Chapter 1

Before our marking ceremony, Alpha Theodore Pierce let his childhood sweetheart, Eliana Vale, throw me into a walk-in freezer for a pre-wedding test.

I have cold agglutinin disease. Prolonged exposure to cold can trigger acute hemolysis.

The pack's chosen best man and maid of honor stood outside the freezer.

They held up their phones and started a livestream.

"If you want to be our Luna, kneel and beg Eliana."

"Promise that once you accept the mate bond, you won't come between her and Alpha Theodore."

Half an hour later, the freezer door finally opened.

I was on my knees on the ice, my fingertips frozen blue-black.

I no longer had the strength to lift my head.

Jeering comments flooded the livestream.

Theodore ignored my pain. Instead, he shrugged off his coat and draped it around Eliana.

All because she had complained of the cold when the freezer door opened.

"You know she has a soft heart. Is that why you put on this act, so she would pity you?"

Theodore held the list of pre-wedding tests, never imagining I had read every item.

Hiding my emergency medication, sabotaging the radiant heat at home, staging a rogue kidnapping, causing me to fall through the ice of a frozen river...

Each time they completed one, he checked it off.

The freezer challenge was number eleven. Eliana had invented it.

The final test was scheduled for the day of the marking ceremony.

Stage his death and test the Luna's loyalty.

So that was it... Every time I woke in the medical wing after almost dying, it signaled the start of their next game.

Theodore lifted my chin with the toe of his shoe.

"Show up on time to the marking ceremony tomorrow, and I'll consider keeping tonight's video private."

I stood, removed the pack Luna's crest, and dropped it at Eliana's feet.

"I'm done playing."

"From this moment on, I reject you as my mate. As far as you're concerned, I died in that freezer!"

Chapter 1

I was still staggering when I left the freezer. Eliana's friends kept streaming.

The camera tracked me. Every face wore a smirk; every laugh cut.

"Is our Luna really this weak? Half an hour in the cold and she's already done? How will she survive the marking ceremony?"

"She might as well give the title to Eliana!"

Photos of me raced across the pack forum.

Both knees on the ice, my head resting against the door, my fingertips frozen blue.

The headline read, "Westridge Alpha and His Secretary Break Their Luna."

Rumors spread until someone finally pointed out, "The Luna is from the Meadowland pack. It's spring there year-round. I heard she has some kind of medical condition..."

Theodore dismissed the warning.

"Doctors always give you the worst-case scenario. She's a wolf. There's no way a little cold could hurt her!"

He did not stop the spectacle. He even sent the photo to the wolf officiating the next day's marking ceremony.

"Put this on display at the venue before the ceremony."

I pulled off the oxygen mask the doctor had fitted over my face and stared at him.

"Delete it!"

He had not expected me to talk back.

"What did you say?"

"I said, delete it!"

Theodore opened the photo right in front of me.

"Lyra Bennett, if you can't handle it, don't pick a fight with me."

"Everyone saw you today. You put on that half-dead act to make us feel sorry for you, didn't you?"

The pack doctor cut my sleeve open, and the skin underneath had gone purple with cold.

"She's experiencing acute hemolysis. Call hematology now."

Theodore frowned.

"She loves to perform. It isn't nearly that serious."

The pack doctor looked up, his voice tight.

"Alpha! The Luna's lips are turning blue-black, and her blood pressure is dropping. Any longer and she could die."

That finally scared Theodore. He moved toward me.

Then Eliana made a show of fainting, careful to make enough noise.

When Theodore turned, he saw a cut less than half an inch long on Eliana's arm. No one had noticed when it happened.

He hurried over and took her hand, his voice full of concern. "Why is it bleeding?"

He lowered his head and blew gently on the cut, then snapped at the staff.

"What's wrong with all of you? The door is broken, and no one noticed?"

I spent half an hour locked in a freezer, and he called me ungrateful.

Eliana shed a few drops of blood, and he was ready to put the entire pack on trial.

I motioned for the paramedics to take me to the hospital. Then Theodore seemed to remember something.

He stopped them and warned me not to be late for the ceremony the next day.

The doctor tried to explain, panic in his voice. "Alpha! We need to run tests first. If her condition is severe, she may need to be admitted."

Chapter 2

"You and Lyra planned this, didn't you? You agreed to make it sound worse than it is?"

Theodore's expression darkened. He could not stand being challenged by a doctor.

"Lyra, stop pretending. Every time this happens, you sleep it off and wake up fine."

Hearing him say my name took me back to the day they hid my emergency medication in an ice bucket.

When the attack hit, I collapsed and struggled on the floor for more than ten minutes.

Theodore stood over me with Eliana in his arms.

"Answer me, Lyra! Which do you love more: me or your own life?"

I told him we were mates and that I loved him, but I wanted to live, too.

He left the decision to Eliana.

"Ana, sweetheart, you decide."

That day, I knelt at Eliana's feet for five minutes.

She made me swear that whenever she needed Theodore, I would never get in the way.

I clenched my teeth and never gave in.

Only after I was admitted did Theodore take my hand and apologize. "I'm sorry, Lyra! I misjudged how far to take it. I promise there won't be a next time."

He had made the same promise after each of the first ten tests.

Each time, I chose to believe there was still a place for me in his heart.

As they loaded me into the ambulance, Theodore picked up the emergency kit my father had put together for me.

Inside were my medications, heat packs, and a note listing everything my father wanted me to remember.

"Lyra, how many times do I have to tell you! Don't carry this around. People will think their Luna is frailer than an Omega!"

He always found something to criticize. Then he tossed the kit into the trash.

I had carried that bag for twelve years. When its zipper broke, he once stitched it back together himself.

When my father gave him the kit, he asked Theodore to take good care of me.

And now he did not even hesitate before tossing away the one thing that could save my life.

"I'll buy you a better one. Be ready tomorrow."

He knew perfectly well what my father's kit meant to me.

It was all I had left of home after coming to Westridge!

As the ambulance pulled away, I saw through the side window that Eliana had held her hand out to Theodore.

He bent over Eliana's hand, blowing on the scratch, his eyes soft with concern.

What happened to me did not matter.

By the time we reached the hospital, I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

The catheter bag filled with dark brown urine.

Acute hemolysis. Kidney damage. Severe anemia.

Any one of them could kill me.

Yet at one in the morning, messages from the pack kept lighting up my phone.

Eliana's friends had edited footage of me kneeling, begging, and crying into a video.

They had given it a humiliating title: "The Luna's Second-to-Last Test Before the Marking Ceremony."

"That's exactly what she needs. Play it tomorrow, too!"

"She needs to learn her place. Better now than after she starts giving Eliana trouble!"

Right after that, a message came in from Theodore.

"How are you? Don't be late tomorrow. Be good! You embarrassed me in front of everyone today. Behave tomorrow, and I'll let you keep what's left of your dignity. Cooperate with Eliana, keep her happy, and the marking ceremony will go smoothly."

Chapter 3

I looked at the messages he had sent, and stayed silent for a long time.

There had been a time when a couple of perfunctory reassurances from him were enough for me to invent my own excuse to forgive him.

He would hurt me, soothe me with two sentences, spare me a little time, and I would convince myself he loved me.

He made me kneel to Eliana, then coaxed me back again.

I told myself his childhood friend had simply led him astray.

But the doctor had just told me that another ten minutes in the cold would have killed me.

Theodore only cared whether the footage gave him enough leverage to control me.

At three in the morning, my father reached the hospital with mismatched socks.

He touched my face and his eyes went red.

"Where is Theodore?"

"He left already."

I answered evenly. I did not want to hurt him.

"He said he had to go back and get ready for the marking ceremony."

My father choked out a curse. I stayed calm.

"Dad, do three things for me... I want to reject the bond."

He pulled me into his arms and said I should have done it long ago.

"First, preserve every chat log and financial record from the Westridge pack! Second, withdraw every form of support the Meadowland pack gives them. Cancel the unsigned property gifts and equity-transfer agreements. Change my insurance beneficiary. Freeze Theodore's cards and every authorized-user card on my accounts. Third, I'll pray to the Moon Goddess to sever the bond. But tomorrow's ceremony stays on. Everyone attends."

My father stared at me, at a loss. "Lyra... you..."

I simply showed him the videos and the photos.

Seeing me kneeling on the ice like a beaten dog, my father wanted to kill Theodore on the spot.

"It's over, Dad! They wanted to humiliate me in front of everyone, didn't they? Then we'll show everyone who should truly be ashamed!"

With the doctor's permission, my father gave me a dose of healing potion.

It gave me just enough strength to make it to the ceremony.

According to their test plan, I was supposed to arrive at the ceremony and find Theodore lying in a coffin.

Maybe I would see his memorial portrait, and Eliana would tell me he had fallen down the stairs and died.

Then, once grief had shattered me, he would throw open the coffin and demand in front of everyone, "Do you understand now how much I mean to you?"

Sure enough, at nine o'clock exactly, Theodore lay down in the coffin.

Eliana climbed in and lay down with him.

"Lyra's greatest fear is losing me. Once she sees that portrait, she'll be on her knees beside the coffin, sobbing." Satisfaction filled Theodore's voice.

Eliana straightened his tie. "She told you to treat her as dead yesterday, but she was probably just talking tough."

Theodore scoffed, "She's angry, that's all. She could never reject me."

Chapter 4

At ten o'clock sharp, I still had not arrived.

The Beta came rushing in, visibly rattled. "Alpha, the Luna has canceled the ceremony. The banquet will proceed as planned, and you're covering the cost."

At that, Theodore sat straight up out of the coffin in his suit.

A splinter had torn his cuff, leaving him looking both ridiculous and undignified.

Rowena Pierce, Westridge's former Luna, stormed into the venue and ripped down the memorial portrait.

She planted herself beside the coffin and demanded, "Tell me what you've done to Lyra this time!"

Eliana sat up in Theodore's arms.

"Luna Rowena... it was only a pre-wedding test, only a joke. Lyra loves Theodore so much, she would never take it to heart."

Rowena ignored her and turned on her son instead. "Then why is Lyra still not here? Beta Grayson said she went to the hospital!"

Theodore climbed out of the coffin, his expression icy.

"She's always been frail. A cold breeze is too much for her. Now she's canceled the ceremony and humiliated me in front of everyone!"

As he spoke, he dialed my number.

"You call half an hour locked in a freezer a little breeze? You forced me to kneel and had them broadcast the video to the whole pack, didn't you?"

I answered calmly, guessing Theodore would put me on speaker.

"Lyra, get here now! Or I really will reject you."

"Come watch you make an idiot of yourself pretending to be dead?"

Nobody there had imagined I would talk back to their Alpha.

Mocking laughter rippled through the venue, and a vein pulsed in Theodore's neck. "You know it was fake. What are you doing? Did you humiliate me in front of everyone on purpose?"

"I didn't know. But what new trick could an idiot like you possibly invent?"

My mockery caught him off guard, and his voice dropped. "I put on my formal clothes and waited for you in a coffin for an hour. Don't you feel anything for me?"

I laughed. "Theodore, yesterday I begged you for half an hour inside a freezer. Did you feel anything for me?"

My retort sent him into a humiliated rage. "I already tried to talk you down. What more do you want? Get here now and let me mark you. After the ceremony, I will make Eliana apologize to you."

Did he really think an apology from Eliana could erase everything that came before it?

"It was my fault..." Eliana coughed twice as she spoke and sagged weakly into Theodore's arms.

"What's wrong, Eliana?" Theodore steadied her, ignoring everyone watching.

"I am fine. It was too stuffy in the coffin. I just can't catch my breath."

His voice softened. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

Then he hung up on me.

I thought that was the end of their fake-death game.

But forty minutes later, the pack doctor burst into my room, his face taut with urgency.

He handed me a body-identification form and said Theodore had been attacked by rogues on his way to the hospital. They needed me to identify his body!