Chapter 5

Elenor POV

The white silk dress felt less like a bridal gown and more like a beautifully tailored shroud. The silent, suffocating ride in the back of Damien's Maybach had passed in a blur, and now, I stood at the bottom of the wide, freezing stone steps of Manhattan City Hall.

The towering architecture loomed over me, but it was the heavy brass doors at the top of the stairs that made my blood run cold. The polished metal handles had been touched by thousands of hopeful couples, but to me, they looked like the gates of a prison. The brutal reality of what I was about to do-marrying a dangerous, ruthless stranger-finally shattered the fragile numbness that had been keeping me upright.

Panic, raw and blinding, seized my chest. My body reacted before my mind could catch up. I stopped dead on the steps, my heel pivoting as every instinct screamed at me to run. To flee this place and the man who was about to erase my freedom forever.

But Damien noticed everything.

Before I could even take a step down, his large hand clamped around my elbow. The grip was inescapable, a vice of pure, unyielding strength. He yanked me flush against his hard chest, leaning down until his lips brushed my ear.

"That contract isn't just paper, Elenor," he whispered, his voice a low, emotionless void that sent ice through my veins. "It's a blood pact with my Pack. If you run, the fifty million is the least of your worries. You'll be a debtor to the Blackwood Pack. We hunt our debtors. There is nowhere on this earth you could hide."

The word debtor echoed in my skull. In the werewolf world, being a debtor to an Alpha was a fate worse than being a Rogue. Rogues were killed; debtors were broken, hunted for sport, and enslaved. The threat paralyzed me. The desperate urge to run evaporated, replaced by a chilling, absolute terror.

Swallowing the bile in my throat, I forced my legs to move, letting him guide me through the heavy brass doors. The trap had snapped shut.

The private office inside was stuffy, lined with dark wood paneling that made the room feel like a shrinking box. Behind a heavy desk sat a bored-looking city clerk, entirely oblivious to the lethal predator standing beside me.

"Elenor Harmon," the clerk droned, reading from the paperwork.

Hearing my full name spoken aloud felt like a silver-laced dagger twisting into my deepest wound. Harmon. It was a name that meant nothing. I remembered Deann Hensley's sneering face, the way my adoptive mother used to remind me that I was just a nameless wolfless, a stray they had never truly accepted into their Pack. The overwhelming humiliation and the crushing weight of being utterly unwanted swelled in my throat, choking me.

"Do you, Elenor Harmon, take Damien Blackwood to be your lawfully wedded husband?" the clerk asked, looking up.

I stared at her, my lips parted, but no sound came out. I couldn't breathe.

When the silence stretched a second too long, Damien's hand shifted, his fingers wrapping around mine. Suddenly, a terrifying, undeniable surge of energy rushed from his skin into mine. It was the Alpha's Command. As a wolfless, I had zero defenses against it. The invisible, crushing weight of his will bypassed my mind entirely, hijacking my vocal cords.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my lips trembling violently as the words were forced out of my mouth. "I do."

"By the power vested in me by the State of New York, I pronounce you husband and wife," the clerk said, stamping the marriage license.

It was over. The legal transaction was complete. I exhaled a shaky breath, expecting Damien to turn and walk out.

Instead, his large hands suddenly cupped my face. My eyes flew open. Deep within his charcoal gaze, a terrifying flash of feral, glowing gold ignited. His inner wolf.

Before I could gasp, his mouth crashed down on mine. It wasn't a kiss; it was a consumption. It was aggressive, punishing, and dripping with a primal possessiveness that made my knees buckle. The intoxicating, heavy scent of sharp cedarwood, a raging rainstorm, and rich Cuban tobacco flooded my senses, drowning out the stale air of the office. He devoured my lips, branding me with his taste, shattering the illusion that this was merely a business deal.

When he finally pulled back, my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. He brushed his thumb over my swollen lower lip, his chest vibrating with a low, guttural growl that belonged entirely to a beast.

"You. Belong. To. Me," he murmured, the words barely audible but heavy with a dark, terrifying obsession.

I stared up at him, trembling uncontrollably. I hadn't just married a billionaire CEO. I had locked myself in a cage with an apex predator, and he had just swallowed the key.

Without another word, Damien grabbed the freshly signed marriage certificate, his hand returning to the small of my back to steer me out of the office and back toward the waiting Maybach.