No. No, no, no.
Second chance mates were rare. One in ten thousand. A mercy from the gods for those who lost their first.
And hers was the man about to execute her.
The man who murdered Logan. The man whose soldiers just had their hands between her legs. The man who would never know she carried a dead king's child in her womb.
Was this a joke? Were the gods laughing?
Selene's throat closed. The silver chains seared her skin, but that pain was nothing compared to this. This cosmic betrayal. This final, perfect cruelty.
She'd heard stories of second chance mates. Whispered tales of widows finding love again, of broken wolves made whole by fate's rare kindness. She'd thought them beautiful once.
Now she understood. The gods weren't kind. They were sadists with too much time and not enough entertainment.
My second chance mate is the one who will kill me and the child of my fated mate.
Theron shook his head once, sharp, like he was trying to clear water from his ears. Then he continued moving toward her. His expression didn't change. No remorse. No hesitation. No sign that his wolf had just screamed the same word hers had.
Mate.
He stopped beside her. Close enough that she could see his shadow stretching across the blood-slicked floor of the throne room. Close enough that his scent wrapped around her like smoke, and her traitorous wolf, the one who should be dead from the silver, whimpered with something that wasn't fear.
Selene heard him unsheathe his blade. The sound of steel leaving leather. A sound she'd heard a thousand times in her life, but never like this. Never for her.
She watched his shadow raise the blade. Watched it hang there, suspended above her neck.
This was it.
Selene closed her eyes.
She thought of Logan. His ridiculous grin when she told him about the pregnancy. The way he'd picked her up and spun her around like they were children, not monarchs. The way he'd pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, We made something, Selene. We made something that's ours.
She thought of the child she'd never hold. Never name. Never watch take their first steps or shift for the first time. A whole life, unlived, ending in her belly on this throne room floor.
She thought of her mother, dead five years now. Waiting for her somewhere kinder than this.
I'm coming.
The blade didn't fall.
Five seconds. Ten. Twenty.
Selene's lungs burned. She'd been holding her breath, she realized. Waiting for a death that wasn't coming.
Thirty seconds.
Why?
When you're about to die, the seconds right before feel like lifetimes. Each heartbeat stretches. Each breath could be the last. The mind does strange things with time when it knows the end is close.
But this wasn't ending. This was just... waiting.
Why the fuck is he doing this? Is this entertaining to him? Does he want me to beg?
She wouldn't. She'd die with her teeth clenched and her spine straight before she gave him the satisfaction of hearing her plead.
Forty seconds.
Enough.
Selene exhaled and glanced up at him.
His eyes had changed. The cold gray she'd glimpsed when he entered was gone, replaced by molten gold. Wolf eyes in a human face. And he looked like he was at war with himself. Every muscle in his body corded tight. His jaw clenched so hard she could see the tendons straining in his neck.
He was fighting his wolf. And losing.
When their eyes met, something in him snapped.
He began to shift. Slowly. The most painful way to shift. Bones cracking and reforming at half-speed. Skin rippling with fur that emerged and receded like he was being torn between two forms.
Selene had seen wolves shift thousands of times. It was supposed to be fluid. Beautiful, even. This was neither. This was a man being ripped apart from the inside by something that refused to be denied.
He stopped mid-shift.
Not a full wolf. Not a full man. Something between. Something monstrous. His face was elongated, caught between forms. His hands had become claws. Fur patched across his arms and chest. His eyes blazed gold, and when he opened his mouth, his teeth were too long for a human jaw.
Holding a mid-shift was one of the most difficult things a wolf could do. It required immense control, immense pain tolerance, and a will strong enough to fight biology itself.
He had all three. And he was using them to terrify her.
No. Not to terrify me.
Selene understood a second before it happened.
To mark me.
Then he lunged.
His teeth sank into her neck. Right where Logan's mark had been. Right where she'd worn her mate's claim for six months. Right where she'd felt that snap of severance when he died.
Venom flooded her veins.
Hot. Wrong. Her nerve endings lit up like someone had set fire to her blood, and the worst part, the most violating part, was that her body wanted to arch into him.
Marking venom was designed to feel like ecstasy. A biological reward for accepting a mate's claim. It was supposed to make a wolf pliant. Willing. Desperate for more.
Selene locked every muscle. Refused to moan. Refused to move. Refused to give him a single fucking thing.
Logan. Logan. Logan.
She chanted her dead mate's name like a prayer. Like it could protect her. Like his ghost could reach through death and pull her away from this monster's teeth.
She would not feel pleasure while this creature erased Logan's mark.
This wasn't a quick marking. Of course it wasn't. A quick mark was a gift between willing mates. A single bite and release. A moment of shared joy.
This was a conquest.
Theron held onto her neck for a full minute. His half-shifted arms wrapped around her, claws pressing into her back through the silk of her dress. Holding her against his chest like she was something precious.
No.
Holding her the way Logan held her.
Like he had the right to touch her. Like she belonged to him. Like six months of marriage and a child in her womb meant nothing because the universe decided to play a sick joke.
Anger flared through her. Hot and clean and clarifying. Better than the venom. Better than the fear.
You can mark my body. You will never touch my soul.
Then she felt it.
The matebond snapping into place like a chain around her throat.
And through it, she felt him. Emotions. Raw and unfiltered and utterly unwelcome.
Possessiveness so thick it almost choked her. Hunger that had nothing to do with violence. And underneath it all, buried deep but unmistakable, something that might have been relief.
He'd been waiting for this. For her. The realization made her stomach turn.
He wasn't going to let go until she passed out. She knew it the way she knew her own heartbeat. He wanted to break her. Drown her in his scent. Make her his so completely that Logan's ghost couldn't follow.
Selene saw dark spots at the edges of her vision. The venom was overwhelming her, despite her resistance. Her body was giving up even as her mind screamed to fight.
I will kill you for this.
The thought was clear and cold and absolute.
I swear on my child's unlived life. I will find a way to make you suffer for this.
Her legs buckled. Her vision narrowed to a tunnel. The last thing she felt was his arms tightening around her, catching her as she fell.
Everything went black.
When Selene woke, she was lying on something warm. Someone. That scent hit her again, pine and smoke and something ancient, and she felt electricity crackling where their skin touched.
She was in a bed. His bed, she assumed. The sheets were dark, the room lit only by dying firelight. She could make out stone walls, heavy curtains, the shapes of furniture she didn't recognize.
And him.
Beneath her.
Her cheek pressed against his bare chest. Her legs tangled with his. One of his hands rested on the small of her back, holding her in place like she might float away if he let go.
Selene jolted. Part shock, part fear, part revulsion so strong it tasted like bile in the back of her throat.
She tried to pull away. Pushed against his chest. Twisted to free her legs from his.
Fully planning on running wherever she was. Out a window if she had to. Across broken glass. Through fire. Anything to get away from him.
His arms tightened around her. Not painfully, but absolutely. Like iron bands wrapped in silk. She struggled against him, throwing her weight sideways, clawing at his forearms with her useless, silver-weakened strength.
He didn't budge. Didn't even seem to notice her efforts.
He didn't speak either.
Just held her.
Selene stopped struggling. Not because she'd given up, but because she needed to think. Needed to assess. Needed to figure out what came next.
Through the matebond, she felt his emotions again. That same possessiveness. That same hunger.
But something new too.
Curiosity.
Like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. Like her resistance interested him more than her submission would have.
Good, Selene thought. Be curious. Underestimate me.
I'll use it to slit your throat.
She stopped moving. Let her body go limp against his. Let him think the venom had broken her.
And she began to plan.