The Dying Alpha Marked Me Before I Married His Beta

•Miren•

"By the light of the First Moon, do you come to bind your lives—?"

The priest doesn't even get to finish the sentence before someone screams behind the stone altar.

One second, Miren is kneeling under the ancient moon arch with Beta Felan Orr’s warm hand wrapped around hers, trying very hard not to trip over the ridiculous amount of white fabric pooled around her knees. The next, a thud echoes across the courtyard. Whipping her head around, Miren watches in shock as the great Alpha of Velm Pack crashes to his knees on the flagstones.

It isn't a graceful collapse, either. Alpha Ilyr Veyne hits the stone like a felled oak tree, one broad hand grabbing desperately at the front of his ceremonial coat while his face twists in agony.

Just like that, Miren forgets she’s wearing a wedding dress. She forgets the ceremonial silver cord waiting in the priest's wrinkled hands to be tied around her wrist. She even forgets that two hundred pack members are packed into the courtyard, watching her finally leave her miserable family estate to become the Beta’s chosen mate. She was a healer long before she was ever a bride, and unfortunately for everyone present, her feet remember that fact much faster than her brain does.

"Miren, wait," Felan snaps, his fingers tightening reflexively as she yanks her hand out of his grip.

"He can't breathe, Felan!" she shoots back, already hiking her heavy white skirts up past her ankles.

"There are three royal healers standing right by the podium."

"Yeah, and all three of them are currently standing there staring at him like idiots!"

Not waiting for permission, she bolts down the altar steps. The Alpha’s personal guards react a second too late; their hands fly to their sword hilts as Miren drops hard onto her knees beside Ilyr and physically shoves a burly warrior away from his collar. "Stop crowding him! Back up and give him some air!"

Master Othen, the head court healer, bristles indignantly above her. "Girl, have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea who you are touching?"

"A man who is actively turning blue," Miren snaps without looking up as she tears open the top clasps of the Alpha's stiff black collar. "I'll gladly apologize to his fancy title after he survives the next five minutes!"

Several people in the front rows gasp in scandalized shock. Wonderful. She hasn't even been the Beta’s wife for ten seconds, technically, she still isn't, and her very first public act is insulting the head healer in front of the entire Velm elite. Her father is going to have an apoplexy. Assuming, of course, the Alpha doesn't beat him to the grave first.

Beneath her palms, Ilyr’s huge frame jerks. Even through the thick wool of his coat, she can feel how rock-hard his muscles have locked up. Pressing two fingers firmly against the side of his throat, Miren winces. His skin is burning up like a blacksmith's forge, and his pulse is a disaster: racing way too fast, dropping to a crawl, and then hammering agitatedly against her fingertips again.

Up close, without the intimidating scowl he usually wears from across the council hall, the man looks shockingly young to be dying. Sharp cheekbones, dark lashes plastered to sweaty skin, and a jaw clenched so hard she’s surprised his teeth haven't cracked. Not the time to notice the patient's bone structure, Miren!

"When did he last take his bone draught?" she demands, patting down his chest to check his breathing.

Dead silence greets her.

Glancing up, she glares around at the circle of frozen guards and useless elders. "Does anyone standing around this man actually know anything useful, or are you all just here for decoration?"

That finally jolts them out of their stupor. "At noon, my lady," a younger guard blurts out nervously.

"He vomited most of it back up an hour later," another mutters, shifting on his feet.

Cursing under her breath, Miren leans back in, only to freeze when the Alpha’s heavy eyelids suddenly snap open.

Grey. His eyes aren't the bright wolf-gold the village gossips always talk about, nor are they pale silver. They're an unfocused grey, staring straight up at her as though he’s trying to see her through twenty feet of dark water.

"Step away from him immediately!" Master Othen barks, finally finding his voice. "His wolf is surfacing through the fever!"

Miren really should have listened. Honestly, if she had an ounce of self-preservation, she would have scrambled backward right then. Instead, before she can even blink, Ilyr’s large hand shoots out and clamps around the back of her neck like an iron shackle.

Everything goes straight to hell at once.

Felan roars her name from the altar steps. Half a dozen guards draw their steel with a chorus of metallic rings. Ilyr drags her down against his chest with shocking strength, his fever-hot breath burning across the side of her jaw. Then, before she can even wedge her forearm between them, his teeth sink into the curve of her shoulder, right above her collarbone.

A terrible pain shoots through her nervous system at once. Miren screams, not because the bite is deep, though it hurts like a b*st*rd, but because something deep inside her chest actually answers it.

Her wolf, Luma, who has spent the entirety of Miren’s twenty-two years being a quiet, sensible creature exclusively interested in drying herbs, eating roasted meats, and avoiding unnecessary men, yelps against the inside of Miren’s ribs with enough force to turn her vision pure white.

Mate.

No. Oh, f*ck no. Absolutely not.

•Miren•

Just as suddenly as he grabbed her, the Alpha’s grip goes slack. His heavy head drops back against the stone, his eyes rolling shut while warm blood trails slowly down Miren’s neck to ruin the lace of her bodice.

For three horrifying heartbeats, the entire wedding courtyard is so quiet she can hear the wind whistling through the banners. Then, chaos breaks out.

"Get her away from him!" "Moon above, he marked her!" "Isn't that the Beta's bride?!"

Reaching her before the guards can untangle their own feet, Felan yanks Miren upright and drags her tightly against his chest. "Look at me," he breathes as his hands come up to frame her face, his thumbs trembling against her cheeks. "Miren, sweetheart, look at me."

She tries. She really, truly does. But the fresh bite on her shoulder is burning like someone pressed a branding iron into her flesh, not like an ordinary wound, but like a whole second heartbeat has just been shoved i