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CHAPTER ONE

GUNNAR

Swearing to cherish a woman is a strange promise for a man like me to make when my hands are usually stained with blood from torturing my family's enemies.

The altar carried all the visual traps of a high-mass sanctuary: heavy marble kneeling rails, gold chalices, and stained glass bleeding deep crimson light across the stone floor. We weren't men of God. Werewolves didn't worship the heavens, and we sure as hell didn't worship the moon. The Blackwood Pack altar was built on three things alone—family, territory, and blood loyalty. Borrowing the church's ancient aesthetic was just theatre for a mafia contract, gilded in gold and edged with diamonds.

Rosalind Lobo stood before me. She was a delicate, manicured creature thrown to the wolves—literally. Granted, she’d only been my fiancée for three hours. I’d met her three and a half hours ago. For the intervening decade before that, she’d been my brother’s betrothed. Now, Magnus stood beside me with his shirt untucked, a fresh claiming bite bleeding onto his collar from his actual mate, and the shit-eating grin of a man who’d just been thoroughly fucked. Which left me standing at the altar, taking his place.

My father stood where the priest should've been. Bishop Brennan had pocketed Fenrir Blackwood's money, canceled evening services, and cleared out of his own church so we could conduct our business. But all I could focus on was the frail pulse beating beneath Rosalind's delicate skin. There are twenty-seven distinct bones in the human hand. I knew exactly how much force it took to shatter every single one of them. Which was why holding my fiancée's wrist felt like holding spun glass. My mother always told me that strong men were made to protect weak women. She never mentioned what to do when your family hands you a bird and expects a beast not to crush it.

I was trained to break bodies, not keep them intact. Yet here I stood at an altar, sliding a band of heavy gold onto the finger of a female who looked so frail I was sure my calloused grip would leave bruises. The world saw me as the mindless brute of the Blackwood family; the muscle they used to make enemies bleed. I’d never cared to correct them. Looking down at my new, forced wife, a possessive heat settled in my chest. She was weak. She was innocent. She was mine to protect. I just had to make sure I didn't ruin her first.

My eyes dragged down from the pink sunglasses she wore inside, at night, to her tense shoulders, to the dress she was wearing. It was a hot pink, frilly concoction. So delicate and ridiculously girly that even my baby sister wouldn't have been caught dead in it. How the hell was I supposed to take care of this fragile pink creature?

I was wearing a black tracksuit and a pair of expensive designer sneakers. We looked like a complete mismatch standing together at a marble altar—the executioner in athletic wear and the porcelain doll in silk. The switcheroo had happened so fast that there hadn't been time to dress for the occasion. I'd come to the Lobo suite expecting a fight, not a wedding. The wedding was being rushed through for one reason alone: war was brewing. Territories were shifting, old alliances were crumbling, and the Blackwoods and the Lobos needed each other pinned together by law and blood.

The Lobos needed us more. They were a smaller pack, facing threats on two fronts. But Sorsha Lobo, Rosalind’s mother and the Lobo Alpha, was a savvy, cold-blooded strategist. Even my mother respected her, and Mei Ling Blackwood didn't give respect lightly.

Rosalind, however, clearly didn't hold her mother in the same high regard.

"Stand up straight, Rosalind," Sorsha snapped from her side of the altar.

Rosalind answered with an audible huff, rolling her shoulders back with deliberate slowness. If I had ever expelled a harsh breath of air from lips or caught an attitude with my mother, Mei Ling would have slapped the taste out of my mouth before I could close it.

My mother stepped forward, coming up next to me. She barely reached my shoulder. Her dark, discerning eyes fixed on my new bride. "Take off the sunglasses, child," she requested gently, though the authority of an Alpha female hummed underneath her words.

Every line of Rosalind's frame went rigid. Instantly, my own muscles coiled tight. A cold warning thrummed beneath my skin. All the Blackwood sons were unabashed mama’s boys. We adored the miniature copy that had birthed us giants. If this pink slip of a girl dared to sass my ma, bride or not, I’d have to step in and handle it.

Before Rosalind could snap, Sorsha smoothed a hand over her daughter’s back. It was a quick defensive shield. "She has a severe light sensitivity. Fluorescent lighting triggers violent migraines. She wears them for protection."

My mother nodded. She ran a hand over my tracksuit and grimaced. I was the third son to take a mate in less than three months. My mother hadn't gotten to plan a single grand wedding. She'd insisted we move the ceremony out of the hotel and into the cathedral next door to the luxury hotel.

"I'm not defective," Rosalind said after my mother stepped back. Her voice only carried to me. But these were wolves filling the room. I'm sure at least my father and brother heard her.

I looked down at her. Her nose was small and straight. Unbroken. Her cheekbones sat high beneath the dark lenses, hiding her eyes. There was something proud about the line of her jaw. Then there was her forehead. Smooth. Perfectly proportioned. Perfect for kissing.

My mother had always kissed us on the forehead. Even when we'd gotten too old for it. I used to pretend I hated it. I never had. If I leaned forward, my lips would press against the center of my bride's forehead.

"You're beautiful."

A mocking smirk tugged at her glossed lips. I couldn't see her eyes behind the black tint, but I felt the eye-roll she sent my way. "Let's just get this over with."

I leaned down slightly, lips close to her forehead, but aimed at her ear. "You don't have to go through with this."

Rosalind bristled, her spine snapping straight. "You're not that dumb, Blackwood. We don't have a choice."

"I've never forced a woman in my life." A dark edge slipped into my voice. Partly at her insulting my intelligence.

"Force and choice aren't the same thing. I'm here willingly, based on the options available to me."

"If you had your way?" I asked, watching her closely. "What would you choose?"

Rosalind drew in a deep, slow breath, holding it as if taking my exact measure. Calculating the threat of the brute before her. When she finally answered, the bite left her voice, replaced by something cold and raw. "If I had my way, I'd run far away from all of this."

The wolf beneath my skin growled low in my gut. A territorial pulse flared in my chest. She was already marked as mine to protect. The thought of this frail thing running off into a world full of enemies who would crush her set every defensive instinct I possessed on fire.

"Like I said," she whispered, her chin lifting as she stared straight ahead at the altar. "Let's just get this over with."