The Sacred Wolf Statue Had Not Moved in 1000 Years — It Turned to Face Her When She Walked Through

Chapter 2

The next two days passed in the blur she had learned to live inside. Mira scrubbed floors while nobles planned banquets. She carried trays of steaming meat while they debated the king’s choice of bride — Lady Isolde’s bloodline, her beauty, the alliance her family’s lands would bring. She knelt to mend a hem while a countess gossiped about the coronation gowns.

No one mentioned love. No one ever did.

Isolde was the most beautiful woman in the citadel, and everyone said it like a settled fact of weather. Chestnut hair that caught the light like poured amber, eyes the color of winter wine, a voice that could make a hall full of alphas go quiet. She had been raised for this — for a crown, for a king, for the kind of power that came from being wanted.

Mira had watched her from the edges for three years and learned everything about her without once being seen. How Isolde laughed at servants who dropped things. How she never said thank you. How she stepped on the just-cleaned marble as though the floors existed to kiss her feet.