-tier Costa Pack. "Once I use this marriage pact to swallow the trust fund her dead parents left behind, I'll dump her in the outer barrens," Freddy grunted behind the locked wooden door. A woman giggled, high and breathless. My fingers curled into my palms, nails biting into my skin. In werewolf society, our status is locked by genetics at birth, and because everyone believed I was born wolfless—unable to shift, use a Mind-Link, or sense a mate—Freddy treated me like an easy meal ticket. I raised my right leg and drove my heel straight into the brass lock. The solid wood door blasted open and slammed against the tile wall. Inside, Freddy scrambled to pull up his trousers, while his mistress, Vanessa, shrieked and clutched her torn dress. Panic flashed across Freddy's flushed face before twisting into rage. He released a wave of his low-tier Alpha aura, trying to force my knees to buckle through genetic suppression. "Avia, have you lost your damn mind?" he barked. I suppressed the ancient White Wolf bloodline boiling in my veins and took half a step back, pretending to falter under his pathetic pressure. My hand closed around the porcelain washbasin filled with ice water on the counter. I swung my arm and splashed the freezing water straight into his face. "Just cooling down your overheated brain," I said. Freddy sputtered, wiping dirty water from his eyes. Beside him, Vanessa lunged forward with her claws out to rip my hair. I sidestepped by an inch. Her high heels hit the wet tiles, and she crashed face-first onto the floor with a loud thud. Ignoring her groans, I pulled the diamond engagement ring off my finger and threw it like garbage against Freddy's wet chest. "Our engagement is over," I said, my voice flat. "Don't ever come near me again." Leaving Freddy cursing behind me, I walked out of the restroom, crossed the gilded hotel lobby, and stepped into the cool night air outside the Pack Vow Registry down the street. I stood on the stone steps, rubbing the back of my neck. My mentor, the Elder Healer at the hidden sanctuary, had ordered me to get legally bound tonight, and now I was short one groom. Suddenly, a crisp, intoxicating scent of snow-covered cedar and winter ice hit my nose. My heart skipped a beat, and a strange heat surged through my blood. Even with my wolf spirit sealed away, my body trembled with an inexplicable sense of peace and belonging. I turned my head toward a streetlamp near the curb. A tall man in a faded black jacket sat on a wooden bench, a jagged red claw scar peeking out from beneath his right collarbone. A woman in a sequined dress threw a bouquet of roses at his boots. "Kingsley, you don't even own a decent car, and you expect me to mate with you?" she sneered, her Omega pheromones reeking of greed. "I'd rather be a mistress to a high-ranking Alpha!" She clickable-clacked away in her heels. The man didn't even blink; he simply lit a cigarette, his dark golden eyes cold and terrifying through the smoke. My pulse raced as I walked straight over to his bench and stopped in front of him. He lifted his gaze. A dangerous pressure radiated from his broad frame, making the fine hairs on my arms stand up, yet I held my ground. "Got dumped?" I pointed at the crushed roses on the pavement. "What a coincidence. I just trashed a cheating scumbag myself." Kingsley blew out a ring of smoke, his voice low and gravelly. "And?" "I need a marriage certificate to satisfy my elders, and you need a bride to save face," I said, looking straight into his golden eyes. "Want to split a table and sign a contract?" His fingers paused around the cigarette. His gaze swept over my plain coat—woven from priceless mythic silver thread—and a faint smirk touched his lips. "Deal," he said. We walked side by side into the Pack Vow Registry. The Beta clerk gave our mismatched pair a strange look before sliding two Blood Pact forms across the desk. Without hesitation, I signed my name and pressed my blood-pricked thumb onto the seal, and Kingsley did the same. In less than ten minutes, the clerk stamped our certificates with the Pack Registry's iron seal. We stepped back out onto the dim sidewalk. Kingsley shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "I'm Kingsley Rose," he said evenly. "I drive a rideshare car for a living. No house, no savings." I slipped the certificate into my bag without blinking. "Avia Cooley. A genetic wolfless outcast from the Cooley Pack. Dead broke too." Under the flickering streetlamp, his deep gaze locked onto mine. "Then I'm in your care from now on, wife." The word made my ears burn. I pinched the back of my neck and nodded stiffly. "We don't interfere with each other's private lives for the next few months. I'm taking the night bus back, so don't bother calling a cab." I turned and walked briskly toward the bus stop down the block. Kingsley Rose POV: I watched Avia's slender figure disappear around the corner, and the lazy mask vanished from my face. My inner Lycan beast roared against my ribs, screaming a single word—Mine!—as her lingering scent of frost and wild herbs calmed the chronic bloodlust in my veins. I crushed the cigarette butt between my fingers and pulled an encrypted satellite phone from my pocket. When my Beta assistant answered, I spoke in a voice colder than winter ice. "Investigate a girl named Avia from the Cooley Pack. "

Avia Cooley POV: After walking two blocks past the bus stop and making sure no one was tailing me, I flagged down a sleek black sedan and gave the driver the address to Westcrest Mountain Manor. Thirty minutes later, the wrought-iron gates of the most expensive territory in the city swung open for me. I pushed through the heavy oak doors of my private villa and headed straight into the walk-in closet. I peeled off the priceless silver-threaded coat and changed into a faded gray hoodie and frayed jeans. Looking into the floor-length mirror, I curled my lips into a cold smile. This shabby disguise was my best armor for dealing with the vultures in the Cooley family. I walked back down the hill, hopped onto a crowded public bus, and let the cheap diesel fumes soak into my clothes all the way to Cooley Manor. When I pushed open the carved front doors of the Cooley estate, classical music was playing in the bright living room. My adoptive father, Jeremiah Cooley, and his wife, Enid, were sipping air-freighted crystal-core tea on the velvet sofa. The moment Jeremiah saw me, his smile vanished. He slammed his porcelain teacup onto the table with a loud crack. "So you finally decided to crawl back?" Jeremiah snapped. Enid covered her nose with jewel-crusted fingers and leaned back in disgust. "She reeks of cheap oil and street dirt. What an embarrassment to the Cooley Pack." I lowered my chin, keeping my eyes cold while making my voice sound meek. "Father, Mother. I just got back." "Where the hell were you?" Jeremiah stood up, puffing out his chest as the acting Alpha of the pack. "Young Master Freddy just called! He said you acted like a lunatic at the hotel tonight!" "He was rutting with an Omega in a public restroom," I said, lifting my head to look straight into his murky eyes. Enid let out a shrill laugh. "What Alpha man doesn't have a fling or two? You're a defective wolfless who can't even shift into a Dire Wolf! Climbing into the Costa family's bed is a blessing for you, yet you dare throw a tantrum?" "A blessing?" My lips twisted into a mocking sneer. "If selling a daughter for business loans is such a great blessing, why don't you save it for your precious Omega daughter, Danae?" Jeremiah's face turned purple with rage. He raised his thick hand and swung it hard toward my cheek. "You ungrateful little wretch!" My eyes narrowed. I shifted my weight half a step to the left, dodging his palm with ease. Thrown off balance by his own force, Jeremiah stumbled forward and nearly crashed into the coffee table. "You're getting old, Father. Watch your back," I said coldly. Ignoring their livid faces, I walked out of the main hall and headed toward the cramped, damp storage shed in the side courtyard that served as my bedroom. Once inside, I locked the wooden bolt, pulled a modified micro-laptop from a hidden floorboard under the bed, and tapped rapidly on the keyboard. Blue light reflected off my face as encrypted files from the dark web loaded onto the screen. Twenty years ago, my birth father, Ean Cooley—the true Alpha of this pack—had vanished alongside my mother, and I needed to track down the Obsidian Syndicate to find out if they were still alive. Kingsley Rose POV: At the same time, deep inside a heavily guarded underground bunker on the edge of the city, I sat on a black leather sofa, letting my pureblood Lycan aura fill the concrete room. My chief Beta assistant, Arthur Hayes, stood three paces away, cold sweat beading on his forehead as he held a freshly printed classified folder. "Boss, we ran the check," Arthur said, keeping his head bowed. "Miss Avia is registered as the adopted daughter of Jeremiah Cooley. Her genetic evaluation at sixteen came back completely wolfless. She currently attends the remedial remedial class at St. Jude Alpha Academy." I tapped my long fingers against the leather armrest, recalling the sharp, fearless look in her eyes under the streetlamp. "Wolfless?" I repeated softly. "A genetic wolfless who can shrug off an Alpha's aura and kick open a solid oak lock with one foot?" Arthur blinked in surprise. "Perhaps Freddy's bloodline is just that weak. Should the North Rose Conglomerate step in and crush the Cooley family now?" "No. Don't startle the snake," I said, standing up and tossing the folder into the shredder. "If my new wife wants to play poor, I'll play along with her." I buttoned my dark jacket, my tone brooking no argument. "Have the garage bring out that second-hand Ford sedan tomorrow. From now on, I'm just a broke rideshare driver." Arthur's eyes widened in shock, his throat bobbing as my Alpha's Command pressed down on his spine. "Yes, Boss." I walked over to the liquor cabinet, poured a glass of straight whiskey, and downed it in one gulp, staring out the reinforced observation window into the dark night.

Avia Cooley POV: The next morning, just as I closed my laptop and slid it back under the floorboards, the rotting wooden door of my shed was kicked open with a violent bang. I turned around, my face like frost. Freddy swaggered into the narrow room, a purple bruise swelling on his cheek and a disgusting leer in his eyes. "You had quite a temper last night, Avia," Freddy sneered, kicking the door shut behind him. My right hand slipped quietly toward the hidden pouch at my waist, my fingertips brushing the cold metal of my mythic silver needles. "Get out," I said. "Stop playing hard to get," Freddy growled, taking two heavy steps toward me and leaking his foul Alpha pheromones. "You might be a useless wolfless freak, but your face and body are top-tier. Let me put my Marking bite on your neck right now, and I might forgive what happened last night." In our world, once a male werewolf sinks his canines into a female's neck to leave a permanent Marking scar, his ownership is absolute. He reached out his thick hand to grab my chin. I tilted my head away in disgust, caught his wrist in a vice grip, and twisted it backward with a sharp jerk. A loud crack of dislocating bone filled the room. Freddy let out a bloodcurdling scream and dropped to one knee on the floorboards. I looked down at him coldly. "Touch me again, and I'll cripple both of your arms," I said. Rapid footsteps pounded outside the courtyard. A second later, Jeremiah and Enid rushed in, flanked by two burly Beta guards. Seeing Freddy kneeling on the floor clutching his twisted wrist, Enid shrieked and scrambled over to help him up. She spun around and pointed a trembling finger at my face. "Have you gone insane?" Enid screamed. "How dare you lay a hand on Young Master Freddy!" Jeremiah's face was as dark as iron. "Get on your knees and apologize to him right now! Otherwise, I'll enforce Pack law and have you whipped!" I let go of Freddy's wrist, pulled a tissue from the bedside table, and wiped my fingers one by one. "Pack law?" I asked, tossing the dirty tissue onto the floor. "Which Pack law says I have to let a cheating piece of trash break into my bedroom and force a Marking on me?" Freddy cradled his swollen wrist, his teeth grinding together. "Jeremiah! Is this how the Cooley Pack raises its women? Either she bows her head and completes the mating ceremony with me today, or the Costa Pack pulls every cent of our investment before noon!" The word "investment" made Jeremiah's eyes turn bloodshot. He glared at me with pure greed and ruthlessness. "Did you hear that, Avia?" Jeremiah roared. "Whether you want this mating or not, you are going through with it today! Guards, hold her down!" The two heavy-set Beta guards stepped forward, reaching out to pin my shoulders. A cold killing intent flashed through my eyes. Just as I prepared to paralyze their nerve centers, I stopped myself, took a slow breath, and reached into my jeans pocket. "You want me to mate with him?" I pulled out the folded document stamped with the Registry's iron seal and slapped it hard onto the peeling wooden table. "Too late." Jeremiah frowned and snatched up the paper. The moment he saw the official red ink and the embossed wolf-head seal, his pupils shrank to pinpricks. "A Blood Pact?" Jeremiah's voice cracked as his hand shook. "You... you legally registered a marriage with someone else?" Enid ripped the certificate from his hand, her face draining of all color. "Kingsley Rose? Who the hell is that? Some nameless bottom-feeder from the slums? You secretly sold yourself to a stray dog behind our backs?" Freddy kicked over a wooden chair in a fit of rage. "Avia! You'd rather spread your legs for a broke nobody than be my Luna?" "A gutter rat who can't keep his pants zipped isn't even worthy of carrying a nobody's shoes," I said, looking at Freddy like he was dead meat. Jeremiah trembled from head to toe, waving the certificate in the air. "You think grabbing a random decoy on the street will get you out of my control? Dream on!" "Under Imperial Pack Law, my Blood Pact is registered with the High Council," I said calmly. "Any attempt to force a mated woman into another bond is a direct declaration of war against her husband's Alpha authority." Freddy's face twisted until it was almost deformed. He pointed his good hand at my nose. "Fine! Very good! Let's see if that penniless trash you married can keep his head attached to his neck!" He stormed out of the shed, nursing his broken wrist. Jeremiah clutched his chest, gasping for air as he glared at me. "You ruined our pack's business, you jinx!" "Your business has nothing to do with me," I said, snatching my marriage certificate back and folding it neatly. Enid crossed her arms, her lips curling into a venomous smile. "Don't celebrate too soon, you little wretch. Tomorrow night is Danae's welcome banquet. Let's see if your beggar husband even has the guts to show his face here!"