Chapter 17: Her Sweet Defiance
TRISTAN POV
>
Tonight was supposed to be a formality.
A duty.
One I neither desired nor could escape.
The full moon hung heavy above Picmeria, casting a silver sheen over the towering pines and cobbled streets. Somewhere below, the humans waited—girls dressed in their finest, their families watching with thinly veiled greed. All hoping for a glance, a nod—for the impossible chance that I, Alpha Prince Tristan Howlcrest, would choose their daughter as my mate.
It was a ritual, a tradition born from tragedy.
Once, we married our own kind—strong wolf women who carried the scent of the mountains in their blood. But that night... the night the hunters came... they burned a hundred of our women alive. The smoke from their bodies choked the sky, and the screams still echo in the marrow of my bones.
After that, we were left with no choice.
We turned to the humans, to fragile, breakable girls who flinched at the sight of our teeth and feared the sound of our howls. It was strategic—alliances with the town, the illusion of unity. A cold, calculated move.
And now, the burden was mine to bear.