SLAP!
The sound exploded through the grand hall like a rifle shot.
Juliet staggered backward as Alpha Walton's palm cracked against her cheek with brutal force, the impact snapping her head to the side. For a moment that stretched like eternity, she saw nothing but blazing white. The polished marble floor rushed up to meet her vision, slick and cold, as her knees threatened to give out completely.
She barely managed to keep herself upright.
Blood flooded her mouth, thick and copper-bitter. She swallowed it down instinctively, terrified that if she opened her lips, she might let slip a sound—one that would give him satisfaction.
Agony spread across her face like wildfire.
But she did not cry.
She never cried.
"Where the fuck is Sofia?" Alpha Walton bellowed like a rabid animal.
His golden eyes burned with unhinged fury. "Answer me, Juliet!"
She couldn't stop herself from flinching. Inside her chest, her wolf Rosie curled into herself, trembling. A broken whimper echoed through Juliet's very soul, the sound of a creature too shattered to fight back.
Today was supposed to be a celebration.
The grand union.
The day Frostfang Pack would finally secure its survival by offering Sofia Walton as mate to the most dangerous Alpha in North America—Kaius Blair of the Blackwood Pack.
Everyone knew his name.
Everyone trembled at the mention of it.
Alpha Blair had built his empire not on diplomacy, but on blood and terror. Ruthless. Strategic. Absolutely untouchable. A man who ruled both corporate empires and werewolf territories with equal precision.
The rumors alone were enough to make grown werewolves break out in cold sweats.
They said his bloodline was so overwhelmingly dominant that it literally drained weaker wolves to death. That females who were not his true mate often withered away... or died screaming.
And by all accounts, he still hadn't found his fated mate.
But pack succession depended on bloodlines. He had chosen Sofia as his breeding stock—as an Alpha's daughter, she possessed the genetic strength to survive his brutal mating and bear him powerful heirs.
He had paid a king's ransom for a surrogate wife. But now, Sofia Walton had vanished into thin air. Right under the Frostfang Pack's supposedly watchful eyes.
"I...I don't know where she is," Juliet said quietly, dropping her gaze in the submissive posture an Omega was expected to maintain. Her voice shook despite her desperate attempt to steady it. "I haven't seen Sofia since yesterday."
Behind Alpha Walton, the guards looked like they wanted to disappear into the walls.
One of them stepped forward reluctantly, clearing his throat. "Alpha... according to our tracking teams, Sofia left the territory last night. She was with Jasper Reed. Their scent trail leads straight to the eastern border."
The name hit Juliet like a silver bullet to the heart.
Jasper.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Her destined mate.
The warrior who once whispered forever into her hair when no one was watching. The only person who had ever looked at her like she was worth something.
Juliet had been taken in by Alpha Walton when she was still a child—an act the pack once praised as mercy.
Years later, that mercy had a price.
The Waltons used her as a living blood bank, siphoning her life force drop by drop to keep Sofia healthy and strong.
Every feeding left her colder, weaker.
Sofia grew healthier by the day, while Juliet learned how to hide the dizziness, the bruises, the way her wolf grew quieter each time they took from her.
Jasper had been the only one who noticed.
He had smuggled her food when she was too weak to hunt.
The one who caught her when her legs gave out.
The one who brushed sweat-soaked hair from her burning forehead and whispered, "One day, you'll be free of this hell."
And now he had run away with Sofia.
Juliet's stomach dropped like a stone. She stumbled back, pressing her palm against the wall to keep from collapsing.
Alpha Walton was still screaming orders. Guards scattered like startled birds, their boots thundering against the marble.
But the sounds became distant white noise.
All Juliet could hear was the blood rushing in her ears.
Her hands trembled violently as she pulled out her phone.
She wasn't thinking clearly.
She just desperately needed to hear his voice.
Each ring felt like a countdown to her execution.
He answered.
"What do you want?"
His voice was arctic. Emotionless. Stripped of every trace of the warmth she'd once treasured.
"Jasper..." Juliet whispered. "They're saying you left with Sofia."
There was a pause that lasted forever.
Then he exhaled, slow and deliberate, like she was nothing more than an annoying interruption.
"Listen very carefully, Juliet," he said. "Whatever fantasy you thought existed between us—it was all in your head."
Her heart began to crack.
"You're an Omega. Bottom of the food chain. No power. No influence." He continued with clinical coldness. "Sofia is an Alpha's daughter. She's powerful. Respected. She belongs with someone like me."
Each word was a calculated strike designed to destroy her.
"She's my future," Jasper said. "You were just... convenient. A warm body when I was bored."
Juliet felt something vital shatter inside her chest.
"I, Jasper Reed," he said with the finality of a judge passing sentence, "reject you, Juliet Austin, as my mate."
The agony was immediate.
Catastrophic.
It tore through her like a chainsaw, ripping apart everything that made her whole. She doubled over, clutching her chest as if she could physically hold her disintegrating heart together.
Her breath came in ragged, desperate gasps. The world spun violently.
Rosie howled inside her mind, a sound of pure anguish that seemed to go on forever.
But Juliet did not beg.
She would rather die first.
She forced herself upright, her entire body shaking as she spoke.
"I, Juliet Austin," she said through gritted teeth, "accept your rejection."
Each word felt like swallowing molten metal.
The mate bond snapped like a rubber band stretched too far.
The silence that followed was absolutely deafening.
At that exact moment, the doors exploded open.
Luna Cara Walton stormed into the hall like an avenging fury, her usually immaculate appearance finally cracking under pressure. Her hair was disheveled, her designer suit wrinkled from hours of panicked pacing.
Linda, Sofia's younger sister, followed close behind, her face frozen like she'd walked into a nightmare.
Vicious. Sadistic. Always smiling her prettiest when Juliet bled the most.
"Any fucking news?" Cara snarled, panic cutting through her voice like broken glass. "The Blackwood delegation arrives in twenty minutes. Do you have any concept of what happens if we don't deliver a bride?"
Alpha Walton dragged both hands through his graying hair. "Blair will consider it a personal insult."
"He'll annihilate us," Cara whispered. "Piece by bloody piece."
"We'll lose everything!" Linda shrieked like a banshee. "Our businesses. Our territory. Our lives! All because Sofia couldn't keep her legs closed for one fucking night!"
Juliet stood frozen in the corner, watching them completely fall apart.
A dark, vindictive part of her found it deeply satisfying.
They had treated her like livestock for years.
She owed them less than nothing.
"Someone has to take her place," Cara said suddenly, her tone shifting to something dangerously calculating. "The contract only specifies 'a bride from the Walton bloodline.' It doesn't say it has to be Sofia specifically."
The room went dead silent.
Then Linda's gaze slowly slid toward Juliet.
Her smile was predatory. Absolutely vicious.
"Why not her?" Linda said with fake sweetness that made Juliet's skin crawl. "After all, no one will miss a worthless Omega."
Juliet's blood turned to ice water.
They were going to sacrifice her.
Like a lamb to slaughter.
Rosie snarled with primal terror.
Juliet ran.
She didn't make it ten feet.
Agony exploded at the base of her skull.
The world went black.
Her final thought wasn't panic or rage.
It was a desperate prayer.
Moon Goddess... please.
Don't let this nightmare be how my story ends.