The wine tasted like ash, like every promise this pack had ever made her.
Kira stood in the corner of the grand hall, silver tray balanced on her hip, watching the five alphas drink and laugh like they owned the world. They did, technically. Five royal packs, five territories, one fragile alliance that kept the werewolf world from tearing itself apart.
And here she was, invisible in her plain gray dress, refilling glasses and dodging wandering hands.
The hall was excess incarnate. Marble columns carved with pack history soared three stories high. Crystal chandeliers threw light across silk-draped walls. Tables groaned under roasted meat and imported fruit, enough to feed her servant quarters for a month. These wolves would leave half of it untouched.
Kira's stomach growled. She'd eaten nothing since dawn except stale bread and stolen cheese. Omegas ate after everyone else. Sometimes there was nothing left.
"Omega." A delta from Stormclaw Pack snapped his fingers without looking up. "More wine. Now."
She bit her tongue hard enough to taste copper. One day, something whispered in the back of her mind, you won't be able to snap your fingers at anyone.
She crossed the marble floor, footsteps silent. Years of practice had taught her how to move through a room without being noticed. Omegas didn't speak unless spoken to. Omegas didn't make eye contact. Omegas existed to serve, and the moment they forgot that, they disappeared.
Like her father had.
The bottles were heavy, expensive vintage. One probably cost more than she'd earn in a year. Not that omegas earned wages. Food and shelter in exchange for labor was supposed to be enough.
The delta held out his glass, still talking about some hunt. Kira poured carefully, hands steady despite exhaustion. She'd been on her feet since dawn.
All five alphas under one roof was rare. Old grudges ran deep between packs. Getting them to sit at the same table required either a crisis or something significant.
Tonight was the latter. The Alpha King was finally taking a bride.
The delta didn't thank her. She didn't expect him to.
She moved through the crowd, refilling glasses. Her feet ached in worn-through shoes, every step a spike of pain. But complaining meant punishment.
Wolfless. That's what they called her. Twenty-one years old and never shifted. A werewolf without a wolf was like a body without a soul.
The pack healers had no explanation. Her parents had been strong wolves. Her brother shifted at thirteen. But when Kira turned eighteen and still nothing happened, the whispers started.
Then her father got accused of treason and the whole family fell. Her brother fled. Her mother died of grief. And Kira was stripped of her name, demoted to omega, assigned to the servant quarters.
Three years ago.
She'd learned to survive.
Near the head table, voices carried.
"This marriage strengthens his position considerably," Elena Ironwood said. "Silvermoon's wealth combined with Bloodmoon's authority."
"It's calculated," Marcus Silvercrest said, and his smile made Kira's instincts scream. Her alpha. The male who'd destroyed her father. "My daughter will make an excellent queen."
Kira glanced toward where Seraphina Silvercrest sat like carved ice and moonlight. Silver-blonde hair in an elaborate style. Pale silk gown. Perfect posture.
Perfect prison, Kira thought. She's just as trapped. She just has prettier bars.
She turned toward the kitchens.
"He's here."
The whisper rippled through the hall.
Conversations died.
Wolves straightened. Even the alphas shifted into positions of casual authority.
The Alpha King had arrived.
Kira should have kept walking. But something made her pause.
A pull. Deep in her chest. Like something inside was waking after a long sleep.
She pressed a hand to her sternum, confused. She didn't have a wolf. There was nothing to wake.
The main doors opened.
He walked in like he owned not just the room but the very air inside it.
Tall enough she had to tilt her head back. Broad shoulders filling his dark jacket. Black hair slightly too long. Ice-blue eyes that swept the hall, missing nothing.
He moved with liquid grace. A predator's walk.
Power radiated from him in waves. The pull in her chest intensified, dragging at her like a hook beneath her ribs.
Every wolf in the hall felt it. Necks bared. Eyes lowered.
She started to look away.
His eyes met hers.
The world stopped.
Something inside her chest cracked like ice breaking.
Pain exploded through her ribs.
The tray slipped.
Glass shattered.
Wine spread like arterial blood across white marble.
But she barely noticed because something was tearing open inside her chest. Something buried and sleeping for twenty-one years.
Her wolf.
It wasn't dead.
It was waking up.
Mate.
The word roared through her mind in a voice that was hers but also not. Deeper. Wilder. Ancient.
Heat flooded her veins. Her skin felt too tight. Every nerve ending came alive.
The mate bond.
Impossible.
But her wolf was there. Clawing at the inside of her skull, desperate to break free. Furious it had been trapped. Desperate to reach him.
And beneath the wolf, something else stirred. Something older. Something that whispered in a language made of blood and smoke.
The bond wrapped around her heart like chains forged from starlight and dragged her forward.
Across the hall, he froze.
His eyes went wide.
Pupils blown so large the blue nearly disappeared.
The exact moment the bond slammed into him too.
His lips parted on a sharp exhale.
His hands clenched into fists.
Mate.
The hall erupted.