(Gwen's pov) I'd spent most of the afternoon in my mom's kitchen making Liam's favorite honey cake, and I was in such a good mood that I'd been humming the whole time.  It was our two-year anniversary.  I carried the plate across the pack grounds like it was something that could break, and when I got to his family's back door I bumped it open with my hip and called out,  "Liam, I made your-" I stopped, because he was standing by the window kissing someone, and it wasn't me! It was Darian, who works the eastern patrol and has come to dinner at Liam's house more times than I could count.  Liam had one hand on the side of his face, and the way he kissed him was something I'd never once gotten from him, like...he wasn't holding anything back. The plate hit the floor. Cake and pieces of china went everywhere, and they jumped apart. "Gwen," Liam said. He had gone completely pale. "Gwen, wait." "Wait for what?" I said. My voice erupted, thin and far away. "For you to finish?" "It's not what it looks like." "Then what does it look like, Liam? Because to me it looks like my boyfriend is kissing a man in his own kitchen." Darian stared at the floor and started edging toward the door. "I'll just go." "Yeah," I said, still not looking at him. "You do that!" The door shut, and for a moment the only sound was the honey dripping off the edge of the table.  Liam rubbed his face with both hands. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't want you to find out like this." "Like this?" I laughed, and it came out nasty. "How were you going to tell me? At dinner? On our wedding day?" "I was going to tell you. I really was." I felt anger surge in me when I heard his words. "When, Liam? When?!" "I don't know." He let out a breath. "I tried, Gwen. For two years I tried to feel the way I was supposed to, and I do love you, just not like that. I kept thinking it would change." Something in my chest went tight and hot. "Do you know how many times I asked myself what was wrong with me? I thought maybe I wasn't pretty enough, or I wasn't-" Liam stretched his hands towards me. "There was never anything wrong with you." I screamed. "Then why does it feel like there is?" His eyes were wet, which made it worse. "I think we should end things. It isn't fair to keep doing this to you. You deserve somebody who wants you all the way." "So you're breaking up with me," I said slowly. "Right now. While I'm standing here in my good dress with cake on my shoes." "Gwen, please..." "Don't....please." I held up my hand, and it was shaking. "Don't make it sound like you're doing me a favor." I walked out before he could see me crying, and of course I started the second the door closed. The whole village looked the same as it always did. Kids were running around the lanes, and a couple of the older wolves nodded at me as I passed, because I'm the Beta's daughter and I'm supposed to smile back.  I tried, I really did, but then I put my head down and walked faster so nobody would look too closely at my face. The part that hurt most wasn't even the kiss. It was thinking back on two years of dinners and sneaking off behind the granary, my mom saying Liam would be such a good match for our family, and realizing he'd been quietly waiting that whole time for a way out. I'd believed in something that was only ever real on my side. I took the back lane by the old well to avoid the market, with my face wet and my dress ruined, and almost walked right past the woman standing there in a gray hood. "You look like you could use a drink, little wolf," she said. "I'm fine," I said, wiping my cheeks. "Excuse me." "Are you?" She stepped in front of me. Under the hood her eyes were pale, almost silver. "You look like a girl who needs to cool off." "I said I'm fine. Please move."  "Of course," she said, and then she picked up a pitcher from the edge of the well and threw the whole thing in my face. It was freezing. It went down my neck and soaked the front of my dress, and after the day I'd had, something in me just gave out. I slapped her. I didn't think about it, my hand just went, and the sound of it cracked down the empty lane. "What is wrong with you?" I yelled. "Do you have any idea what kind of day I've had?" She didn't flinch. She put her fingers to her cheek, looked at me, and smiled, which was worse than if she'd hit me back. "Thank you," she said. "I've been waiting a long time for someone to do that." "What?" "A Beta's daughter with a short temper and a soft heart. You're exactly right, Gwen." My stomach dropped. "How do you know my name?" "It doesn't matter." Her voice was calm now, and the whole lane felt strangely quiet. "You raised your hand to a witch. In two years, on this night, your heart will stop, and nobody in your pack will be able to tell you why." "You're lying. You can't just go around and curse people, you poured me water first!" "Look at your wrist." I looked. There was a thin black line on my skin, spreading slowly like ink soaking into paper, winding up toward my elbow and it burned. "What did you do to me?" When I looked up, she was gone. The bucket was gone too, and all that was left was the dripping from my hair.

(Gwen's POV) I didn't make it past the front door before my legs gave out, and my mother found me crumpled against the frame, soaked to the skin and shaking so hard that my teeth clicked together. "Gwen?" She dropped the cloth she was holding and knelt beside me, her hands moving over my wet hair and my cold cheeks. "Goddess above, what happened? Why are you drenched?" "Mama." My voice broke on the word. "It's Liam." "What about him? Did he hurt you?" "He's gay." The words tumbled out between sobs, ugly and humiliating. "I walked in on him with another man, and he kissed him like he'd never kissed me, Mama, not once in two years. Then he broke up with me, as if I wasn't the one who should have said it first." She said nothing, and I felt her arms tighten around me, warm in a way that made me cry even harder. She smelled of lavender and bread, the smell of every childhood sickness and every scraped knee I'd ever had. "Oh, my sweet girl," she whispered into my hair. "Oh, my brave, foolish girl." "I'm not brave. I'm humiliated. Everyone thought we would be married by spring. Father already told half the council." "Your father will get over his embarrassment, and so will you." She pulled back, cupping my face, and her thumbs wiped away the tears that kept coming. "You loved him honestly. That's nothing to be ashamed of." My voice broke even more. "He lied to me." "He lied to himself first, which is a kind of cruelty all its own." She kissed my forehead. "Now come upstairs and change before you catch your death." I flinched at that word, but she didn't notice. She drew me a bath, tucked me into bed, and sat beside me stroking my hair until I fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep with my left hand curled tight against my chest. The scream woke me the next morning. It was high and raw and utterly unlike my mother, and I was out of bed and halfway across the room before I was fully awake, my heart hammering.  Sunlight streamed through the window, and my mother stood at the foot of my bed with both hands pressed over her mouth. "Mama? What's wrong?" "Your hand." She could barely get the words out. "Gwen, your hand." I looked down. A dark, intricate mark curled across the back of my left hand, black as ink and spreading in thin, branching lines toward my wrist like the veins of a leaf, and it pulsed faintly when I stared at it, as if it were alive. "No," I whispered. "No, no, no." My father burst into the room a moment later, still in his nightshirt, his hair wild. "What is it? Who screamed?" Then he saw the mark, and the color fled from his face. "That's a witch's curse!" "Gwen." My mother grabbed my shoulders. "Tell us everything. Did you meet a witch last night?" I swallowed hard. "She was sitting by the fountain in the old market, an old woman in a mossy shawl. She poured a pitcher of water over my head for no reason, and I slapped her. I was so angry, Mama, I wasn't thinking." "You slapped a witch??" My father sank onto the edge of my bed like his knees had failed him. "Gods help us." "She said that two years from last night, my heart would stop." My voice cracked. "And she knew my name, though I never told her." My parents exchanged a long look and my stomach dropped, because it wasn't surprise.  "You know her?" I said slowly. "Both of you know her." "Her name is Morwen," my mother said quietly. "She lives at the edge of the forest. We've known her since, before you were born." "Then you have to take me to her. Now." "Get dressed," my father said, rising. "We leave at once." The path to Morwen's house was through the forest where the trees grew so thick that daylight came down in thin, cold threads, and the air smelled like wet earth and burned herbs.  The house was at the end of it, small and crooked, with a roof sagging under heavy moss and crooked windows that seemed to watch us as we approached.  Bundles of dried roots and bones hung from the eaves, and they clicked softly together. "I hate this place," I whispered. "Stay close," my mother murmured, gripping my uninjured hand. The door opened before we even reached it. Morwen stood in the doorway, no longer hunched, her silver eyes was bright with amusement, and the red mark of my slap still faintly visible on her cheek. She leaned against the frame and looked me over slowly. "Little one," she said, smiling, "did your parents never teach you not to slap your elders?" My face burned. "You poured water on me." "And you struck me. We each have our crimes." Her gaze moved to my parents, and her expression softened. "Alaric. Seren. It has been a really long time." "Morwen." My father bowed his head, and I stared at him, because I had never once seen him bow to anyone. "We have come to beg forgiveness for our daughter. She is young and was grieving, and she acted in anger." "Please." My mother stepped forward, her voice trembling. "She doesn't understand what she did. Remove the curse, and we'll give you whatever you ask." Morwen tilted her head, studying us. "Come inside. I don't discuss such things on the doorstep." The room inside was cramped and dim, lit by a single guttering candle, and shelves crowded with jars lined every wall.  A black cat watched us from the hearth with intelligence. Morwen settled into a worn chair and gestured for us to sit, but none of us moved. "Well?" my father said hoarsely. "A curse of this kind cannot be broken, Alaric." Her tone was almost gentle. "It can only be reversed." "Then reverse it." My voice came out sharper than I intended. "Tell me how." Morwen's silver gaze settled on me, and her smile disappeared. "You must kiss the Lycan King, child. Xaden himself. Three times, before two years have passed, or your heart will stop as I said." The room went utterly silent, and I heard the cat meow. "The king?" I whispered. "The ruthless king? The one who has never looked twice at a woman?" "That one," Morwen said softly, and her smile returned, slowly. "I suggest you start practicing your manners, Gwen."

(Gwen's pov) The decree went up on the village notice board two days after we left Morwen's house, and by noon every wolf in the pack had read it. I heard about it from my father, who came through the front door so fast that he forgot to take off his boots, something my mother would normally have scolded him for. He held the parchment in both hands as if it were made of gold. "The king is choosing a wife," he said. "What?" My mother put down her spoon. "Since when?" "Since this morning, darling. Every daughter who has come of age is invited to the capital for the selection." He spread the page across the table and tapped the wax seal at the bottom. "Every one of them, darling, whatever her rank." I looked down at the black mark on the back of my hand, hidden under a lace glove my mother had made me wear, and my stomach turned over. "Papa, no." "Listen to me, Gwen." He crouched in front of my chair, which he hadn't done since I was small. "You have two years. The king hasn't looked at a single woman since he took the crown, so where else would you ever get close enough to him?" "I can't just walk up and ask a king to kiss me." "You don't have to ask him anything. You only have to be in the room." My mother came around the table and took my free hand. "This is the one door that's open, sweetheart, and I won't watch it close." "And if he doesn't choose me? Then I've embarrassed the whole family in front of the entire kingdom." "Then you come home and we think of something else." Her eyes were shining. "But we are not going to lose you without trying." I looked from one of them to the other and understood that there was no version of this conversation where I said no.  They spent the next two days getting me ready. My mother let down the hem of a pale green dress she had been saving for my wedding, and I tried not to think about that while she pinned it.  She brushed my hair until it shone and wove tiny white flowers into a braid, and my father hovered in the doorway with his arms crossed, clearing his throat every few minutes as though something were stuck in it. On the morning the carriage came, the house was too quiet than I had ever heard it. "Do you have your gloves?" my mother asked. "Yes, Mama." "And the little pouch with the-" "Yes, I have it." She straightened my collar even though it was already straight. "You'll be polite, you'll eat something, and you will not slap anyone." I laughed, and then my face crumpled. "I'm scared." "I know." She pulled me against her, and I breathed in lavender and bread and every safe thing I had ever known. "You're my daughter, and you are stronger than you think." "I don't feel strong." My father laid his big rough hand on top of my head the way he used to when I was little. His voice cracked on the first try. "Come home to us, Gwen." "I will, Papa. I promise." I hugged them both until the driver coughed outside, then I climbed into the carriage so blinded by tears that I missed the step and nearly fell.  Through the little back window I watched them stand together in the doorway, my mother's hand pressed over her mouth, until the road curved and the trees covered them. The journey took the whole day. I watched the forest give way to fields and the fields to wide stone roads, and when the sun began to sink the capital rose ahead of me, all gray towers and dark red banners snapping in the wind.  I pressed my gloved hand to my chest and told myself I could do this, over and over, like a prayer. The carriage stopped in a courtyard so large that my entire village could have fit inside it, and when I stepped down I forgot how to breathe. There were girls everywhere. Fifty at least, in silk and velvet and jewel colors, with glossy hair and loud, easy laughter, and every one of them was taller than me.  Their gowns hugged curves I had never had, and I looked down at my plain green dress, my flat chest and narrow hips, and felt plain and unfinished. "Goddess," I whispered. "He'll never even see me." The king would appear on the raised platform at the end of the courtyard, and the girls in front had already formed a wall of perfume and shoulders.  I had to be seen to be chosen, and I had to be chosen to get anywhere near him. I squared my shoulders and started pushing through. "Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me." Nobody moved. A girl in red shifted, and her elbow caught my ribs. Another stepped back onto my foot without so much as a glance. Every gap I found closed before I could reach it, and I felt like a leaf trying to cross a river. "Please, I just need to get to the front." "The front is taken," someone said. I turned. The girl who had spoken was taller than the rest, honey-skinned, with gold threaded through her dark hair and a smile that never reached her eyes. Her friends drifted closer, one on each side of her, like guards. "I only want to be where the king can see me," I said. "Oh, sweetie." She looked me over slowly, from my braid to my shoes, and her friends giggled.  Then she planted two fingers against my shoulder and pushed, hard enough that I stumbled back into someone's skirts. "You think you'll be selected, girl? Just go back home and wait for your soulmate." Heat flooded my face. A dozen sharp replies crowded into my mouth, and the wolf in me wanted nothing more than to say every one of them, the way I had to a witch nights ago and look where that had gotten me.  I pressed my lips together and swallowed it all down, though it burned the whole way. "Nothing to say?" she asked, amused, and the girls around her laughed. "Good. Know your place." The sound of boots on stone cut through the laughter.  A woman strode across the courtyard in dark warrior's armor, her hair cropped short and a sword at her hip, and the chatter died as if someone had shut a door. "You will all gather in two lines," she said, her voice carrying without any effort, "and get ready for selection." The courtyard erupted. Girls hurried into place in a rustle of silk, smoothing their skirts and checking their hair, and I darted toward the nearest line only to be bumped aside by a hip. I tried the second line and was shoved again. "Excuse me, I was-" "Move, little mouse," someone muttered, and a firm butt knocked me sideways.  Another followed, then another, nudging me down the row and past it, until I was standing at the very end of the last line with nothing behind me but cold stone wall and the sound of fifty girls whispering. I stared straight ahead, my gloved hand clenched around the mark, and told myself it didn't matter where I stood. I would make sure the king saw me anyway.