My Mate Believed Her Lies, So I Married the Lycan King

Three years ago, they locked me in an ice cell for three nights.

I was born with a curse in my blood. Cold doesn't just hurt me. It eats me. My wolf curls up and goes silent, and my bones feel like they're splitting from the inside.

They knew that. All of them.

And they still turned the key.

Lyla Marrow, the pack's orphan girl, slipped on the frozen river during the winter hunt. She fell through the ice. When they pulled her out, shaking and blue-lipped, she pointed at me.

"Selvina pushed me."

I was standing ten feet away. I never touched her.

It didn't matter.

My fated Alpha, Kalen Draven, wouldn't even look at me. My older sister, Selena, held Lyla's frozen hands and cried. Jasper Holt, the boy I'd grown up with, the one who used to share his lunch with me under the pine trees, was the one who dragged me to the cell.

On the second night, I screamed until my throat bled.

Through the bars, I saw Kalen's boots. He stood there for a long time.

Then he walked away.

By the third night, the mate bond in my chest was barely a thread. Thin as frost. Ready to snap.

When they finally opened the door, I didn't say a word. I waited until the pack was asleep, and I ran.

I didn't stop until I crossed into Night Wolf territory.

---

Now I was back.

Only because Grandma was turning eighty, and she'd written to me in her shaky handwriting. *Come home, little moon. Just once.*

The train doors hissed open. Cold air hit my face, and my fingers went stiff in my coat pockets.

I made it three steps out of the station.

"Selvina."

Kalen.

He looked the same. Broad shoulders, dark hair, gray eyes like a storm over the lake. Selena stood on his left in her white fur collar. Jasper leaned against a car on his right, arms crossed.

A welcome party. How sweet.

"Move," I said.

Kalen closed the gap in two strides and clamped his hand around my wrist. Hard.

"You don't get to disappear for three years and then tell me to move."

"Watch me."

His Alpha power rolled off him in a heavy wave. My knees wanted to buckle. My wolf whimpered.

I locked my legs and stayed standing.

"Lyla has nightmares," he said, low and rough. "Every single night. She wakes up screaming about the river. About *you*."

"Then she should see a doctor."

Selena gasped. "Selvina! How can you say that?"

I turned to my sister. "Easy. I opened my mouth and said it."

"She's an orphan." Selena's eyes filled with tears, right on cue. "She has no one. No mother, no father. And you almost killed her, and you can't even say sorry?"

"I didn't push her."

"You're still lying." Jasper pushed off the car. His voice was flat. "Three years, and you're still lying."

I stared at him. The boy who used to braid wildflowers into my hair.

"You threw me in that cell, Jasper. You heard me screaming. Did that feel like the truth to you?"

His jaw tightened. For a second, something flickered in his face.

Then it was gone.

"You were always spoiled," he said. "Everyone gave you whatever you wanted. Lyla never had that."

"So that makes it fair?"

Nobody answered.

Kalen's grip got tighter. The bones in my wrist ground together.

"You'll apologize to her," he said. "Tonight. In front of the pack."

I laughed.

It came out of me before I could stop it. Short and bright and completely wrong for the moment. Selena flinched like I'd slapped her.

"I'm here for Grandma's birthday," I said. "That's it. When the party's over, I leave. You'll never see me again."

"You think you can just walk away from me?"

"I already did."

Kalen leaned in close. His breath was warm against my cold ear.

"I can force the bond open again. Right now. Pull it back to full strength whether you want it or not."

Selena's head snapped toward him. "Kalen, that could tear her soul apart."

"Then she'd better start cooperating."

My blood went colder than the wind.

I looked up at him. At the man fate had picked for me. At the man who'd stood outside my cell and listened to me beg.

"Go ahead," I said quietly.

His eyes narrowed.

"Try it. You'll find out the bond already died. It died on the third night in that ice cell, Kalen. You were standing right there. You just didn't stay long enough to hear it stop."

For the first time, he didn't have an answer.

His fingers loosened. Just a little.

That was all I needed.

I yanked my arm free, stepped around him, and walked toward the black sedan idling at the curb. The driver was already holding the back door open.

"Selvina!" Selena's voice cracked behind me. "Whose car is that? Where have you even been?"

I didn't turn around.

The door shut. The heated seats wrapped around me, and I finally let myself shake.

My phone buzzed before we'd even pulled away.

A video call.

I swiped, and his face filled the screen.

Loren Vale. King of the Night Wolves.

The man who found me half-dead in the snow at his border three years ago. Who carried me inside, wrapped me in every blanket in his house, and sat by the fire with me until my heart started beating right again.

His dark eyes searched my face.

"You're pale."

"I'm always pale."

"You're paler." His voice dropped. "Who touched you?"

I tugged my sleeve down over the red marks on my wrist. "Nobody important."

"Selvina."

Behind him, in the corner of the screen, I could see a small bed. A tiny shape under a pink blanket. One chubby hand flung over her head, curls everywhere.

Mia. Our daughter.

My throat went tight.

"She waited up for you," Loren said, softer now. "Fell asleep holding your scarf."

"Tell her I'll be home soon."

"I'll tell her tomorrow, when I bring her to you." His face went hard again. "I can have three hundred wolves at their border by sunrise. Say the word, and there won't be a pack left to throw a party."

I believed him. That was the scary part.

"No."

"They put you in a cage."

"I know." I pressed my thumb against the screen, right over Mia's little hand. "That's exactly why I'm the one who has to end this. Not you. Me."

He was quiet for a long moment.

"You have three days," he said. "Then I'm coming to get you myself."

"I'll be done before that."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

The call ended. The screen went dark, and in the black glass I saw my own reflection. Older. Harder. A stranger to the girl who'd run from here.

My phone buzzed again.

A text. Unknown number.

*Welcome home, Selvina. I've been dreaming about you. —Lyla*