Cassandra’s POV
“Shall we continue with the ceremony?” the shaman asked, her voice cutting through the lingering echoes of chaos like a blade through silk.
My heart was thundering, loud enough that I thought everyone around me might hear it. I turned toward her, willing the tremble in my limbs to stop. My pulse beat like war drums in my ears, but I forced my voice into something sharp. Controlled.
“Yes,” I said, swallowing the dryness in my throat. “Let’s continue.”
Dorian nodded without looking at me. His grip around my hand tightened,firm, possessive, grounding. For a brief second, I clung to the pressure, used it to center myself. I could feel the tension rolling off of him, his jaw taut, his stance coiled. But he didn’t falter. And neither could I.
The Pack doctor’s voice still rang from somewhere behind us, hoarse now, her cries garbled by distance and the echo of slamming doors. I tuned her out.
She was already being dragged away, already silenced. Her truth, her venom, whatever she thought she had done, meant nothing.
The wedding had to happen. It was all that mattered now.
The shaman resumed her chant, her voice rising and falling with ancient rhythm, words older than stone, weaving through the hall in solemn melody. The Pack stood around us, silent and still, caught in the tense hush that had followed the storm.
I focused on the dagger.
The ceremonial blade gleamed in the torchlight, its edge etched with the crest of the Crimson Pack. My hand hovered above it, fingers twitching as I reached to lift it. The metal felt cool in my grasp, steadier than I felt inside.
With a breath, I prepared to slice my palm. To seal the bond in blood and magic.
But then a sound split the silence. A cry, high, sharp, and filled with something primal, like grief, rage and warning.
“Adolphus!”
I froze.
My head whipped toward the source, and every cell in my body seemed to still.
There, at the grand entrance of the hall, stood Katrina.
Her posture was rigid, her eyes blazing, glowing with fierce, silver light. Power rolled off her in waves, her breath shallow, her limbs trembling as she fought the shift ripping through her body.
Within seconds, fur erupted across her arms, her bones cracking and stretching as she fell to all fours, her form melting into that of a silver wolf, radiant, breathtaking, and alive with fury.
But it wasn’t her that made my blood run cold.
It was him.
Adolphus stepped out from the shadows beside her. And he wasn’t just Adolphus anymore.
His body was unlike anything I had seen before, twisted and transcendent. Half-wolf, half-serpent. Muscles rippled under mottled skin and scales that shimmered dark green and gold. His limbs carried the raw power of a predator, his posture tense and menacing.
Golden eyes blazed beneath furrowed brows. His face, still recognizable, was contorted with fury and pain.
Gasps erupted around us. The crowd staggered back, some shifting into their wolves defensively, others too stunned to move. Even the guards flanking the shaman hesitated, hands twitching toward their weapons but failing to act.
The air turned heavy.
Magic crackled like fire through the room.
The dagger slipped from my fingers and hit the stone floor with a metallic clang, echoing louder than thunder in the silence that followed.
Dorian stepped in front of me in a flash, his body tense, his aura flaring with authority. A deep growl escaped his throat, his claws already halfway out.
“You dare interrupt my wedding?” he snarled, baring his teeth. His voice held fury, but also something more. Fear.
Adolphus didn’t answer. Not to him.
His eyes were fixed on me.
Unwavering. Burning.
“Cassandra,” he said, and his voice was like steel dragged across stone—raw and deadly. “Your lies end today.”
The words pierced through the space like arrows.
The hall remained frozen. All eyes on him. On me. On the unraveling moment that no one dared interrupt.
I tried to speak, but my voice caught.
Tried to breathe, but my chest felt caged.
The truth I had buried was clawing its way to the surface, and it had come in the form of a monster I had once thought loved me.
No—still loved me?
No, I couldn’t think that. Not now.
This was my wedding. This was supposed to be my moment. But it was slipping through my fingers, shattering beneath the weight of everything I had done to keep it.
And there was nowhere left to hide.