The Alpha's bargain bride

They said I was lucky to be chosen.

A fated mate wasn't something girls like me were supposed to get. Omegas didn't get Alphas-not unless the moon had gone mad or the bloodlines twisted in the dark.

So when the mark burned across my chest during the Choosing ceremony, I didn't scream.

Not at first.

The whole pack turned toward me. Some gasped. A few laughed. My mother dropped the ceremonial offering plate. My father just lowered his head, already ashamed.

And across the courtyard, standing on the stone platform beneath the oath tree, Alpha Cian stared at me like I'd spat in the face of the gods.

The bond flared oncebrief, hot, pure.

Then he severed it.

Right there, in front of the pack, the council, and the moon.

"I reject this bond," he said, voice steady. "It is flawed. The moon made a mistake."

I didn't fall. I didn't cry. I didn't even blink.

I turned around and walked off the platform barefoot, the broken mark still glowing faintly against my skin.

That was three days ago.

The healer said the glow would fade. That my scent would dull. That the pain would stop.

She was wrong on all three.

I felt it in every step as I left Ashfalllike my body wanted to turn back even though my spirit had already left. The rejection didn't just split the bond.

It carved something out of me.

Like I didn't belong to the world anymore.

I didn't stop walking until my feet bled.

And even then, I didn't stop.

The neutral lands were colder than I remembered. The soil here didn't belong to anyone, which meant I could breathe, but only just.

I found a run-down inn near the border. Paid with a coin I'd hidden in my boot since I was twelve. They didn't ask my name. They didn't have to. No one did.

I wasn't Lyra Caelwyn anymore.

Just Lyra.

Bondless. Banished. Unmarked.

The room smelled like old wood and cold rain. The fireplace barely warmed the space, but it was enough to thaw my hands.

I sat cross-legged on the thin mattress, staring at the band of skin where the mark had first appeared. It was still there faint, like a memory. It didn't hurt anymore, but it pulsed sometimes. Like it wanted to remind me that something once lived there.

That it had been burned out.

I hated that I still felt it.

I stared at the fire that night, turning the events over in my mind like broken glass. I kept searching for the moment it could've gone differently.

When he looked at me, did he feel anything?

When he said "no," did the bond twist for him, too?

Did it hurt?

Or was I just a shadow he had to step over to get to Seris Vale?

I hated how soft she looked that day. How perfect. Her pale wolf fur. The ceremonial dress stitched with gold thread and moonstone.

I wasn't meant to be next to someone like her.

I knew that.

But the bond didn't care.

The bond chose me.

And he didn't.

A knock came just past midnight.

I didn't answer right away. I watched the door, quiet as the wind outside, heart still hollow.

Another knock.

This time slower. Intentional.

I stood, slipped the knife from beneath my pillow, and opened the door.

A tall man stood on the threshold.

Worn black coat. Scar over one brow. Eyes like winter stormclouds.

Not a hunter.

Not pack.

His presence felt... heavier.

He looked me over once. Not with hunger. Not even curiosity.

Like he already knew.

"You're Lyra," he said.

I didn't confirm it.

I didn't need to.

He pulled a sealed envelope from his coat. "My Alpha sent me. He has an offer."

"What kind of offer?"

"A contract."

I raised a brow.

"Protection. Shelter. A name."

"I already had one."

He didn't move an inch "And now you don't."

I should've slammed the door.

Instead, I opened it wider.

He handed me the envelope and stepped back.

"Read it. Burn it. Accept it. Doesn't matter," he said. "But if you want to live, you'll want to read the last line."

Then he turned and disappeared into the fog.

I shut the door and stared at the wax seal.

Stormveil.

I'd heard the name only once spoken in fear, whispered in warning.

Kael Drenmore.

The Wolf with No Bond.

The Alpha who doesn't take mates.

I didn't open it right away.

I placed it on the bed, circled it like it might be cursed. Part of me thought it was. Part of me didn't care.

Eventually, I broke the seal.

The contract was short. Brutally clear.

Three moons.

No mating rites. No bond claimed.

I would serve as Luna in name only just long enough to silence his council and fulfill an alliance clause that kept Stormveil out of war.

No touch. No title.

Just presence.

Just presence.

I almost laughed.

That was all I'd ever been to Cian. A presence. An inconvenience.

Something the moon gave him that he never asked for.

But Stormveil... Stormveil didn't feel like an accident.

It felt like a challenge.

I folded the letter and held it to the firelight. On the back, scrawled in darker ink, a single phrase:

"Your blood calls the storm. Come before it answers without you."

I didn't understand it.

But my bones did.

Something was shifting.

Not just in the packs. Not just in the bondlines.

In me.

I didn't sleep that night. I sat by the window, watching the fog roll over the fields, thinking about the girl I used to be.

The one who thought a mate was the only thing that could make her whole.

That girl was gone.

What was left?

I didn't know yet.

But maybe Stormveil would tell me.

And as the wind howled, I realized: survival wasn't enough anymore. I wanted answers.