Casey POV: Clutching the crumpled blood-bond registration ticket in my hand, I had just stepped out of the Pack Registry when a pungent, cheap floral perfume hit my nose, mixed with the unmistakable, nauseating scent of male arousal. I froze. That masculine scent was all too familiar. It smelled just like Cade Burris, the man who was supposed to meet me today to register our blood-bond marriage but had yet to show up. In our society, everything from corporate hierarchy to the way we lived was determined by genetics. Yet I was a werewolf without an "inner wolf" gene. I couldn't shift or use mind links. Because of my genetic deficiency, my senses were duller than those of an ordinary werewolf. Even so, the stench was strong enough to make my stomach turn. I immediately recognized the black SUV parked by the roadside. Just last month, I'd poured all my savings into its down payment, hoping it would help Cade Burris maintain his image as a rising Beta at our company's branch. The rear window had a two-inch crack in it. The heavy vehicle was rocking slowly, rhythmically. I stepped up to the glass and peered through the two-inch gap into the dim interior. Two tangled bodies filled my vision, and my stomach twisted into a violent knot. Cade had his face buried in a woman's neck, letting out rough, ragged pants. Beneath him, the woman tilted her head back, her light brown curls spilling over the leather headrest. It was Jacquelin Michael—my coworker at the Dark River branch, and the woman I called my best friend. The blood in my veins turned to ice water, drenching me from head to toe. My stomach heaved, and my stiff fingers latched onto the cold metal door handle. I yanked the door open. Blinding sunlight flooded the backseat, cutting off their heavy moans. Jacquelin let out a shrill, fake scream and yanked Cade's suit jacket over her bare chest. Beneath her staged panic, a smug, triumphant glint flashed in her eyes. Cade whipped his head around. The old scar on his right brow twisted with rage as he glared at me without a shred of guilt. Buttoning his rumpled shirt with slow, deliberate fingers, he sneered down his nose at me. "Are you crazy? Who gave you permission to open my door?" My whole body trembled so hard my teeth chattered. "Today is our registration day, Cade! You're in the car I bought for you, screwing my best friend?" Cade climbed out of the backseat and stepped into my space, his Beta aura pressing down on me as he looked at me with pure disgust. "Wake up to reality, Casey. You're a defective, wolfless piece of trash without an Inner Wolf. Jacquelin has family connections that can get me promoted to district supervisor." Leaning out of the open door, Jacquelin tugged on Cade's sleeve in a sickeningly sweet voice. "Cade, don't be so harsh on her. It's not her fault she was born pathetic." Staring at the two of them, my vision blurred with hot tears. I raised my arm and slammed the crumpled queue slip straight into Cade's face. "Give me back my car keys!" I lunged forward, reaching for the key fob clutched in his fist. Cade's eyes turned cold. He shoved my shoulder with both hands. My thin frame lost balance, and I crashed onto the baking asphalt. The rough pavement tore a large patch of skin off my palms, raw and bleeding. Standing over me, Cade looked down as if I were garbage on the street. "This SUV is my official Pack vehicle now. As for you, crawl back to your bottom-tier desk." He slammed the door shut and fired up the engine. The tires screeched against the pavement, blasting a wave of hot exhaust into my face before the SUV sped out of the lot. I sat on the ground, staring at the shrinking taillights. Around me, passing Pack members slowed down, pointing and whispering with mocking grins. I bit down on my lower lip until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, refusing to let a single tear fall. I couldn't become their laughingstock. Never. Pressing my bleeding palms against the ground, I tried to push myself up, but a sharp pain shot through my scraped knees and dropped me right back down. Without warning, a freezing, overpowering scent of winter cedar invaded my nose. The scent was so dominant it drowned out the exhaust fumes and the whispers around me, raising a thick layer of goosebumps across my arms. A pair of gleaming, custom-made black leather shoes stopped inches from my knees. My gaze traveled up the sharp crease of his perfectly tailored trousers until it reached his chiseled profile. He raised his phone to his ear, his brows furrowed in obvious irritation. A moment later, his deep, commanding voice rang out."If she won't come, find someone else. I need a suitable woman to enter a blood pact with me today, no matter what!" He towered over me like a mountain, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, radiating the suffocating dominance of an apex predator. After lowering his phone, he looked down at me. On the inner side of his left wrist, a dark red wolf-shaped brand was faintly visible. I swallowed hard, my throat dry, and heard my own voice come out wild and reckless with despair. "Sir, did you bring your Pack ID card?" The man narrowed his gray-blue eyes, his voice rumbling low and deep in his chest. "I did. Why?" I pushed myself up from the scorching asphalt, swaying slightly as I brushed the gravel and dust off my skirt to face the towering man. Standing this close, his cold cedar scent wrapped around me like a tight net, making the blood in my veins heat up and race for no reason at all. “Since you brought it, let’s go in and register the Blood Oath,” I said, digging my bleeding nails deep into my palm and forcing out a dry, fragile laugh. “You’re in a hurry to register it, and I need someone to keep my ex in line. We can work together.”

Casey POV: A dangerous dark glint flickered in the man's gray-blue eyes, and he tapped his index finger once against the seam of his tailored trousers. "You want to bind a Blood Oath with me?" His low voice carried an unreadable weight. "Aren't you afraid I'm a lunatic?" "Even a lunatic is better than my cheating scum of an ex," I bit out through clenched teeth, lifting my chin. The man stared at me for a long beat before turning on his heel and striding toward the heavy glass doors of the Pack Registry. I blinked in surprise, then hurried after his broad back. We walked side by side into the main hall. Behind the counter, a Beta clerk was dozing off, but the second my companion stepped across the threshold, the clerk jolted upright as if struck by lightning. Sweat beaded on the clerk's forehead as he stammered, "S-Sir, what service do you require today?" "Blood Oath marriage registration," the man said, each word a cold, unquestionable command. With trembling hands, the clerk slid two sheets of ancient parchment across the marble counter, keeping his eyes glued to the floor. I reached for the small silver-plated letter opener chained to the desk. Silver was the only fatal weakness to werewolves—capable of burning flesh, suppressing healing, and even destroying an Inner Wolf—so it was strictly banned from daily dining or household use, kept only in registries to draw blood that wouldn't instantly heal before hitting the parchment. Without hesitation, I sliced the tip of my index finger and let a drop of red blood fall onto the signature line. Watching me, the man furrowed his brow. Ignoring the silver blade, he used the sharp edge of his own thumbnail to nick his index finger, dropping a bead of dark, golden-tinted blood right beside my name while the cut on his skin sealed itself shut within a second. The moment our blood merged on the parchment, my heart seized in my chest, and an invisible jolt of electricity shot straight up my spine. I stumbled half a step back, clutching my chest as a terrifying sense of completeness settled over my racing pulse. Because I was wolfless and lacked an Inner Wolf, I couldn't trigger the Moon Goddess's Recognition Ritual or hear a wolf's roar, so I chalked the strange rush up to sheer nerves. "The oath is bound," the clerk whispered, slamming the heavy iron seal onto the parchment with shaking hands. "May the Moon Goddess bless your bond." The man picked up his copy of the contract, folded it neatly, and slipped it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Turning to face me, his massive frame blocked out the ceiling lights, casting a heavy shadow over my head. "I have a meeting to handle," he said flatly, sounding as if he had just signed for a package delivery rather than a lifelong marriage bond. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a matte-black keycard, and held it out in front of my chest. When I reached out to take it, my fingertips brushed against the center of his warm palm. Sparks exploded across my skin like live wires, so intense that I jerked my hand back on instinct. Before I could pull away, his large hand dropped, clamping around my slender wrist with iron force. His palm burned like a furnace, and a violent, unreadable storm surged in the depths of his gray-blue eyes. "Take it," he rasped, his voice rough and commanding. "Graystone Apartments, Penthouse A." Crushed under the weight of his aura, I shrank my neck and stammered, "I... I know. No need to yell." As if realizing he had lost control, the man abruptly released my wrist, pulled a tissue from the box on the counter, and wiped the exact spot on his fingers that had touched my skin. That single gesture of disgust acted like a bucket of ice water, dousing every spark that had just flickered inside me. "I'll be back tonight. Don't bring strangers inside," he said, tossing the crumpled tissue into the trash bin before walking out the main doors without looking back. Standing alone in the hall, I watched his tall figure vanish into the bright sunlight, then looked down at the heavy black keycard in my bleeding palm. I didn't even know his name, yet I had just bound my life to his. Taking a deep breath, I shoved the keycard into my purse and walked out of the registry. At the street corner, I flagged down a yellow cab and gave the driver the address. No matter how cold or obsessive about cleanliness my new husband was, I needed a roof over my head tonight. Emory POV: The car pulled away from the curb, and I sat alone in the back seat, one hand resting on my knee. My gaze drifted down to the fingers I had wiped clean with that tissue—the same fingers that had closed around her wrist. The skin was dry. No residue. No trace of her. And yet the center of my palm still carried a faint, stubborn warmth, as though a spark had burrowed beneath it and refused to die. I clenched my hand into a fist and turned my eyes to the window. She was nothing but a stranger I had signed a contract with—nothing more. But I kept picturing her dragging that battered suitcase through the unfamiliar halls of Graystone, unable to find the apartment and unable to call me—because she didn't even have my number. I paused, then told the driver to turn around and head back to the apartment.

Casey POV: The cab pulled up outside a weathered old building in the Graystone district—one of the better-kept residences in a rundown neighborhood, its facade worn but tidy, the entrance swept clean. I dragged my single heavy suitcase into the old elevator, which groaned a little but still ran smoothly enough, up to the top floor. Under the dim but working hallway lights, I checked the unit letter on the black keycard and walked toward Door A at the very end of the corridor. Just as I raised the card to the sensor, the lock on Door B right across the hall clicked open. The door swung wide, revealing Cade with his arm wrapped around a half-dressed Jacquelin. The air in the narrow hallway froze. Cade blinked in shock, then let out a harsh, grating laugh. "Casey? Did you stalk me all the way here?" Cade leaned against the doorframe, his eyes dripping with contempt. "Do you really think playing pitiful will make me give the SUV back?" I squeezed the plastic handle of my suitcase until my knuckles turned white. "Shut up. I'm just moving into this building." Jacquelin covered her mouth and giggled. "Moving in here? On that pathetic salary of yours? And you actually think you can afford this apartment?" "Ignore her, baby," Cade said, smirking at me. "A wolfless reject without an Inner Wolf probably sold herself to some low-ranking street rat just to afford a bed." I was shaking with rage. I had been the one who paid for the furniture in this house that Cade bought! I was just opening my mouth to tear into him when the elevator doors behind me dinged open. Heavy, measured footsteps echoed down the corridor, accompanied by that freezing, suffocating scent of winter cedar. The man I had just married walked toward us, his suit jacket draped over one forearm and his silk tie pulled slightly loose at the collar. He stepped right up beside me, his broad shoulders blocking Cade's malicious stare and wrapping me completely inside his shadow. The instant Cade's eyes landed on him, the color drained from Cade's face, and his slouching posture snapped rigid. "Who... who are you?" Cade's voice quivered, his Beta instincts screaming in the presence of a superior predator. My husband didn't bother answering. He simply narrowed his gray-blue eyes, unleashing a terrifying wave of pure Alpha dominion into the cramped hallway. In werewolf society, an Alpha's Command carried absolute biological compulsion over lower-ranked wolves in the same territory, forcing their bodies to submit regardless of their will. I watched Cade's knees buckle with an audible crack as his body slid down the doorframe, his fingers clawing at the wood just to keep from smashing his face into the floor. Beside him, Jacquelin let out a strangled shriek and collapsed flat onto the carpet, gasping for air with a chalk-white face. Looking down at Cade as if he were an insect, the man spoke in a deadly, quiet tone. "Crawl back into your kennel and stop dirtying my wife's eyes." Drenched in cold sweat and unable to squeeze out a single word, Cade scrambled on his hands and knees to drag Jacquelin back inside, slamming the door shut and throwing every deadbolt. Dead silence returned to the hallway. I stood rooted to the spot, staring up at the sharp profile of the man beside me. That suffocating pressure wasn't something an ordinary corporate wolf could ever possess. Turning his head, he looked down at my cheap, scuffed suitcase and frowned deeply. "You only brought this pile of trash with you?" "This is everything I own," I said through gritted teeth, refusing to cower in front of him. He let out a cold snort, snatched the black keycard from my fingers, and tapped it against the reader on Door A. With a soft beep, the heavy security door swung open. Picking up my forty-pound suitcase with one hand as effortlessly as if it were an empty box, he strode inside. I took a slow breath and stepped across the threshold into this strange man's territory. The stark black, white, and gray minimalist interior sent a chill down my arms. For a building this old, the inside had clearly been gutted and redone—clean lines, expensive finishes, the best unit on the top floor. Dropping my suitcase in the center of the living room floor, he turned to face me. "The guest room is on the left. The master bedroom is on the right," he said, pointing down the hall. "Without my permission, you are never to take half a step toward the right side." "Understood. We stay out of each other's way," I replied with a stiff nod, relieved that his terms matched mine. Dragging my suitcase into the left bedroom, I pushed the door open to find a bare mattress and an empty wardrobe, without even a single sheet in sight. I set my bag down on the floor, pulled the folded Blood Oath parchment from my purse, and stared at the bold, slashing signature on the groom's line—Emory Stevenson.