She Competed For Her Own Hand — And Her Lost Love Came Back To Take It

Part 1

My father announced in front of three hundred wolves that I was up for grabs.

Not in those exact words, obviously.

He said something about tradition and succession and the future of the pack.

But what he meant was: my daughter has been difficult, and I have run out of patience.

I stood there in blood-red silk while thirty Alphas surged forward like they’d been waiting for this their whole lives.

I was the prize, in case that wasn’t clear.

Six years I had been deflecting, insulting, and methodically destroying every courtship my father arranged.

Not because I was difficult.

Not because I was heartless.

Because Dorian Vale was standing twenty feet away with his perfect golden smile, his arms around my sister, and a demonic curse wrapped around every soul in this building except mine.

Dorian had once asked me to be his.

I refused.

He turned his attention to Celia the moment I did.

And somehow convinced an entire pack that he was the most beloved man alive.

I could see what he was.

No one else could.

And until I proved it, the only thing standing between my sister and a monster was me — unmarried, unbroken, unmoved.

Pack law.

The younger daughter cannot be claimed before the elder.

So I stayed single.

I stayed sharp.

I stayed alone.

Then my father’s voice rang out across the ballroom and changed everything.

The winner of ten trials would receive my hand in marriage.

And my hand came with the pack.

All of it.

The territory, the mines, the alliances.

Everything my family had built.

I watched Dorian’s smile flicker.

Just for a second.

Just long enough to see the rage underneath.

This hadn’t been his plan.

I convinced my father to let me compete for my own hand.

It took strategic tears, one well-timed sob, and my childhood nickname used against him like a blade.

Amateur.

I hadn’t thought about Cole Hargrove in six years.

That’s what I told myself.

I was very committed to that lie.

I used to know every line of his face.

Used to know the exact way his jaw set when he was trying not to smile.

I knew all of it, and I had spent six years burning those memories to ash because the alternative was carrying them.

And I couldn’t afford to carry anything that heavy.

He had left.

I had let him go, because if I’d asked him to stay, Dorian would have ended him.

I’d watched Dorian’s hand on Cole’s neck that night and understood — with perfect, nauseating clarity — that my love for Cole Hargrove was a weapon.

Dorian would have used it without hesitation.

So I let him go.

I did not think about him.

For six years.

Except then he stepped out of the shadows during introductions, and I ran.

I, Nora Ashford, eldest daughter of a pack Alpha, looked at Cole Hargrove’s infuriating smirk — and fled the room like the building was on fire.

Not my finest moment.

He found me later, in the shadows near the back of the party hall.

Strong hands catching my waist before I could disappear again.

His scent reaching me before I even saw his face.

Six years, and my body still remembered him like a language it had never forgotten.

He looked good.

Infuriatingly good.

Quiet power and sharp edges, the softness I used to know filed away by time.

We said terrible things to each other.

He thought I had chosen Dorian six years ago.

He thought I had been throwing myself at Dorian on the dance floor that very night.

The curse wouldn’t let him hear the truth even if I tried to explain.

I had tried, once, and watched the words dissolve between us like smoke.

So I just looked at him.

He looked at me.

I said something cruel.

He said something crueler.

Then he told me good luck in the trials and walked back into the dark.

I stood there after he was gone.

My hands were shaking.

That was the part I couldn’t explain away.

My hands never shook.

Six years of facing down a demonic sociopath, and they had never once shaken.

One conversation with Cole Hargrove.

I pressed my palms flat against the wall and breathed until my wolf stopped howling.

Then I walked back into the room like nothing had happened.

Like I still had this completely under control.

And the worst part — the part that made my hands shake as I walked away — was that he looked at me like I’d already won.