Masked Lycan riders interrupted her wedding and carried her across the frozen royal border.
Elara Moon had no time to absorb the betrayal. At the torchlit bridal chapel at Silvercrest, every witness turned toward her, waiting for tears, surrender, or an apology. She gave them none. Whoever had arranged this expected her to freeze long enough for the trap to close. Instead, she seized the first piece of evidence and headed for the only exit still open.
King Ronan Voss blocked it.
Power rolled from him hard enough to wake the instinct Elara Moon had spent years suppressing. When he caught her wrist, heat struck between their palms and an unwanted bond pulled her one step closer. His grip was careful. His warning was not.
“Let me go,” she said.
“The moment I do, the person who staged this takes you,” King Ronan Voss replied. “You can hate me after we survive the next five minutes.”
He knew her name, the route she had taken, and the one detail no stranger should have known about masked Lycan riders interrupted her wedding and carried her across the frozen royal border. Elara Moon demanded the truth. He answered by showing her a sealed record created before they had ever met. It carried her signature, his family mark, and a payment authorized by someone she still trusted.
They opened the first page together. It contained the sentence everyone around them had been willing to kill to hide: The ring around Ronan's neck matches the half-ring hidden in her mother's grave.
Before Elara Moon could read the proof, the exit slammed shut. A familiar scent slipped beneath the door, followed by the scrape of claws large enough to cut stone.
“You found the wrong secret,” the voice said. “Open the door and give me Elara Moon, or King Ronan Voss dies before she learns the rest.”