Chapter 5
The winter festival at Northern Lights Lodge transformed the grounds into a wonderland of ice sculptures and twinkling lights. I'd spent weeks planning the event, wanting to create something magical for our guests—a celebration of the season and the beauty of Alaska's wilderness.
"Margot, you've outdone yourself," Elliott said, his breath forming clouds in the crisp air as he stood beside me. "The whole territory is talking about this festival."
I smiled, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with the bonfire crackling nearby. "I just wanted people to experience the magic of this place."
The festival was in full swing—guests skating on the frozen pond, children building snow sculptures, adults warming themselves with mulled wine and delicious food from the lodge's kitchen. Barnaby weaved between legs, playfully nipping at scarves and gloves before racing back to my side.
"He's such a social butterfly," I laughed as the wolf-dog pressed against my leg.
Elliott's hand found mine, his touch sending that now-familiar flutter through my chest. "Just like his human."
I looked up at him, the northern lights dancing behind his shoulders like a celestial crown. In this moment, with snowflakes catching in his dark hair and his eyes reflecting the colors of the aurora, he looked like something from a dream.
"Could you two stand still for just a moment?" A guest called out, her phone raised. "You're the most beautiful couple I've ever seen!"
Before I could protest that we weren't posing for pictures, the camera clicked. Elliott's arm slid around my waist, pulling me closer with a smile that made my heart skip.
"That's going straight on Instagram," the woman announced, already tapping at her screen. "Hashtag NorthernLightsLodge, hashtag AuroraCrestPack."
"Oh, please don't—" I started, but Elliott squeezed my hand.
"Let her," he whispered. "Some moments deserve to be shared."
I didn't think much of it then. How could I know that a single photograph would change everything?
* * *
Three thousand miles away, in a dimly lit office that smelled of bourbon and regret, Hayes Bryant stumbled through the pack archives. His once-powerful frame had grown gaunt, his eyes hollow from months of grief and alcohol.
"Another bottle," he muttered, rifling through shelves that hadn't been organized in years. "There must be more in here."
The Obsidian Moon Pack had fallen into disarray since my disappearance. Without their Alpha's leadership, territories had been challenged, alliances strained. But Hayes couldn't bring himself to care anymore.
His hand knocked against a misfiled box, sending it crashing to the floor. Old tapes and disks scattered across the carpet—security footage that should have been catalogued properly.
"Damn it," he slurred, dropping to his knees to gather the spilled contents.
A label caught his eye: "Study - Night of Luna Nomination."
With trembling hands, he inserted the disk into his laptop. The screen flickered to life, showing grainy footage of the study where I'd found him with Skye.
But this wasn't the memory that haunted him. This was something new—something he'd never seen before.
The timestamp showed hours after the celebration had ended. Skye entered alone, her movements furtive as she pulled papers from her jacket.
Hayes leaned closer, his alcohol-induced fog beginning to lift as he watched Skye carefully forge a note—my supposed suicide note.
"No," he whispered, but the footage continued.
Skye gathered my bloodied clothes from a bag, her face twisted with determination as she planned her elaborate deception.
The room spun around Hayes as the truth crashed down on him. There had been no rogue attack. No suicide. Just Skye's calculated scheme to remove me from his life permanently.
"MARCUS!" His roar shook the walls as fury replaced grief.
* * *
Beta Marcus burst into the office, tablet in hand, his face pale with urgency.
"Alpha, you need to see this," he said, ignoring Hayes's disheveled appearance and the empty bottles scattered across the desk.
"I need you to arrest Skye," Hayes growled, his eyes blazing with a fire that had been absent for months. "She lied to me. She—"
"Alpha, please," Marcus interrupted, holding out the tablet. "Look at this first."
The screen showed a photograph that had been posted to Instagram just hours earlier. It had already received thousands of likes and shares.
A winter festival. Twinkling lights. And at the center, a couple silhouetted against the dancing northern lights—their faces turned toward each other, love evident in every line of their bodies.
Hayes froze, his breath catching painfully in his throat.
"Margot," he whispered, his fingers reaching for the screen as if he could touch me through the glass.
She was alive. Not dead in some frozen river, but alive and radiant in the arms of another Alpha.
The mate bond, which had been silent for so long, gave a violent lurch within him—not rekindling, but rage. Pure, primal rage.
"She's MINE," Hayes roared, his Alpha aura exploding outward with such force that Marcus staggered back. "She's MY mate!"
The tablet trembled in his grip as he stared at the image of me laughing in Elliott's arms—at the life I'd built without him.
"I'm going to Alaska," he snarled, already calculating the fastest route to reclaim what was his. "And I'm bringing her home."
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