Chapter 1 · Ch1

The Moon Was Wrong Callum's hand found my jaw the second the word reject left his mouth, as if his body hadn't gotten the Assembly script, and he pinned me to the pillar behind the fire. The mark under my collar went hot as a coal. Wool coat. His ring — Alpha, heavy — scraped my collarbone. Cedar and woodsmoke and a musk that said mate while his sentence said mistake.

"Say that again," I told him, breath shaking.

"Slower. For the recorder."

"I reject you as my mate." His thumb pressed my lip. His thigh caged mine.

"You think you can run from this? The moon already didn't." Lace at my throat caught on his knuckle. Elders chewed somewhere I refused to give a paragraph.

"Then take your hand off a mistake." He didn't. Heat slammed. I slammed back.

"Look at me." I did. Zero distance. Firelight on his mouth. My pulse in his palm. Wedding music tried to start in a hall that wasn't this pillar. His fingers tightened on my ribs.

"If you kiss me they will call it perjury," I whispered.

"They already heard the lie." He leaned until I couldn't step back, covering me, almost on my mouth. I counted his heartbeat because the mark . He Ch1 hold: his jaw-pin stayed, silk and leather and a ring on my collarbone, breath scorching, no entry, only the almost.

I counted the space between his mouth and mine. Wardrobe heat. Pulse. A belt buckle kissing skin I refused to offer in an ad. He said the fight in one line and put the rest in his hand on my wrist. I could not step back.

My lip caught his thumb. Rain or oak or iron — the room shrank to scent and heat. I stayed clothed. He stayed cruel. That was the landing page the body understood. Someone else could have the lore later.

Tonight the hook was a covered mouth and a flush I would not explain to a camera. was counting too.

"Callum." A warning. A want.

"Don't you dare file this under ceremony." His breath scalded. The chapter ended on that locked inch — rejected in public, claimed in the body, not yet bitten clean. Leather, wool, fire, a ledger still in my other hand like a joke.

I didn't drop the book. I also didn't drop his gaze. The room held. Skin stayed too hot. Breath stayed scorching. His wrist stayed on my jaw. Leather and cedar stayed in my mouth. Silk dragged. I couldn't step back.