★Nuel's Pov★
"Move fast!" a deep voice snarled behind me as a man shoved me forward. He'd said that after inspecting my face and that in a photo he held out.
The push nearly sent me stumbling, but I clenched my jaw, fighting to keep my balance. The sharp heels on my feet felt like shackles—foreign and uncomfortable, designed to trip me rather than carry me.
Still, I forced myself to walk with poise. If I faltered now, if I so much as looked fake before the emissaries from the North, suspicion would rise. I couldn't afford that.
It was only a short walk from the grand entrance of my father's mansion to the black, luxurious car waiting at the front gates, yet each step felt like I was marching into a grave, coupled with the uncomfortable shoes.
No one came out to bid me farewell. Not my parents nor the servants. The silence of the night pressed heavier than chains.
As I slipped into the backseat of the car, a flicker of movement caught my eye. It was my mother. She stood in her chamber, watching from the window. The glow of the lanterns inside her room illuminated her face just enough for me to see the expression she wore.
It wasn't sorrow nor was it fear.
It was something colder—a look of grim satisfaction, almost fulfilled, as though a burden had finally been lifted from her shoulders.
Perhaps she was happy after all she had always wanted me gone.
And now, she was watching the problem of a son she never wanted being driven away like an offering to the wolves.
The car zoomed off minutes later, followed closely by a fleet of others.
None of the men inside those vehicles stepped out except for the one who now sat beside me. His presence was suffocating, heavy, as though the air itself bent beneath his watch.
My hands had been bound together by my father's beta. As if I had had anywhere to run to. As if I would have even dare.
Yet, I could tell that those silent shadows in the other cars weren't ordinary escorts. They were warriors. Sent, no doubt, by the Alpha of the North.
I had heard enough about him back in school to know he was a man to fear. My parents had let me study outside for a short time, clinging to the elder's prophecy that when I turned sixteen, I would wolf out and reveal the rebirth of a legendary wolf. A wolf powerful enough to shift the tides of our bloodline.
But when that day came and nothing happened—my fate was sealed. I was ripped from school, my books stripped from my hands, and cast into the West Wing with no tutors or books.
Well… not entirely.
The little girl who served me had been my only teacher. She filled my nights with stories of wolves—mistreated and broken yet destined to rise higher than their enemies. She had been older than me, already past sixteen, and perhaps she spun those tales to keep my hope alive when mine had died. I missed her fiercely. By now, she might still be reading stories… but to herself, not to me.
I scoffed inwardly at the memory. Hope was a dangerous drug.
I turned toward the car window, desperate to stare outside but froze the moment I caught the man by my side watching me. His gaze was unrelenting, sharp with malice and resentment, illuminated by the faint streetlight slipping through the glass.
I looked away quickly, my spine stiffening. He couldn't suspect me. He mustn't. The servants had been meticulous when dressing me earlier. My makeup was flawless and hair in place. No detail was left untended.
I shared my sister's lips—soft and plump but my nose was more prominent. Not that anyone would notice. My sister hadn't been seen in public for months. The illusion would hold.
And my skin? Soft from idleness in the West Wing. My eyes? Gentle enough to pass as hers. My scent? Masked. Permanently.
On the day my wolf never came, my father had dragged me to a blood-soaked altar for a ritual. He had stripped me bare of my scent, branding me with emptiness, so no one in the pack would ever know what I truly was an omega.
Unless I found my wolf, I would never regain it.
So no, the man wasn't staring because of my scent. It was something else. A deeper, colder hatred. He despised me and if only he knew, I despised him more.
I despised the North.
And most of all, I despised their Alpha.
He was the reason my life had been reduced to this hollow shell. If I had been stronger like my father always drummed in my ears, if I had been born different, maybe I could have defended him and win against the north in a war. But I wasn't strong. I wasn't an alpha. I wasn't anything.
The sudden jolt of the car halting snapped me out of my thoughts.
I glanced forward, watching through the rearview mirror as the driver guided us into a vast courtyard lined with cars. Trees wove around the perimeter, and looming before me stood a house—no, a fortress. A manor so massive it dwarfed my father's mansion.
And that was just one.
Around it sprawled other towering estates, a kingdom of mansions. Not like my father's pack, where only two stood proudly—one for himself and his chosen royals and another for the common pack members. Then, a shabby quarter for Omegas. Always separate. Always beneath.
The door jerked open. Hard, calloused hands gripped me and yanked me out, forcing me forward. The same hands from earlier. The same iron strength.
I stumbled, catching myself, forced to walk ahead of him and behind the warriors leading the way.
We had reached the North.
I hadn't even studied the roads we traveled as I had been too lost in the labyrinth of my own misery.
We had not gone far when I heard a voice.
It cut through the night like steel, resonating across the open square we entered.
"The next culprits found defiling the bond of the moon goddess with their abominations—same punishment awaits them! The moon goddess blessed us with mates between man and woman, not man with man, not woman with woman!"
His words echoed, commanding silence. The crowd held its breath. Even without seeing him, I knew. That tone and dominance—it could only be him. Their Alpha.
Piercing screams came after and I squeaked my eyes to watch.
My head whipped up. In the square's center, two figures writhed atop a pyre, flames licking at their skin as the fire consumed them. Their screams clawed at my ears, ripping through the night with a horror I had never witnessed.
I gasped, the world tilting. I might have fallen if not for the man behind me, steadying me with that same cruel grip.
My mouth parted. Breath froze in my chest.
I had seen my father's brutality—whips, executions and cold punishments. But never this. Never fire eating someone alive. Never death stretched into such torment.
If he could do this to his own pack members…
My knees weakened.
What would he do to me—
The bride offering sent from his sworn enemy?