Page 2

The market square buzzes with morning activity.

Vendors arrange produce in neat pyramids, and pack members greet each other with an easy familiarity that I'll never share.

I keep my head down, following my usual routine—bread from Mrs. Finley (day-old for half price), apples from the orchard stand (the bruised ones they sell at a discount), and if there's enough left, maybe a piece of cheese for Maisie's lunch tomorrow.

I'm examining a basket of marked-down vegetables when it hits me—a scent so achingly familiar it stops my heart. Pine and leather, wood smoke, and mountain air.

Thomas.

My body reacts before my mind can intervene—pulse racing, skin heating, a liquid warmth pooling low in my belly. Six years of hatred can't undo the way my body remembers his touch.

I don't turn around. I can't. But I know exactly where he is—three stalls down, probably picking up his weekly order of meat for his cabin in the northern woods. The one where we spent that summer together. The one where he broke my heart and altered the course of my life forever.

The memory rises unbidden—Thomas's cabin, late August, six years ago.

Tangled in his sheets, my bare skin against his, his lips tracing a path down my neck, my shoulder, lower...

"You're perfect," he whispers against my hip bone, his hands gentle as they spread my thighs. "Every inch of you, Fi. Perfect."

I laugh, trying to cover my stomach with my hands—always self-conscious about my curves. He captures my wrists, pins them above my head with one large hand.

"Don't hide from me," he says, his eyes flashing wolf-gold. "I want to see all of you."

Later, wrapped in his arms, watching the sunset through his bedroom window, he traces patterns on my back and makes promises.

"When I'm done with my training mission, we'll tell everyone. No more sneaking around. I don't care what anyone thinks—you're mine, Fiona."

I believe him. God help me, I believe every word.

The memory shatters as a voice calls Thomas's name.

I peek from beneath my lashes to see James Morgan, the Alpha's Head of Security and closest friend, approaching him.

Thomas stands straighter, nodding at whatever James is saying.

He looks the same, yet different—broader shoulders, harder jaw, eyes that have seen too much.

His blonde hair is shorter now, his face more weathered.

Six years as the pack's top enforcer has left its mark.

In a moment of weakness, I let myself wonder—does he ever think of me? Does he know about Maisie? Does he lie awake at night regretting the way he discarded us?

An apple slips from my grasp, thumping against the ground and rolling. It stops at the boot of a passing pack member, who bends to retrieve it.

"Here you go, Fiona," says Ruby Mulligan, offering the fruit with a gentle smile. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

More than a ghost—the man who haunts me.

"I'm fine." I take the apple, avoiding her knowing gaze. Ruby has always been too perceptive. "Thanks."

"They're saying there's another Lottery," she says, voice low.

My fingers tighten around the apple. "Why are you telling me this?"

Ruby's expression softens with pity I can't stand. "Because rumors spread fast here, and I thought you should hear it from a friend first. We should be sticking together, right? Us outcasts.”

Friend . The word catches me off-guard. I haven't had friends since I left Silvercreek; I've been too busy surviving and too focused on raising Maisie. Ruby and I were never close—she’s two or three years my junior, so we didn’t attend the same classes or graduate at the same time. But she’s always been kind to me.

"It doesn't concern me," I say, the lie brittle on my tongue.

Ruby squeezes my arm gently. "If you say so. Just... be careful, Fiona.”

I finish my shopping quickly after that, feeling Thomas's presence like a physical weight. Once, twice, I sense him looking in my direction, but I never meet his gaze. I can't risk it—the anger and hurt are too raw, too dangerous.

The walk home feels longer, my shopping bags heavier. I try not to think about the Lottery, about Thomas, about the colossal unfairness of being forced back to the place that rejected me, only to face the prospect of being thrown into his path again.

My cottage offers little relief when I finally reach it.

The emptiness echoes with memories I've spent years suppressing.

I unpack the groceries methodically, hands moving through familiar motions while my mind races.

The stipend notification sits on the counter—a reminder of my dependence on pack charity, a leash binding me to Silvercreek until Maisie is old enough to leave safely.

I've just finished putting away the last of the groceries when a knock at the door startles me. No one visits us here.

The mail carrier stands on my porch, holding an official-looking envelope sealed with the pack's crest.

"Council correspondence," he says, with a curious look that tells me he's already guessing at its contents.

"Thank you." I take the envelope, closing the door on his inquisitive gaze.

My hands tremble as I break the seal. The heavy parchment feels like a death sentence as I unfold it.

"By decree of the Council of Elders, a Mate Lottery will be held for Thomas Ennes, Right-Hand of the Alpha of the Silvercreek pack, on the night of the Harvest Moon... "

The words blur as blood rushes in my ears.

This isn't happening. Can't be happening. After everything—after he cast me aside like I meant nothing, after I built a life for Maisie and me far from here, after we were forced to return—fate can't be this cruel.

I sink to the floor, back against the kitchen cabinets, letter clutched in my fist. The Mate Lottery pools all unmated females between the ages of twenty and thirty.

At twenty-six, I fall squarely within the eligible range.

My name will be in that cursed bowl, alongside every other available female pack member.

What are the odds, I wonder bitterly, of lightning striking twice? Of Thomas drawing my name the way Nic drew Luna's? Astronomical, surely.

But then, what were the odds of me getting pregnant that summer?

Of him leaving without a word just days after we'd made love beneath the stars, cutting off contact, becoming suddenly cold and distant until I fled this wretched, friendless place?

Of the pack Alpha instituting a mandatory return for all members, forcing me back to the one place I swore I'd never see again?

The universe has been playing a cruel joke on me for years. Why would it stop now?

I smooth the crumpled letter, folding it precisely before tucking it into the small locked box where I keep Maisie's real birth certificate.

The one that lists her birth date as five years ago, not four.

The one with the father's name left deliberately blank, though the truth is written in her amber eyes, in the shape of her jaw, in the sharp intellect in her eyes even at such a young age.

Through the window, I watch the sun slant through the pines. In a few short hours, I'll need to pick up Maisie, make dinner, read her stories, tuck her in—maintain the normal routine she depends on. But for now, I allow myself this moment of pure panic, of rage so potent it burns my throat.

Six years ago, Thomas Ennes looked me in the eye and told me what we had meant nothing to him.

That I was a summer distraction, nothing more.

He walked away without a backward glance, leaving me to discover my pregnancy alone, to bear his child without support, to build a life from the shattered pieces of the future he'd promised. I couldn’t bear to tell him about the child growing inside me—and he still doesn’t know she’s his.

If I have my way, he never will. He has no right to her, not after he abandoned me.

But now fate—or the meddling Elders—wants to throw us together again.

"No," I whisper to the empty kitchen. "Not this time."

I've spent six years becoming someone stronger than the girl who cried herself to sleep over Thomas Ennes. I've built armor around my heart, piece by painful piece. I've created a life for my daughter— our daughter—without him.

If my name is drawn at the Lottery, I'll find a way out. I'll run if I have to. I've done it before. Because one thing is certain: I won't let Thomas Ennes break my heart twice.

And I won't let him discover the daughter he never cared enough to know existed.

The predatory moon rises outside my window, a silent witness to my resolution. Silvercreek may have reclaimed my body, but it will never again claim my heart or my child's future. That, at least, remains mine to protect—even from her father.