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I stared at the side of her face, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw throbbed. She wasn't pleasant. She was spoiled, disrespectful, mean, and condescending as hell. Standing beside me in her hot pink frills, hiding behind blacked-out lenses while sassing her own Alpha mother and giving attitude to mine, she was every bit the entitled mafia princess.

And she was my responsibility now.

I had never shied away from my responsibilities. My whole life, when I had a problem, the solution was simple: put my hands on it. I was used to dragging enemies into dark basements and breaking them bone by bone until I got the answers I wanted. Force was my native language. Precision tearing of muscle and cartilage was my area of expertise.

I couldn't do that here. I couldn't break my new wife to make her bend.

Beneath my skin, my wolf sat flat and indifferent. No spark of recognition, no territorial fire flaring in my veins for her, no primal pull claiming her as a mate. Just cold, duty-bound necessity.

I was the enforcer. The brute. The fist of the Blackwood pack. Looking down at the sharp, stubborn tilt of Rosalind Lobo’s chin, I realized I was facing the one threat my fists couldn't solve.

I had no fucking idea how to tame this bitch.

CHAPTER TWO

ROSALIND

The bitch was out of control.

My wolf, that is.

The moment the massive wall of heat beside me shifted, my inner beast took one deep whiff of the brute standing next to us and immediately decided she wanted to play. I couldn’t even blame her. It had been four days since I’d last gotten off, and frankly, what woman could be expected to go that long without a decent release?

I knew for a fact that my favorite of my mother’s guards was standing just outside the sanctuary doors. Part of me wished I’d had thirty minutes to get Diego between my thighs one last time before being hauled up this altar, but this emergency marriage had happened too fast.

If there was one silver lining to the chaos, it was that I didn't have to wear the monstrosity of a wedding dress my mother had designed for me. Sorsha controlled every single aspect of my life, dressing me like a decorative doll in whatever Quinceañera Barbie garb suited her agenda. I hated pink with a passion—though, given my practically useless human vision, I was just glad I couldn't actually see the vile color. All I knew was that the frills were godawfully itchy.

The six-inch heels, however, were a different story. I loved them. There was nothing more intoxicating or powerful than the sharp click of a heel echoing off stone as I strutted into a room.

Impractical to run in, sure. But it wasn't like I’d get far, anyway. I’d been watched, tracked, and guarded since I was floating in my mother’s womb. The guards outside would happily lick between my legs the second I gave them permission, but not a single one of them would ever let me pass through a gate to my freedom.

Escape was the ultimate goal. But to escape, I needed freedom first. And it started right here, with saying I do to a Blackwood.

Through the heavy dark tint of my sunglasses, the world was nothing more than a wash of shadows and shapes. I glanced at the row of Blackwood men standing nearby. They were mostly massive, gray blobs of muscle, but I knew who was who by their silhouettes.

There was Magnus—the tallest of the bunch. His head turned slightly toward his fated mate, whom he’d been fucking in my hotel bed just a few hours ago.

There was Vidar—standing as rigid and motionless as a marble statue. He was the analytical brain of the family operation. Luckily, he'd been taken off the marriage mart before the switcheroo. Otherwise, I would've found myself up against some stiff competition in the brains department. It was dumb luck that I was being saddled with the dud of the pack.

Gunnar stood next to me. He was easily the thickest of them all, shaped like a wild bull standing on its hind legs. He was the family muscle; the brute who led with his fists and clearly kept whatever brain cells he possessed packed tightly into his biceps.

Good. A dumb, protective brute will be laughably easy to manipulate.

Fenrir Blackwood stepped up to the altar steps. Even through the dark tint of my lenses, his silhouette was imposing. The Blackwood Alpha looked like an entire mountain. He radiated the kind of ancient, absolute Alpha power that made the air in the sanctuary feel thin and charged with static.

"We do not bring a Lobo into this house to remain a Lobo," Fenrir began, his deep voice booming. "Family is not merely the blood that flows in your veins; it is the strength of the wall you build around those you claim. Today, we do not just merge two holdings. We welcome a daughter into the Blackwood pack."

He turned to me. I couldn't see his eyes, but I felt his attention on my face. "My protection is now yours. My sons are now your brothers. My home is your fortress."

A treacherous, unwanted ache flared in the center of my chest. For a single, fleeting second, a reckless impulse clawed at my throat. It was the urge to drop the charade and lay everything bare before this man. To tell Fenrir Blackwood everything. But that would be stupid. He was a man. The first lesson my mother taught me was that in this war, men were only good for one thing: cannon fodder.

I choked the feeling down, replacing it with cold, hard iron. Fenrir Blackwood was no savior. He was the man who had sat across a polished board table with my mother when I was seven years old, signing away my life and binding me to his bloodline like a piece of livestock. He was just as guilty as Sorsha. He had traded my future for territory and political leverage, never thinking that my battle-tested mother hadn't raised a little princess, but a master spy. And because of that, Fenrir and his entire arrogant pack would suffer the exact same wrath when my traps finally sprung.

I tilted my head up toward the Blackwood Alpha and offered him my finest weapon: an innocent little smile. The timid, harmless expression of a weak, frail doll who didn't understand the heavy world of pack politics. I drew in a steady breath through my nose, forcing my hands to remain loosely clasped at my waist, looking every bit the trembling bride, and began my vows to his son.

"I, Rosalind Lobo, stand before the Pack and the Moon to bind my life to yours. I acknowledge you as my Alpha, my husband, and my guide. I swear to obey your lead in times of peace and in times of war."

The word obey tasted like pure, acrid poison on my tongue. Every instinct in my body screamed to claw out the eyes of every man standing in this cathedral. Instead, I continued playing the meek little songbird, promising to yield her will to a man in a tracksuit. My fingers recoiled at the polyester blend as I continued.