The Mate Hunt

Maeve

The tip of the silver pen hovered over the page.

One movement. That was all it would take to surrender everything.

My freedom. My future. My body, if I failed.

The enormous registration book rested open across the polished black desk in the entrance hall of Blackthorne Mansion. Its pages were made from thick cream-colored parchment, each sheet crowded with signatures written in ink ranging from elegant gold to ordinary black.

Some names had been written in neat, careful strokes.

Others slanted wildly across the paper, as though the women holding the pen had been trembling too badly to control their hands.

A few had left smudges.

One woman had pressed hard enough to tear the parchment beneath the final letter of her name.

I understood why.

The moment I signed, I would no longer be a guest. I would be prey.

“Miss?”

The registrar’s voice was polite, but impatience sharpened the edges of it.

I looked up.

The elderly woman behind the desk wore a severe black gown that covered her from throat to wrist. Her silver hair had been twisted into a knot so tight it pulled the wrinkles smooth around her temples. A chain of tiny iron keys hung from her waist, and a golden crescent moon rested against the hollow of her throat.

Her expression suggested she had watched hundreds of women stand exactly where I stood now.

Some frightened. Some excited. Some desperate. She no longer cared which one I was.

“If you require more time,” she said, “you may step aside and allow the next participant to register.”

A woman waiting behind me released a quiet, irritated breath.

I tightened my fingers around the pen. “I don’t need more time.”

That was a lie.

I had needed more time for the last three years. More time to find Mara before it came to this. More time to prove Alpha Ronan Caine had taken her. More time to discover another way inside the fortress he called a pack house.

I had searched every neighboring territory. Bribed messengers. Followed rumors into rogue camps and abandoned villages. I had questioned traders who passed through Caine land, warriors who had once served under Ronan’s father, and servants dismissed after the massacre.

Most refused to speak his name. Those who did lowered their voices first. The Ruthless Alpha. The Mad Wolf of the North. The Beast of Caine Territory.

Every story changed depending on who told it, but they all ended the same way.

Ronan Caine had murdered his own family. Then he had locked my sister beneath his home so she could never reveal what she had seen.

The letters proved it. At least, they proved Mara was alive. That was enough.

I lowered the pen. The metal nib scratched across the parchment.

Maeve Cross.

The letters appeared darker than every other name on the page. Perhaps that was only because I knew what they meant. Perhaps the book itself understood I had not come here seeking wealth, protection, or a powerful mate.

I had come to commit murder.

The registrar’s eyes dropped to my name. Her expression changed. Only slightly.

The corner of her mouth tightened. Her gaze lifted to my face again, sharper this time, as though she were comparing me to someone she remembered.

“Cross,” she repeated.

The woman behind me stopped shifting impatiently. A hush spread through the nearest part of the entrance hall. Not complete silence.

Blackthorne Mansion held too many people for that.

Servants moved through the crowd carrying trays of champagne and dark wine. Women whispered among themselves beneath enormous crystal chandeliers. Warriors stationed near the walls adjusted their weapons and scanned the room for trouble.

But the conversations closest to the desk softened. Several heads turned. I felt their attention settle over me.

The Cross name had once meant something.