The west wing fitting room was cold like every other room in this damned mansion.
Kristen stood on a raised platform in front of a trio of full-length mirrors, his arms outstretched, his jaw clenched, while a vampire tailor with measuring tape draped around his neck circled him like a vulture.
The man’s hands were quick and impersonal, smoothing fabric over Kristen’s shoulders, pinning seams at his waist, marking hems with slivers of white chalk that disappeared almost as fast as they appeared.
“Left arm up, please.”
Kristen raised his left arm.
“Now the right.”
Kristen raised his right.
He’d been at this for forty minutes, and he’d long since stopped bothering to glare at his reflection.
The wolf in the mirror—golden-eyed, sharp-jawed, wrapped in charcoal silk that probably cost more than his pack’s estate—didn’t look like him.
Didn’t feel like him.
He was a stranger wearing Kristen’s face.
The tailor murmured as he worked, more to himself than to Kristen.
“I shouldn’t forget Her Ladyship’s instructions to confirm the spelling of the Ironbound contingent.”
Kristen’s head snapped around so fast the tailor had to yank a pin out of his mouth to avoid stabbing him.
“The what?”
The tailor blinked, unperturbed.
“The Ironbound contingent.
Your pack, I assume.
They’ve been invited to the ceremony.
Seating arrangements are being finalized this afternoon.”
Kristen stepped off the platform before the tailor could stop him, silk pooling at his feet.
The side table was cluttered with fabric swatches and seating charts and a single sheet of heavy cream paper, embossed with the Vance crest.
His eyes scanned the names—coven leaders, allied clans, senior council members he vaguely recognized from the gathering—and then he found them.
His pack.
His family.
They were coming.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.
Probably both.
Jonathon Vance wanted the optics of a willing alliance, so the Ironbound pack was being paraded in as living proof.
‘Look at how civil this all is’.
‘Look at how the wolves sit at our table and smile’.
But Kristen didn’t care about the politics.
All he cared about was the sudden, dizzying realization that in three weeks, he would see his mother’s face again.
His father’s hands.
Scarlet’s stubborn, defiant chin.
He would hear Dalton’s growl and Malachi’s anxious laugh and Theo’s—
He stopped.
Swallowed.
Folded the paper carefully and set it back on the table.
“The spelling is fine,” he said.
His voice came out rougher than he’d intended.
“Don’t change anything.”
The tailor nodded and gestured him back onto the platform.
Kristen complied, but his mind was already somewhere else—already racing ahead to the moment his pack walked through those iron gates.
He’d have to warn them.
Prepare them.
Julian would know how to get a message through, assuming Julian ever resurfaced from whatever coven matters had swallowed him whole.
Assuming Julian had time for him at all.
“You were supposed to be here.”
Julian didn’t look up from the stack of documents spread across his desk.
“I know.”
“You said you’d be at the fitting.
You said we’d—”
“I know what I said.” Julian’s voice was clipped, his pen moving across the page in short, sharp strokes.
“The northern district is disputing the blood-tithe again.
Lady Marchetti is threatening to withdraw from the council.
My father has scheduled three separate meetings for this afternoon alone, and I am expected to attend all of them.” He set the pen down with more force than necessary and finally met Kristen’s eyes.
“I don’t have time to watch you try on suits.”
Kristen leaned against the doorframe of Julian’s office, his arms crossed.
He’d changed out of the silk and back into his own clothes— a black short and an oversized black tank top, the familiar armor of his old life.
“I wasn’t asking you to watch.
I was asking you to be there.”
Something flickered in Julian’s expression.
Irritation, maybe.
Exhaustion, probably.
“The fitting was essential.
My presence was not.”
“Right.” Kristen pushed off the doorframe.
“Wouldn’t want to give your father’s informants the impression that you actually care about this wedding.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“Careful.”
“Or what?
You’ll cancel another plan?
Ignore me for another week?” Kristen shook his head.
“Forget it.
I’ll be in the east wing.
He turned and walked out before Julian could respond.
If Julian reacted to his words, Kristen didn’t look back to find out.
The east wing was quiet.
Too quiet.
It made Kristen’s wolf pace restlessly beneath his skin, still craving the wild shortlived freedom the garden had given, still unsatisfied by a single stolen run.
He found himself in the living room, sprawled across the emerald velvet sofa, staring at the ceiling and trying very hard not to think about the wedding altar waiting for him like an open mouth waiting to swallow him whole.
“You look like a man contemplating his own execution.”
Kristen sat up so fast his head spun.
Marcus Vane stood in the doorway, honey-blond hair catching the afternoon light, an easy smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
He was dressed more casually than he’d been at the gathering— snug trousers, a shirt, no jacket, sleeves rolled to the elbows.
“Sorry,” Marcus said, not sounding sorry at all.
“I knocked.
You were somewhere else entirely.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Trade discussion.” Marcus strolled into the room with the casual confidence of someone who had never been turned away from anywhere in his life.
“It ended early.
Lady Marchetti was in a rare agreeable mood, and your husband looked about two minutes away from murdering someone, so I decided to make myself scarce.” He settled into the armchair across from the sofa, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee.
“Imagine my delight when I found you here instead.
Brooding.
Very Alpha-like.” Marcus teased, smirking lightly.
“I wasn’t brooding.”
“You were absolutely brooding.” Marcus tilted his head, studying Kristen with open curiosity.
“Is it the wedding?
I heard about the fitting.
Three hours of standing still while vampires stick pins in you.
I’d be brooding too.”
Kristen snorted despite himself.
“It did feel like three hours.”
“They’re putting you through the full ceremony, then.
Formal attire, guest list, the works.” Marcus’s tone was light, but his eyes were sharp.
“My cousin isn’t usually one for spectacle.
This has Jonathon’s fingerprints all over it.”
“Everything has Jonathon’s fingerprints all over it.”
“True.” Marcus leaned back, studying the ceiling with the same idle interest Kristen had been directing at it moments before.
“You know, I used to think this estate was the most beautiful place in the world.
I spent summers here as a child, before the clan hierarchy got complicated.
Running through the gardens, hiding in the library, convinced every corner held some dark, romantic secret.” He paused.
“Then I got older and realized the secrets were just politics.
And the romance was just blood and gore.”
Kristen watched him.
There was something different about Marcus today—still charming, still easy, but with an edge of weariness underneath.
A weariness that came from surviving a system that ground people down.
“You don’t like coven politics either,” Kristen said.
“I loathe coven politics.
I loathe the posturing and the hierarchy and the way my uncle looks at everyone like they’re pieces on a chessboard he’s already won.” Marcus glanced at Kristen, and his smile turned rueful.
“I stay in my lane.
Minor trade negotiations.
The occasional diplomatic visit.
I’m not important enough to threaten anyone, and I’m just useful enough not to be discarded.
It’s not a bad life.
It’s just…
small.”
“Small is safe.”
“Small is suffocating.” Marcus held his gaze.
“You know that better than anyone.
You’re an Alpha.
You were born to lead.
And now you’re trapped in a pretty cage, waiting for a wedding you didn’t choose, married to a man who has zero interest in you despite being the cause of your trap.”
Kristen’s jaw tightened.
“Julian’s busy.”
“Julian’s scared.” Marcus said it without malice, a simple statement of fact.
“He’s scared of what my uncle will do if he shows you too much attention.
He’s scared of what the council will say.
He’s scared, period, and he’s been scared for so long he’s forgotten how to be anything else.” He paused.
“That’s not an excuse.
But it’s the truth.”
“You sound like you know him.”
“I know the family.” Marcus’s voice was quieter now.
“I know what Jonathon does to the things his children care about.
Julian learned early that the only way to protect something was to pretend he didn’t want it.
The problem is, he’s been pretending so long he’s started to believe it himself.”
Kristen thought about the graveyard.
The way Julian’s shoulders had slumped when he thought Kristen wasn’t looking anymore.
“Why are you telling me this?” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Marcus shrugged.
“Because you looked like you needed to hear it.
Because Julian’s my cousin, and whatever else he’s done, he’s not my uncle.
And because—” He hesitated, and for the first time since Kristen had met him, he looked almost uncertain.
“Because I know what it’s like to feel trapped in this world.
To want something real, something that isn’t politics or blood or centuries-old grudges.
And I think you do too.”
The silence stretched between them.
Kristen didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t know what any of this meant—Marcus’s honesty, Marcus’s weariness, the way Marcus was looking at him now with something that seemed too dangerous to examine.
“Walk with me,” Marcus said suddenly, rising from the armchair.
“I want to show you something.”
“The gardens?”
“The west gardens specifically.
They’re being decorated for the ceremony.
I saw the arrangements on my way in.” Marcus’s smile was wry.
“It seems appropriate.
You should see where you’re getting married.”
Kristen hesitated.
He thought about Julian’s warning and the possessive edge in his voice when he’d talked about Marcus at the gathering.
But Julian was buried in meetings.
Julian had made it very clear he didn’t have time for Kristen today and Marcus was the only person in this entire estate who had treated him like a human being instead of a curiosity or a possession or a problem to be managed.
“Fine,” Kristen said.
“Show me.”
The west gardens were unrecognizable.
Rows of white chairs had been arranged on either side of a gravel path, their backs draped in ivory silk that fluttered in the afternoon breeze.
An archway of twisted black iron stood at the end of the aisle, wound through with pale roses and dark ivy.
The stone fountain that usually burbled quietly at the center of the courtyard had been transformed into something almost altar-like—candles waiting to be lit, flowers waiting to bloom.
It was beautiful.
It was terrifying.
“This is where it happens,” Kristen said.
His voice sounded strange in his own ears.
“Three weeks from now.
This is where I stand in front of everyone and pretend I chose this.”
Marcus stood beside him, his hands in his pockets.
“You don’t have to pretend with me.”
Kristen turned to look at him, watching as Marcus leaned in in what seemed like slow motion.
The kiss was unprompted—one hand rising to cup Kristen’s jaw, lips pressing against his with a gentleness that felt too fond for a person he’s met twice.
He tasted like rain and something faintly herbal, nothing like Julian’s mint and ash.
Nothing like the cold, consuming fire Kristen had felt in the kitchen days ago.
Kristen froze.
His brain caught up a half-second later, and he shoved Marcus back with both hands, hard enough that the vampire stumbled a step.
“What the hell—”
“I’m sorry.” Marcus raised both hands, his expression genuinely contrite.
“I shouldn’t have—that wasn’t—”
“You’re right.
It wasn’t.” Kristen’s heart was hammering.
His wolf was snarling.
He didn’t know if he was angry or confused, but he was already talking, already backing away, already trying to put distance between himself and whatever had just happened—
“You know,” said a voice like silk over steel, “You shouldn’t really be doing this out in the open.”
Kristen’s blood turned to ice.
Julian stood at the edge of the garden, one hand resting on the iron archway, his crimson eyes fixed on the two of them with an expression that was terrifyingly unreadable.
He didn’t look angry.
He didn’t look hurt.
He didn’t look anything at all.
That seemed worse.
Marcus lowered his hands slowly.
“Julian.
This isn’t—”
“I know exactly what this is.” Julian’s voice was calm.
Too calm.
The kind of calm that preceded violence, the kind of calm Kristen had only heard once before—right before Julian had dissolved into mist and broken Dalton’s ribs.
“Kristen.
Go inside.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t.” Julian’s eyes never left Marcus.
“Go inside.
Now.”
Kristen opened his mouth to argue.
Then he looked at Julian’s expressionless face and thought better of it.
He walked.
Past the white chairs and the ivory silk.
Past the iron archway and the pale roses.
Past Julian, who didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t move a single muscle except for the tightening of his jaw.
The last thing Kristen heard before the garden door swung shut behind him was the sound of Marcus exhaling slowly.
And then Julian’s voice, quiet and cold and absolutely devoid of mercy: “We need to talk, cousin.”