Moonbound Contract: The Alpha's Fake Luna

My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

I stared at the paper on the table like it might catch fire if I looked away. Black ink. Gold seal. My name already printed at the bottom, waiting for a signature I hadn't given yet.

Marriage Contract - Elara Voss & Kael Draven.

Someone behind me cleared their throat. I didn't turn around. If I turned around, I'd see my pack's faces - hungry, desperate, watching me like I was the last life raft on a sinking ship.

Because I was.

"Sign it," my uncle whispered. "Elara. Please."

My eyes burned. I blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall in front of them. Not here. Not now.

The door opened.

I felt him before I saw him - that shift in the air, like the room forgot how to breathe.

Kael Draven walked in wearing a black suit that fit him like a warning. He didn't rush. He never rushed. He moved like a man who'd never once questioned whether a room belonged to him.

His eyes found mine immediately.

I hated that they were beautiful. Gray, like a storm that hadn't decided yet whether to break.

"Miss Voss," he said. Flat. Formal. A stranger's voice for a man about to become my husband.

I stood. My knees betrayed me - the slightest wobble - and I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. Not a smile. Something closer to contempt.

"You're late," I said, because I needed to say something that wasn't please don't do this to me.

"I'm exactly on time." He glanced at the contract, then back at me. "Your pack owes half a million dollars to creditors who won't wait past Friday. I'm the only offer on the table. I suggest you stop wasting both our time."

My uncle flinched. Good. Let him feel that.

I looked down at my hands instead of at Kael's face, because his face made it too easy to forget I was angry.

"Why me?" I asked quietly. "You could have any Luna in the country. Why marry someone your pack has never even heard of?"

Something flickered behind his eyes. Gone before I could name it.

"Because you're no one," he said. "No enemies. No history. No one to ask questions when this ends."

When this ends.

Right. Because this wasn't real. This was never going to be real.

He pulled out the chair across from me and sat like he owned the wood beneath him.

"Here are the terms," he said, tapping the contract with one finger. "You move into my territory. You act as my Luna in public - events, press, pack gatherings. In private, we are strangers. No expectations. No touching beyond what's necessary to be convincing."

"How romantic," I muttered.

His eyes cut to mine, sharp. "This isn't romance, Miss Voss. This is survival. Yours and mine."

I swallowed. "Yours?"

He didn't answer that. His jaw tightened, just slightly, like I'd stepped somewhere he hadn't invited me.

"In exchange," he continued, "your pack's debts are cleared. Fully. Tonight."

I felt the room tilt. A week ago I'd been ready to sell my mother's ring to buy groceries for the pack house. Now a stranger with storm-colored eyes was offering to erase every zero on that ledger like it was nothing.

"And when it's over?" I asked. "When you don't need a fake Luna anymore?"

"A quiet divorce. You keep a settlement. Your pack keeps its territory." He leaned back. "No one gets hurt."

I almost laughed. He said it so easily, like hearts weren't already involved - my uncle's pride, my pack's survival, whatever was left of the girl I used to be before every choice in my life started belonging to someone else.

But I looked around the room. My uncle's hollow eyes. My cousins by the door, too thin, too tired. The debt collectors who'd started calling twice a day.

I picked up the pen.

Kael watched me do it. Didn't smile. Didn't look away.

The nib touched paper. My hand shook so badly the first letter came out crooked.

"Elara." His voice was lower now. Almost gentle, which was somehow worse than the coldness. "Once you sign, there's no version of this where you change your mind."

I looked up at him.

"I know," I whispered.

I finished my name.

The moment the pen left the paper, something in the air shifted - a pull low in my chest, sudden and electric, like the room had exhaled a name none of us said out loud.

Kael went still.

His eyes locked onto mine, and for one unguarded second, the storm in them wasn't calm anymore. It was afraid.

Then it was gone, buried under that same icy control.

He stood, straightened his jacket, and looked down at me like I'd become a problem he hadn't accounted for.

"One more thing," he said quietly, so only I could hear. "This is not a real marriage. But if anyone - anyone - finds out what just happened in this room the moment you signed your name..."

He leaned down, close enough that I caught the scent of rain and cedar clinging to him.

"...we're both dead. Do you understand me?"