Freya’s POV


    ? ???, 75%?


    Finished.


    If Ss Whitmor were truly a cold–blooded monster, he wouldn’t have stood at my parents‘ funeral. He wouldn’t havee all the way to Ashbourne just to honor them.


    So when he asked if I thought him one, my lips tightened before I countered, “Was your mother cruel to you?”


    His voice carried no tremor, no bitterness–just a steady calm that made the wordsnd like steel. “She hated me. Especially this face. She despised it most of all.”


    I froze. What kind of mother could hate her own pup’s face–hate it to the point of loathing?


    Then his eyes found mine again. Those sharp, lupine eyes that so often looked dead as a battlefield at dusk. Yet now… there was something flickering beneath. “And you, Freya,” he asked softly, “do you hate my face?”


    I blinked, taken off guard. Hisshes trembled faintly, his gaze rising with quiet desperation–calm on the surface, yet underneath… the faintest thread of yearning.


    A strange ache stirred in my chest. “No, I murmured. “Your face isn’t one anyone could hate.”


    At that, the faintest smile touched his lips. Just a curve, subtle, but it cracked the stillness in his eyes. For an instant, the deathly calm in them seemed to melt, leaving a heat that felt dangerously close to temptation.


    I swallowed and cleared my throat. “Here. Your handkerchief.” I held it out to him.


    He took it back, folding the fabric into his palm. Then his gaze caught mine again. “Promise me, Freya. Never despise this face.“,


    I frowned at the odd request but answered simply, “All right.”


    6


    A


    7


    Truth be told, I’ve never hated a face. I only ever hated the wolf beneath it. If I truly loathed someone, I couldn’t bear to even look at them–let alone share the same air. Like Caelum Grafton.


    But Ss wasn’t done. He lifted his right hand, extending his little finger, of all things. “Then hook ws with me. Swear it.”


    I stared, stunned. This was the Irond Alpha–the same man whose name shook the whole Capital, who crushed rivals with nothing more than a look. And here he was, using a pup’s oath, childish and old- fashioned.


    “…What?” I breathed.


    “Is that so strange?” he asked, his expression unreadable. “When I was a boy, a girl once told me that a hooked promisests a hundred years. Break it, and you’ll lose the thing you treasure most.”


    For a moment, my wolf stilled. That exact phrase… I’d heard it before. I’d believed it once too, as a child. Every oath sealed w–to–w was bound by those words.


    Could it be? No. Impossible.


    <i>1/2 </i>


    75%


    Finished


    I would have remembered if our paths had crossed as pups. His face, even younger, would have been unforgettable. And my memory is sharp as talons; I’d never forget a wolf like him.


    Shaking the thought away, I lifted my hand. “Fine. Then let’s do it.”


    Our little fingers hooked together. A strange pulse rippled down my spine, like the faint echo of a long- forgotten howl.


    “w to w,” Ss murmured, his voice low, almost reverent. “A hundred years unbroken.”


    Something inside me faltered. For the briefest heartbeat, I felt like a child again–swearing to someone in shadows, just like this.


    But before the memory could take shape, it slipped through my mind like mist.


    And then I felt the weight of eyes burning holes into me,


    I turned slightly, and there she was–Jocelyn Thorne. Her lips pressed thin, her gaze full of venom and raw hatred.


    Her wolf bristled under her skin, her whole body rigid with fury as she watched Ss and I hook fingers like it was the most natural thing in the world.


    I remembered hearing once that she had asked Ss to do this long ago, when they were younger. And he had cut her down with a single look, telling her he owed her nothing, promising her nothing.


    Yet now, he had done it with me. Easily


    Her ruined eye–the scar he had given her–glittered with bitter rage. She had sacrificed so much, carved herself bloody just to stay at his side. And still, he had never once offered her even a pup’s promise.


    But he had given it to me.


    I looked away from her, my stomach twisting.


    4


    And when I nced back at Ss, I caught the faint smile still tugging at his lips, as though the oath we had just made was something more than a game. Something binding.


    I had no words for that.


    But I could feel Jocelyn’s fury like a storm gathering behind me, sharp as ws against my back.