Rowan's POV
The girl in the mirror didn't look like someone about to lose everything.
Rowan stood in the basement of the healing center and stared at her reflection in the old medicine cabinet mirror. Her gray dress hung loose on her frame. Not because it was meant to. Because she'd lost weight these past three days. The kind of weight you lose when you can't eat without feeling like you're going to be sick.
The dress was the nicest thing she owned. She'd bought it two years ago at a thrift store for five dollars. It had a small tear near the hem that she'd stitched up by hand. The color was the same gray as the stones in the pack house courtyard. Invisible.
That was Rowan's specialty. Being invisible.
She smoothed her hands down the front of the dress and tried not to think about what was happening upstairs. Tried not to think about the white dress that Victoria was probably putting on right now. The white dress that cost more money than Rowan had seen in her entire life. The white dress that meant Luna.
The mate bond in her chest twisted like someone had wrapped their hands around her heart and squeezed.
Rowan gasped and gripped the edge of the sink. The feeling was coming from miles away but it felt like it was happening inside her own body. That was Cade. That was him moving around in his penthouse bedroom, getting ready for the ceremony. That was him feeling conflicted and terrified and absolutely certain all at the same time.
She could feel all of it through the bond. Their connection was so raw and new that it was like having a direct line into his emotions. Every doubt. Every moment of hesitation. Every time he told himself he was making the right choice.
And underneath all of that, she could feel his wolf. The animal part of him that didn't understand why he was about to reject his true mate. His wolf was screaming at him. Rowan could feel that scream echoing through the bond like a wound that wouldn't close.
It made her angry.
Not at him. At the situation. At the pack. At the world that had taught them both that power was more important than truth.
Rowan had spent her whole life being told she wasn't enough. Her foster parents had said it when they sent her back to the group home because she ate too much. The other kids at school had said it when they laughed at her hand-me-down clothes. The pack had said it when they hired her to do the work nobody else wanted to do.
She wasn't expecting Cade to be different. She really wasn't.
But when he'd looked at her three weeks ago, when their eyes had met across that crowded hallway in the pack house, something had shifted. For the first time in her life, Rowan had thought maybe she could be enough for someone.
Cade's hands had shaken when he'd reached for her. She remembered that. She remembered how powerful he looked when he was walking toward her, this massive Alpha with scars on his chest and intensity in his eyes. And then his fingers had touched her arm and the mate bond had activated like lightning striking them both at the same time.
She'd felt it immediately. This connection that said you belong with this person. This person is your match. This person will understand you in ways nobody else ever can.
For three days she'd felt it too. That certainty. That rightness.
Then Victoria had arrived.
Rowan pressed her forehead against the cool mirror. The basement was cold. It was always cold down here, which is why the wolves came to her to heal. Cold helped numb the pain. She understood that better than anyone.
The bond pulled again, sharper this time. Cade was moving. Getting dressed. He was really doing this. He was really about to walk into that ceremony and crown someone else as his Luna while Rowan stood somewhere and watched.
Because of course she would watch. She'd known for three days that this was happening. Harper had warned her two days ago that the ceremony was scheduled for tonight. Jaxon had mentioned it in passing when he came to the healing center with a torn shoulder. Even the other pack members had been whispering about it, talking about how Cade was finally settling down with someone powerful enough to stand beside him.
Nobody mentioned Rowan. Nobody seemed to remember that the Alpha's true mate was the quiet girl who worked in the healing center.
She'd had three days to prepare herself for this moment. Three days to tell herself that she didn't matter. That the bond didn't matter. That she could survive this the same way she'd survived everything else in her life.
By becoming invisible again.
The basement door creaked open behind her.
Rowan's eyes flew open. She saw Harper standing in the doorway in the mirror's reflection. Her best friend. The only person in the pack who'd actually stayed by her side when she could have easily chosen to side with Cade instead.
Harper looked angry.
"It's time," Harper said. Her voice was tight. Controlled. The kind of controlled that meant she was holding back something dangerous. "They're calling everyone to the great hall. The ceremony is starting. Victoria is waiting at the doors in her white dress looking like she already owns this pack."
Rowan turned away from the mirror. She couldn't look at herself anymore. Couldn't see the girl who'd believed for three days that maybe her life was finally going to change.
"I'm not going," Rowan said quietly.
Harper took a step into the basement. "What do you mean you're not going? You have to watch him do this. You have to see it with your own eyes so you understand that the mate bond isn't real. So you understand that what he feels for you doesn't matter compared to what he wants."
"I know all of that already."
"No you don't." Harper closed the distance between them. She grabbed Rowan's shoulders and made her look into her eyes. "I see you. I see how you keep touching the mate bond every five seconds like you're checking to see if it's still there. I see how you're hoping that when he walks into that hall, his wolf will take over and he'll reject Victoria and fight for you instead."
Rowan wanted to deny it. Wanted to say that Harper was wrong. But the truth was sitting in her chest like a stone. Because yeah, somewhere deep inside, she'd been holding onto a tiny piece of hope that this wouldn't actually happen. That Cade would change his mind. That his wolf would override his brain and he'd choose the bond over the empire.
She was an idiot.
"I'm going to stay down here," Rowan said. "I'm going to work. I'm going to pretend like none of this is happening."
"Liar." Harper shook her head. "You're going to come upstairs with me. You're going to walk into that great hall. And you're going to watch the man you love crown another woman as his Luna. Because if you don't see it, if you don't accept it, you'll spend the rest of your life thinking that maybe he would have chosen you if things had been different."
"Why would you want me to watch that?" Rowan's voice cracked. "Why would you want me to feel that?"
"Because after you feel it, you're going to leave." Harper's eyes were hard. Determined. "You're going to walk out of this pack and never look back. And you're not going to spend the next ten years wondering what if. You're going to know for certain that Cade chose power over you. That he chose an empire over the mate bond."
The mate bond gave another sharp tug. Rowan could feel Cade walking toward the great hall. Could feel the resignation in his steps. The certainty. The part of him that had already made peace with his choice.
He wasn't conflicted anymore. He'd decided.
And Harper was right. If Rowan didn't see it with her own eyes, she'd torture herself with the possibility that things could have been different.
"Okay," Rowan heard herself say. "I'll go upstairs."
Harper squeezed her shoulders. "That's my girl. Come on."
They walked up the basement stairs together. With each step, the bond pulled harder. Rowan could feel the pack gathering in the great hall. Could feel the electricity in the air. The anticipation. The excitement about seeing the Alpha finally mate with a woman worthy of his status.
They reached the doors to the great hall and Rowan stopped.
The ceremony was already starting.
Through the open doors, she could see the massive marble hall filled with wolves. Three hundred of them. Their entire pack standing and waiting. And at the front of the room, standing on a raised platform with the Luna crown in his hands, was Cade.
He looked like a god. Golden and powerful and absolutely certain.
And next to him stood Victoria in her white dress, already smiling like she'd won something.
Rowan felt something break inside her chest.
But before she could process the feeling, before she could turn around and run back down to the basement, Cade's eyes found her across the crowd.
Their gazes locked.
And in that moment, Rowan felt something impossible through the mate bond. Cade was looking at her. At her. Not at Victoria. Not at the crown in his hands or the three hundred wolves watching him. He was looking at the girl in the gray dress standing alone at the back of the hall.
His hands were shaking.
The mate bond burned so hot that Rowan almost couldn't breathe.
Then Cade turned to Victoria. Raised the crown. And began to place it on her head.
And Harper leaned over and whispered something that made Rowan's blood run cold.
"He's looking over at you again. Even while he's doing this. He can't stop looking at you. He's choosing her but his wolf is choosing you. What do you think that means?"