Chapter 1: White Stag
MARGAUX (Seven years later)
Ah... I needed another drink.
The bar, all marble with gold fixtures, sat against the far wall. I wove through clusters chattering about stocks and summer homes to get there.
I didn’t see him until I’d already crashed into his chest.
My drink sloshed in my hand as I stumbled back, ready to make a cutting remark, but stopped short when I actually looked at him.
It was the mask. He wore a full-face, bone-white mask, unlike the delicate domino styles everyone else usually wore at actual masquerade balls, antlers swept up from the temples, adding nearly a foot to his height. The carved mask resembled a stag’s skull, with hollow eyes; each sharp antler looked capable of drawing blood.
Through the mask’s slits, I glimpsed his dark grey, unreadable eyes.
"Wrong party," I said, gesturing at his face with my champagne flute. "The Halloween thing is likely downtown."
He laughed. The sound came out warm, almost surprised, like he hadn’t expected me to have a sense of humor. "Well, it does make me comfortable."
I tilted my head, studying the mask. The antlers caught the light, casting twisting shadows on the white surface. "Your mask would devour a masked gala, though."
"Oh... I am sure."
His voice tugged at my memory—clipped, with a faint accent. It reminded me of someone...
I shook it off. It was probably too much champagne, not enough food.
"You should probably take the mask off if you want to enjoy the party," I said, more advice than command. The thing had to be suffocating. Beautiful, sure, but completely impractical for an event where half the point was being seen.
He smiled. I could tell from the shift in his posture and the way his shoulders relaxed. "I will keep that in mind."
He reached past me for a tumbler of amber whiskey. His sleeve brushed my bare arm, sending a rush of blood to my head.
"Are you enjoying the party?" he asked.
I raised my champagne flute, letting the light dance through the liquid. "Do I not look it?"
"You do look it."
I clinked my glass against his. I didn’t know him, and he made me nervous. Maybe it was the mask, or the way his eyes glared from behind it.
"Have fun," I said, and then I turned to walk away, already scanning the crowd for Shanelle so I could tell her about the absolutely insane stag-skull man at the bar.
I had barely taken three or four steps when I felt it.
A sensation crawled up my spine, cold and sharp—like a supernatural alert. It was the uncanny, predatory awareness of being watched. The kind that freezes prey animals.
I spun back around, causing my champagne to slosh dangerously close to the rim of my glass again.
But he was gone.
The space where he’d been standing sat empty.
I blinked and scanned the crowd, but with a mask like his, he’d be easy to spot—he was gone.
"What the hell," I muttered.
"Luna Margaux."
The voice came from behind me. I turned to find two Sentinels standing there in their formal blacks.
Recognition hit me. These were my father’s inner circle guards. The ones who only showed up when something had gone catastrophically wrong.
My stomach dropped.
"What?" I kept my voice light, though my pulse hammered. "Did Papa send you to make sure I’m not embarrassing the family name?"
That would never be the case. But I was fishing for information.
"Your presence is demanded."
The formal phrasing made my skin prickle.
I laughed; what else could I do when two Sentinels showed up at a gala like I’d committed a crime? People stared.
"Where?" I asked, since they would not give up anything else.
"Alpha Council hall."
Me? At the council hall? For what? Everything about this was odd.
"For what reason? I am barely ever there. What could be happening and why me? I do not see Bastien or Rémy here. So I imagine they are with our father."
"It is you your father wants to see."
That part sent all the alarm bells ringing. Why were they so vague?
Shanelle would know something, given her father was the pack’s beta. I just needed to buy time.
"Well, perhaps later, and stop hounding me. After the gala, we will..."
I had barely even moved to walk past them when a hand closed around my upper arm.
It wasn’t gentle.
"Hey!" I tried to yank free, but the Sentinel’s grip turned iron. My champagne glass slipped and shattered on the marble, drawing stares and silencing conversation. "Get your hands off me—"
The second Sentinel took my other arm. They lifted me slightly, just enough that my heels barely scraped the floor as they hauled me toward the exit. I heard Shanelle calling my name somewhere behind me, her voice sharp with confusion and rising panic. Other voices joined hers. Someone was demanding to know what was happening. Someone else was already pulling out their phone.
I thrashed against their grip, mind spinning. What was happening?
They shoved me into a black car. The door slammed and the locks engaged, final and cold.
Once I was ’secure’, we drove through Beaumont territory in complete silence. I pressed my face against the window, watching familiar streets blur past.
The Alpha Council Hall rose against the night sky like a dome. I hated how it looked. It was sickeningly corporate. I’d been here exactly twice in my life, once for my maternal grandmother’s funeral and once for my oldest brother’s official induction into the inner circle.
My hands shook.
The Sentinels led me through echoing marble corridors, doors with key cards and retinal scans, and finally into the war room I’d only heard about in hushed conversations between my father and his advisors.
The room was packed with senior pack members—council, sentinel commanders, my father’s closest allies. Their faces looked as if someone had died. No—it felt even worse.
Screens covered one wall, displaying burned buildings and craters where our supply depots should be. Maps filled with red markers spread across our territory. Texts scrolled too fast, but I caught: border breach, checkpoint seized, Valcourt forces advancing.
Valcourt?
Valcourt was our oldest enemy, a pack circling our borders and searching for weakness—one my father had spent years preparing to defend against.
My father stood at the head of the table, hands braced on the wood. He looked older than ever—more silver in his hair, and new creases on his forehead.
He didn’t look at me when the Sentinels deposited me beside an empty chair.
"Valcourt Pack has issued terms," he said. His voice carried through the room like a judge reading a verdict. "To surrender by converging territory through a marriage alliance, or face war by sunrise in seventy-two hours."
The words didn’t make sense at first. I turned them over in my mind, trying to find the angle, the loophole, the part where this concerned me enough that I was brought here.
My eyes went to my brothers. Bastien stood at the window, face blank in his perfected political mask. Rémy slouched with arms crossed and jaw tight. Even perpetually unbothered Rémy looked rattled.
It seemed obvious—one of them would be sacrificed. Marriage alliances in big packs like ours always involved the sons, the heirs, the ones who mattered.
I knew that too well. My father had made it clear: politics was not for girls. I was excluded from strategy, border talks, and pack governance.
Being pretty and taking care of myself were all that was asked—nothing more.
So why was I here?
I had my answer when my father turned toward me.
"You will marry their heir."
The air left my lungs. I laughed.
The sound burst out before I could stop it, sharp and disbelieving and completely inappropriate given the absolute silence that followed. I waited for someone else to laugh. For Bastian to crack a smile. For Rémy to make some joke about how ridiculous that was.
No one did.
The silence stretched, expanded, and became its own presence in the room, heavy, suffocating, and wrong.
Only then did my laughter die in my throat.
"What?!"
My father didn’t repeat himself. He slid something across the table toward me. It was a black envelope, sealed with wax that bore the Valcourt crest.
My hands shook as I opened the broken seal. The paper inside felt thick. I unfolded it slowly, my eyes struggling to focus on the text.
It was... a wedding contract and my name was right there in elegant script: Margaux Céleste Beaumont.
And below it, a signature I’d seen on important documents my entire life.
My father’s.
It was already signed.
"We’re done here." My father’s voice broke the silence. "We’ll handle coordination with Valcourt’s envoy for the ceremony logistics. With that, the council is dismissed."