Dawn came with bruises.
Kael was true to his word. Every morning before the sun had fully risen, Seraphina reported to the training yard, where a grizzled old warrior named Bram taught her to hold a blade without shaking, to move without thinking, to turn her fear into something sharp.
It was the first thing in the mansion that felt like hers.
"Again," Bram barked, and Seraphina gritted her teeth and raised the wooden practice sword, her arms screaming in protest.
She was learning. Slowly, painfully, she was learning.
So when the invitation came — a moon festival, hosted by the Thorne pack, with Alphas from three neighboring territories in attendance — Seraphina felt something she had not felt since signing the contract.
She felt ready.
"You will attend as my Luna," Kael told her the night before the festival. They stood on the balcony outside his chambers, the moon fat and silver above the trees. "They will watch you. They will test you. Selene will certainly try to humiliate you."
"Let her try," Seraphina said, and was rewarded with that rare, crooked smile.
The sabotage came the next evening, exactly as predicted. Seraphina's festival gown — deep blue silk, chosen to match the Thorne colors — was found slashed to ribbons an hour before the celebration.
Seraphina stared at the ruined silk, her hands numb. Selene's work, undoubtedly. The message was clear: you do not belong here.
"Oh, you poor thing."
Seraphina turned. A maid stood in the doorway — young, round-faced, with clever eyes. Mira, one of the few servants who had shown her kindness.
"Can it be saved?" Seraphina asked, though she knew the answer.
"Not this one." Mira's eyes gleamed. "But I know where the old Luna's gowns are kept. Come with me. Quickly."
What Mira produced from the cedar chests of the dowager's wing made Seraphina's breath catch — a gown of midnight black, embroidered with silver thread in the pattern of a wolf pack running beneath the moon. It fit as though it had been made for her.
"The old Luna was Alpha Kael's mother," Mira whispered as she fastened the clasp. "She would have wanted you to wear it."
The great hall was a sea of candlelight and silk when Seraphina descended the stairs on Kael's arm. Conversation stuttered. Heads turned. And across the room, Selene's face went white with fury.
Kael bent to her ear. "You look like a queen," he murmured, and her heart stumbled.
The evening unfolded like a dream. Kael kept her at his side, introducing her to Alphas and Betas with a pride that felt almost real. She held her own — she laughed in the right places, deflected the barbed questions, and when old Alpha Fenris of the Stoneclaw pack tested her with a riddling insult about contract brides, she answered with such quicksilver wit that the whole table roared with laughter.
She was winning. For the first time, she was winning.
And then she felt it — the prickle at the back of her neck, the sense of being watched.
Across the hall, half-hidden in the shadow of a pillar, a stranger stood watching her. He was tall and scarred, his hair silver at the temples despite a face that was not old, and his eyes — pale, unnatural green — were fixed on her with an intensity that froze her blood.
He smiled. And he began to walk toward her.
"Liora's daughter," he said when he reached her, his voice smooth as oiled silk. "You have her eyes."
The hall seemed to tilt. "My mother died when I was twelve," Seraphina said carefully. "You knew her?"
"I knew her bloodline." The stranger's smile widened. "And I have waited a very long time to meet its last daughter."
Kael was suddenly there, his body a wall between them. "Dain," he said, and his voice was winter itself. "You were not invited."
"The Nightfang pack goes where it pleases, Thorne." Dain's pale eyes never left Seraphina's face. "Enjoy your festival, little wolf. We will speak soon — of debts your father never told you about, and of promises made long before you were born."
He melted into the crowd, and Seraphina stood frozen, Kael's hand like iron around her wrist.
"Who was that?" she whispered.
Kael's jaw was tight, his eyes dark with something she had never seen in him — not anger, but dread.
"The reason for the fourth rule," he said.