Chapter 1: I Have to Marry Adrian
Dahlia
Sometimes I think the universe looked at women and said, let’s make survival a performance, and call it a gift. In the werewolf world, only men can become Alpha. Only men can inherit the legacy. It doesn’t matter that I’m the Alpha’s daughter. I can’t rule the Blue Moon Pack. So when my father wanted peace with the Yellow Stone Pack, there was only one solution and that was to force me to marry a man I don’t love.
Now I’m sitting in a limousine in a dress I didn’t choose, heading to marry Alpha Adrian of the Yellow Stone Pack. The lace itches. The air is sticky in my lungs. I can’t decide if I’m going to throw up or rip this gown to pieces before we even arrive.
If I were more delicate, maybe I would feel excited about this. A softer version of me would have fallen in love reading all of Alpha Adrian’s letters. She would have made my father proud. And maybe then this alliance wouldn’t feel like a punishment.
But I never learned to be soft. Not after my mother died. Someone had to stay strong. Someone had to raise my sisters.
So I became the responsible one, even when I felt like falling apart.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my sisters. I love taking care of them. But sometimes it feels like no one is there to catch me when I fall. Because after my mother died, Dahlia, the teenager with dreams of her own, had to grow up and become Dahlia, the caretaker.
I’m only twenty-two, not even the oldest sibling in the family, and yet somehow the one expected to keep everyone else standing.
Even when I’m falling apart.
Now?
Now I no longer have to take care of my sisters, but part of me already misses offering them harsh advice and affection disguised as bitterness.
“Are you okay?” Junie asks. She is my ride or die. Wouldn’t let me move to Yellow Stone territory without her. Said I needed an ally.
I give her a weak smile. “As okay as you can be when you’ve been arranged to marry some Alpha you’ve never met.”
Junie’s shoulders slump. “Must be hard, I know. But hey, at least I’ve heard your future husband is hot. Like, really hot!”
I suppose that’s something. A nice-looking face won’t make me fall in love with Alpha Adrian, but at least I won’t feel repelled when he tries to kiss me.
Perhaps I could even trick myself into falling in love? Easy if he is hot. Abs and pretty faces are known ingredients to brainwash any woman.
I tap my fingers against my thighs when we enter the Yellow Stone Pack territory until, suddenly, my whole body jerks.
My mate is close.
It hits like a punch to the gut. My chest tightens. The back of my neck prickles. My wolf doesn't just stir. She claws, howling so loud inside me that it could awaken my great ancestors. Every part of me screams, he’s near.
This is... unexpected. Mate bonds are rare. Sometimes they take time to develop. It’s uncommon to feel it instantly.
But this?
Instant.
At first, I panic, but then... I get hopeful.
What if Adrian is my fated mate? What if this arranged marriage isn’t going to be as terrible as I thought?
When the car stops in the courtyard, I look up at the mansion.
Then I see him.
A tall man stands at the top of the stairs outside. Broad shoulders. Navy suit. Tie. Cufflinks. Everything about him screams authority. He has black hair that looks almost too perfect, not a strand out of place. His face is sharp and smooth, with an intensity that makes my breath catch. His gray eyes lock onto mine with a quiet power that pins me in place.
He’s beautiful.
Not just handsome, but actually beautiful in a way that makes everything else fade.
But I recognize him and holy shit!
No. No. No.
He can’t be my mate!
My brain flat-out rejects it, tries to reroute the logic. It must be someone else nearby. A guard. A guest. A cruel coincidence.
It can’t be him.
Not him.
Because the man watching me isn’t Adrian Thorne.
It’s his father.
Alaric Thorne. The former Alpha of the Yellow Stone Pack.
The legend.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think.
Rumor has it that Alaric’s wolf is purely white and that he was the strongest Alpha of his time. They say he stepped down and let his adopted son take over after gossip spread that he was sterile and couldn’t produce a blood heir.
“Dahlia?” Junie says. “Ready to get out of the car?”
I blink and snap out of it. “What? Oh. Yes.”
I step out of the car and watch another man come down the stairs.
It must be Adrian.
He doesn’t resemble Alaric at all, which makes sense. Adrian is adopted. Still, I can’t help but feel a tad bit disappointed with my future husband. His father looks like a model while Adrian looks like the average man you’d find at Home Depot buying blankets.
Wait. Why am I thinking about that now? Looks should not matter! I am getting married against my will. That should be filling my brain, not shallow thoughts!
I need to stop acting like a brat. Honestly, I would probably find Adrian attractive if I hadn’t seen Alaric first. It’s not Adrian’s fault his father looks like he could pose for Calvin Klein.
I plaster on a smile and watch Adrian come down the stairs. He’s smiling like a man who’s used to getting his way. In this case, I am it. I am what he wants.
“You must be Dahlia Rivenhart. Welcome to Yellow Stone,” he says, taking my hand. “I’m Alpha Adrian Thorne. Your future husband.”
His grip is warm. His eyes are green.
I feel nothing.
Not like—
Don’t look at him. Don’t even think about him.
I force my smile to stay in place. “You’re correct. I am Dahlia Rivenhart, your future wife and Luna. Pleasure to finally meet the man behind the letters.”
Adrian’s smile widens, and my heart hurts.
This is a political alliance. A treaty. A future for my pack.
I have to marry Adrian, even if I just discovered his father is my fated mate.
The room they give me is beautiful. Cold and spotless. White floors. Tall windows. A bed with the Thorne crest carved into the wood.
I sit at the vanity and look in the mirror. My silver-blonde hair. My violet eyes. My shaking hands.
I always try to look composed. I practiced this growing up. Strong. Calm. Collected. The daughter who could handle anything.
But I’m falling apart.
What kind of twisted fate mates a girl to her fiancé’s father?
My silver wolf doesn’t answer. She’s pacing like she’s trying to escape my skin, snarling at walls I can’t tear down. She doesn’t whimper. She wants blood—and she doesn’t care whose it is.
There’s a soft knock. “It’s me,” Junie whispers. The door opens, and she slips in with a plate of pastries. “You looked pale. I brought sugar.”
“I can’t eat.”
“You can always eat,” she says. “Even when you broke your ankle training, you asked for cake.”
I don’t smile. I don’t move.
She sets the plate down and kneels in front of me to take my smaller hands in her bigger ones. “What happened?”
I shake my head.
If I say it out loud, it’s real. If I say “Alaric is my mate,” I’m not Dahlia the Luna-to-be—I’m the girl who ruins her own treaty.
How do I tell her my mate isn’t Adrian? That it’s his father?
I can’t.
“I’m just nervous,” I say.
She gives me a look but doesn’t push the truth. “Then eat a croissant. For nerves.”
I take a bite. It tastes like nothing.
It’s quiet at night, but I can’t sleep. I walk through the halls barefoot instead, in an attempt to calm down my racing heart and my pacing wolf.
But my brain won’t be quiet.
I wish I could follow my heart. But I was raised to follow rules.
Sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier if I didn’t always feel like it was my job to keep everyone else happy.
I turn a corner and stop.
Alaric is there.
He leans against the wall, arms crossed, white shirt, sleeves rolled. There's a shadow behind his gaze, something unreadable, but it grips me like a hand around my throat. Watching me. I don’t know if it’s the bond or something else, but I feel his presence deeply in my bones.
I should turn back. Run to my room and hide from this brooding male and his beautiful, almost cruel face. Nothing good is going to come out of his sculpted lips. He is married. I’m going to get married. If we speak, he is going to reject me without even thinking twice about it.
I know this, and yet... I don’t leave.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I whisper, heart heavy.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t smile. “And yet here you are.”
That voice.
Melodic. Deep. Just as beautiful as his face.
My heart cracks open. My wolf howls.
How can I want someone I’ve just met? How can my soul already be drawn to his and want more? Of the bond. Of him. He is a stranger, and yet... he feels familiar. Like this isn’t our first time around.
I step closer. “Did you feel it too?”
I need to hear him say it, and for a moment, I think he is going to admit it. I mean, duh. A mate bond is felt by both parties, but Alaric Thorne is colder than I thought. His eyes show no emotion. His lips don’t even curl.
And there are no apologies coming out of his mouth.
“Forget what you felt today,” he says.
That sentence breaks me because it confirms that our mate bond was bound to crash from the start.
My voice shakes. “I wish I could.”
He looks at me for a moment. “Then lie to yourself better.”
I breathe a laugh, but it isn’t happy. It’s hurt.
“Is this where you reject me?”
He stares down at me. “There needs to be a full moon for me to reject you since you’re my true mate.”
True mate. That’s the name for it when your soul immediately recognizes your mate. I hurt even more hearing it, but Alaric is already done with me.
He turns and walks away like none of this mattered. Like I didn’t matter.
I stay frozen.
I want to scream, but it wouldn't change anything. I want to turn around and demand a different story, but I'm already locked into this one.
Tomorrow, I marry his son.
And once the full moon comes, Alaric will reject me.