Rory
My breath was stuck in my throat and my jaw was halfway to the floor.
"Y-your mate," Asher stammered. He looked between us with darkened eyes. "The slave is your mate."
I was standing with Zephyr's hand on my waist in front of the entire pack and I was desperately trying to communicate through the sheer force of eye contact that he needed to stop talking immediately.
He was not receiving the message. He wasn't even looking at me.
"In the light of recent events," he continued, in the same nonchalant, bored and arrogant tone, like he was commenting on the weather and not blowing up my entire life. "My engagement to Claire Foreman is dissolved, effective this second."
The hall exploded.
Alpha Nolan Foreman, Claire's father and the Lunar Moon pack's longest ally, stepped forward with rage clearly written across his face. "I do not accept this."
Zephyr leveled the older man with a frosty stare. "I wasn't asking."
I gripped his hand. "What are you doing–"
"Are you serious?" Claire stormed forward, eyes bright with anger. "Her? Are you standing there, in front of everyone, choosing a maid over me?" She pointed at me with an ugly sneer, like I was something that belonged under her shoes. "A slave? A kitchen maid? An Omega whore with nothing to her name–"
"Claire," Asher said sharply, but the veins in Claire's neck were seconds away from popping as she screamed at Zephyr, "I was going to be your Luna!"
Tears brimmed in her eyes. "I have given everything for this pack. And you come back from the dead and pick a woman who scrubs floors for a living?!"
Zephyr responded coldly, "You have always made it known which brother you preferred. You both have my blessings."
Claire came at me.
It was rabid and unexpected, her nails aiming to tear my face off. But Asher caught her by the waist, pulling her back. Her cries echoed throughout the hall. "Fucking bitch. You did this! You have bewitched him!"
I was trembling from the weight of it all.
Zephyr was acting far too well for a stranger. It was beginning to frighten me. That and the scrutiny of the entire hall. I could see them trying to pry my skin open and figure out what about me could've made the Alpha lose his mind. I wanted nothing more than to bolt.
But Zephyr turned to the priest and guests. "Since you're all present, it would be a shame to let the day go to waste. We shall have the engagement ceremony right now."
"What?!" I exclaimed.
Gianna glanced at Zephyr with wide eyes. "I understand that you are excited to be with your mate, but a proper ceremony is essential–"
"There is a priest. I am here. She is here. There is not much else we need for an engagement, Mother."
Engagement. I knew more than enough of the ceremonies to know by the end of it, I would be marked. I hadn't even recovered from Asher's rejection last night and I was going to get leashed to another man. I had sworn in my cell that I was done with men. I hadn't changed my mind.
I pushed away from Zephyr's side and spoke my first words of the evening vehemently. "I don't want to marry you. I don't want to get married."
Zephyr blinked long, dusky lashes. "I thought you might say that, lass."
The last word was a soft whisper that ran along my spine. Then he moved so swiftly, I couldn't follow it until it was too late.
His hand closed around the back of my thighs.
The world tipped sideways.
"What–" I started, and then I was upside down.
Over his shoulder. I was over his shoulder. He had picked me up and put me over his shoulder like I was a sack of fucking potatos, one arm clamped across the back of my knees, and he was walking toward the altar.
Laughter rippled through the crowd. "Oh. Such young love," someone said. "I hadn't the faintest idea Darren could be a little bit of a brute. It's sexy. He did come back hotter, didn't he?"
"Put me down!" I shrieked. "Put me down, you asshole!"
His arm only tightened.
"This is not–" I lowered my voice to something that was both a whisper and a shout. "This was not the plan–"
He kept walking.
I beat at his back furiously. With both fists.
He did not react. Not even a flinch. It was like I wasn't even there.
"You can't do this," I cried. "This is not–you can't just–there are laws, there are pack laws, you can't simply pick a person up and carry them to an altar and make them marry you against their will–"
He tossed me down at the feet of the priest and I landed hard on my ass.
His silver eyes glowed with something unreadable. "Keep resisting, and we'll do this the hard way."
Adrenaline burst into my veins, switching on my fight or flight mode. I made a run for it. I could have sworn I heard his startled laugh as I made my way across the hall, diving into the crowd to lose him.
I didn't make it very far before large hands grabbed me, lifting me off the ground with an arm banded around my waist and I shrieked as Zephyr dragged me back to the altar. "Let me go!"
The Elder cleared his throat as Zephyr held me against his chest to keep me in place. "Every union blessed by the–"
Zephyr's growl rippled throughout the hall. "Quit the dramatics, old man, and begin the ritual."
An old dagger was drawn and Zephyr forced my wrist forward. My skin stung as the blade cut deep and true into my palm, and the elder repeated the same action on Zephyr's palm, and when our incisions touched, I stopped struggling.
Warmth spread through me, intoxicating and euphoric. I didn't register when he brushed my hair off my shoulder.
I was aware of his proximity. The perfect way our bodies melded together–my back against his broad chest, his arms around my torso, his breath hot on my neck. I was being controlled by a force too great to fight.
A voice inside me spoke words into my ears, urging me to bare my neck to him.
Like a fool, I gave into it.
And Zephyr Snow bit me.
I cried out, limbs turning to jelly under me. Delicious heat traveled down to my core and a strange warmth pooled in my stomach, causing my spine to arch. My head dropped back against his chest and a tiny moan climbed up my throat.
And then it was over just as swiftly.
Zephyr stepped away from me. The spell shattered. The warmth turned cold and my senses returned to me. But it was too late. I could feel his mark on my neck, pulsing, and he was before me, a dark smile playing on his lips as he swiped my blood off his lips with his tongue.
It dawned on me then that I was an idiot.
I had been too busy thinking of the ways I could use him to clear my name. It never occurred to me that, perhaps, he was using me, too.
I had, unwittingly, lured a mad man into the pack, given him the Alpha's seat and gotten myself leashed and engaged to him.