Chapter 3

Liv POV

I woke to the sound of rushing water and the overwhelming, intoxicating scent of *winter-bitten cedar and ancient leather*.

My body ached with a delicious, heavy soreness. Tangled in the dark silk sheets of a massive, unfamiliar bed, the memories of last night crashed over me. The shadowy stranger. The terrifying jolt of electricity when his skin met mine. The way he had completely consumed my grief, making me feel cherished and anchored in a world that had just shattered.

For a fleeting second, wrapped in his lingering scent, I felt safe.

Then, my phone buzzed sharply on the nightstand.

I reached for it, my fingers trembling slightly. The screen lit up with a message from Aaron.

*Good morning, my future Luna. I can't wait to stand before the Moon Goddess and bind our souls today. You are my everything.*

Bile rose in the back of my throat. The illusion of safety vanished, replaced by the sickening, vivid image of my fiancé buried between Vivienne's legs. *My everything.* The hypocrisy was so thick it was suffocating. While a stranger had held my broken pieces together in the dark, the man I was supposed to marry was playing the perfect, devoted Alpha heir, completely unaware that I knew his filthy secret.

Disgust and a sudden, fierce anger burned through my veins. I couldn't stay here. I couldn't face the man in the shower, whoever he was, and I certainly couldn't let Aaron get away with this.

Snatching my torn dress from the floor, I ignored the phantom sparks still dancing on my skin and bolted from the Alpha's suite, fleeing down the empty corridors back to my bridal room.

Hours later, the Grand Ballroom felt like a beautifully decorated execution chamber.

I stood at the moonstone altar, suffocating in layers of white lace. Hundreds of elite Warriors and nobles from the Blackwood and Stone packs watched me in solemn silence. My bridesmaids-Lara, Rose, and Vio-beamed at me from the front row, completely oblivious to the storm raging inside my chest.

Aaron stood across from me, his golden hair perfectly styled, his handsome face arranged into a mask of loving devotion. But beneath his youthful scent of *sunlit grass and musk*, my heightened anxiety picked up the faint, sickeningly sweet phantom trace of *gardenia*.

Vivienne's scent.

"Olivia Holcomb," the Pack Elder's voice boomed, echoing off the crystal chandeliers. "Do you accept Aaron Blackwood as your Alpha and mate? Do you vow to bind your life to his, to lead the Pack by his side, and never part?"

The silence that followed was heavy, expectant.

I looked at Aaron. His smile faltered slightly at my hesitation.

"No," I said.

The word was quiet, but it dropped like a bomb in the silent room. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd.

Aaron's eyes widened in shock. "Liv? What are you doing? It's just nerves-"

"I refuse!" My voice cracked like a whip, loud and unwavering. "I refuse to bind myself to a man who spent the eve of our Unity Celebration screwing my stepsister in the suite meant for us!"

Chaos erupted. Whispers turned into shocked shouts. I watched Vivienne, standing near the front, drain of all color, her icy blue eyes wide with terror. Aaron's face twisted from confusion into a dark, ugly mask of humiliation.

"You're lying," Aaron hissed, stepping toward me, his hands balling into fists. "You crazy, wolfless bitch-"

I stepped back, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm. But as I moved, my gaze drifted past Aaron's shoulder and locked onto the man standing at the head of the Blackwood delegation.

The supreme authority of the room.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, radiating an aura of absolute, terrifying dominance. Silver threads gleamed in his dark hair, and his jaw was set like carved granite. But it was his eyes-intense, piercing steel-gray eyes-that made the blood freeze in my veins.

The air was instantly sucked from my lungs as a heavy, possessive wave of *winter-bitten cedar and ancient leather* slammed into me, cutting through the scent of every other wolf in the room.

It was him. The stranger from the dark.

My mind violently short-circuited. The man who had claimed me, the man whose marks were currently hidden beneath my wedding dress... was Kaelon Blackwood.

Aaron's father. The Alpha King.

His steel-gray eyes widened slightly as the realization hit him at the exact same moment.

Pure, unadulterated panic seized my chest. I shoved past the gasping nobles, my bare feet hitting the thick carpet as I bolted for the exit, desperate to escape the suffocating gravity of the Blackwood men.