After My Mate Humiliated Me, the Lycan Prince Claimed Me

Liam's teeth touched my neck at 9:47 p.m., and for one second I finally believed it.

Three hundred wolves were watching. The ceremonial fire cracked behind the altar. My garland of white moonflowers pressed against my collarbone, and my heart beat so hard I could feel it in my teeth. Eight years. Eight years of waiting, and now his breath was warm on my skin.

Then a cry rang out from the hall's entrance.

Camila Perez, Liam's foster sister, slid down the doorframe like a dropped silk scarf. Her hand fluttered to her chest. Every head in the hall turned.

Liam's teeth left my skin.

He stepped back from the altar. He didn't look at me. He looked at her. And then, in a voice that carried to the last row, he said it.

"I, Liam Weaver, Alpha of Ironvale, reject you, Briana Solano, as my mate."

The half-made mark on my neck went cold. Not cool. *Cold*, like ice pushed under my skin, spreading down my spine. Deep inside me, the wolf I had begged to wake for years screamed once. It wasn't a sad sound. It was a furious one, raw and wild, like claws on the inside of a locked door.

Then nothing. The door shut on an empty room.

My knees hit the stone.

I felt the floor first. Then the fire's heat on my cheek. Then the silence of three hundred wolves holding their breath. The wolves nearest the altar took small steps back. Not to give me air. To get away from me.

"Wolfless," someone murmured near the back. They said it like a fact they had always known.

Liam was already across the hall. His hand was on Camila's arm. He was bent over her, his voice low and worried.

I watched him and understood something very clearly. For him, the ceremony was over. I was already behind him.

I stood up.

My legs shook, so I made them stop. I walked down the center aisle. I didn't run. Running would have given them a story. Every step was a choice, and I made each one on purpose.

At the doors, rain blew in sideways. I reached up and tore the garland from my neck. The flowers had already wilted brown at the edges. I turned and threw it back inside. It landed on the ceremonial stone, right where I had knelt.

The hall went silent again. Good. Let them look at that.

Then I stepped out into the rain.

It soaked my dress in seconds. I got four steps past the torchlight before a man stepped out of the shadows.

I knew him. Everyone knew him. Kieran Ashford, the Lycan Prince. Liam's childhood friend. The man other Alphas looked away from.

He was very still. But his hands were shaking at his sides.

"Briana." His voice was low and even. "I'm not here to comfort you. I'm here to make you an offer."

I wiped rain from my eyes. "Then make it."

"A contracted mating with the Lycan Crown. On your terms. You'd be under sovereign protection. No Alpha in any territory could touch you." He paused. "In exchange, I need your work. The ceremonies across my territory are a mess. You're the best designer in five packs."

He didn't step closer. He didn't reach for me. I could see what that cost him, in the tight line of his jaw.

Liam had always given me a place to stand and told me to wait there. This man was holding a door open and letting me decide whether to walk through it.

"Show me the terms," I said.

He pulled a folded document from inside his coat. The paper was thick and heavy. A gold Lycan seal pressed into the bottom.

I read it under the torch. Water ran down my face and blurred the ink, but I checked every line. My work stayed mine. My body stayed mine. My choices stayed mine. Either of us could end it under listed conditions. Protection would start the moment I signed.

There was no clause about a mark.

On the last page was the date it was drafted. Three years ago.

I looked up at him. He said nothing. His eyes didn't move from mine.

I reached into my dress pocket. My fingers closed around the silver pen meant for the mate-marking register. Meant for my name beside Liam's.

I signed.

The seal flared warm under my thumb. Something low in my chest moved. Just a flicker, like a sleeping animal lifting one ear.

The cold mark on my neck pulsed once. Then a weight settled over it, firm and quiet, like a lock clicking shut.

Kieran took the contract back. Behind him, a tall man in a dark suit stepped forward. "Elliot," Kieran said, without turning. The man took a second copy and walked straight past me into the hall.

I turned and watched through the open doors.

Elliot handed the copy to Liam's Beta with a short bow. The Beta read it, went pale, and passed it to Liam.

Liam read it. I saw the moment he found his own name.

His aura exploded. It cracked across the hall like thunder. Wolves near him flinched and bared their throats. The wave rolled toward the doors, toward me.

It hit the edge of the contract and stopped dead. Like water against stone.

I didn't even sway.

Liam stared at the paper. Then he crushed it in his fist. Through the last dead thread of what we had been, I felt something big and dark turn its back on him.

Camila stepped up beside him. The fake weakness was gone from her face. Her eyes found mine across the hall, through the rain.

"She'll come back," she said.