Seraphina’s POV

I sat by the hotel window, watching the snow swirl into a violent frenzy outside.

My fingers mindlessly traced the wedding band on my left hand. The diamond caught the dim light, cold and hard—exactly like the day we made our deal three years ago.

The memories drifted back through the snow.

Mortimer and I were set up by my mentor, Alfie Bauer, the head of the Healing Department at Shadowfang Academy.

Professor Bauer was friends with Alpha Edwin of the Blade Pack, and when he heard Edwin was breathing down Mortimer’s neck to find a mate, he thought of me.

I was his star pupil, after all.

As the daughter of the Silver Moon Alpha, my wolf is a rare, towering silver beast. I have the bloodline, the pedigree, and a healing gift that every werewolf envies.

I’d been trained since I was a pup in the most elite academies to be the perfect, poised Luna.

Everything about me—every ounce of my grace and power—was designed to be a perfect match for the golden heir of the Blade family.

But what no one knew was that our first meeting, orchestrated by our families, was a date I’d been mentally preparing for for ten years.

“Miss Hale, I don’t care about werewolf traditions. Fate, fated mates—none of it matters to me. I’m only here because my grandfather is making my life a living hell.”

Three years ago, even just sitting there casually, Mortimer radiated the suffocating power of a high-ranking Alpha. His golden eyes held zero warmth, only a cold, professional distance.

“I… feel the same way,” I said, looking down to hide the fact that my heart was practically trying to punch its way out of my chest.

Inside my mind, Lily was doing laps. She felt the scent of our fated mate and was dying to let out a mating howl, wanting nothing more than to run over and nuzzle the side of his neck.

“Shut up, Lily,” I snapped at her internally. “Don’t let him know. Not yet.”

“A contract mating of three years. Once he’s satisfied, we dissolve the mating. What do you think?”

He reached out a hand. His fingers were long and elegant.

I shook his hand, feeling a spark of heat that could have brought any she-wolf to her knees.

I was naive enough to think that three years of living together would eventually turn the ice in that contract into something real.

But this freezing Alaskan wind just blew the last of my delusions away.

By evening, the moon was casting a bloody red glow over the snow. For someone whose heat had started early, this was a disaster.

My body felt like it was being eaten alive by a slow fire. The physical craving for my mate was shredding my self-control.

Lily was clawing at my mind, begging for that pine-scented wildness to just… take over.

I couldn’t stay in that room. My pheromones would eventually leak out and call every crazed male within ten miles.

I threw on my hiking gear and stumbled out into the Glacier Forest, hoping the sub-zero temperatures would kill the burning, shameful heat rising inside me.

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