Chapter 1

I heard everything.

The warmth of Josiah's hand still lingered on my skin as he whispered sweet nothings to Estella—right beside my supposedly lifeless body.

"She won't wake," he said, brushing my hair like I was already dead. "We've taken her wolf, her womb, her future. The pack will think she died from the attack."

Estella giggled, her lips brushing his. "And with your heir growing inside me, no one will question my place as Luna."

That was the moment my heart truly stopped—not from the poison they'd injected into my veins, but from the realization that the man the Moon Goddess had chosen for me was nothing more than a coward wrapped in Alpha skin.

I was supposed to be his fated mate. The future Luna of the Silver Fang Pack. And yet here I was, broken and drugged, listening to my mate and my best friend plan my erasure.

But I didn't die.

I stayed silent. I waited. And I listened—to every lie, every betrayal, every kiss they shared thinking I couldn't feel it.

They thought I was gone.

Until the night my quarters burned and a body was found in the ashes.

Let them mourn.

Let them celebrate.

Because I'm still alive—and I'm coming back.

Not as the Luna they betrayed.

But as the threat they never saw coming.

...

The arrow tore through my chest with a sickening crunch, and time fractured around me. My white ceremonial gown—the one I'd spent months dreaming about—bloomed crimson as I collapsed on the sacred stone altar.

Pain radiated from the wound, but it was nothing compared to the agony in my heart. My wolf thrashed wildly inside me, howling in betrayal as I struggled to breathe through lungs filling with blood. The scent of silver—deadly to our kind—burned my nostrils. This was no accident.

Gasps echoed across the Silver Fang Pack's sacred grounds as hundreds of witnesses watched their Beta's daughter—their future Luna—bleed out during her own mate ceremony. Through the haze of pain, I locked eyes with Josiah, my Alpha, my fated mate, the man I had loved since childhood.

He rushed toward me, bronze skin paling, those amber eyes I adored widening with horror. For one desperate moment, I thought he cared. But as he reached me, I caught the subtle shift in his gaze—that horror wasn't for me. It was for the ceremony, for the spectacle, for his own reputation crumbling before the pack.

Behind him stood Estella, her face a mask of concern, but her eyes... her eyes glittered with triumph.

"Alpha, she's losing too much blood," someone shouted.

Josiah's hands trembled as he pressed them against my wound. "Stay with me, Aitana," he commanded, his Alpha voice washing over me.

But even an Alpha's command couldn't stop the darkness encroaching on my vision. My wolf whimpered, retreating deep within me as consciousness slipped away.

I don't know how long I floated in that void—days, perhaps weeks. But when awareness finally returned, instinct kept my eyes closed, my breathing even. A voice was speaking near me, low and urgent.

"Alpha, are you absolutely certain?" It was Amos, our pack's Healer, his usually steady voice quivering with unease. "The poison will corrode her wolf core. She'll never shift again. And if we combine it with the suppressants..."

"Do it," Josiah snapped, his voice devoid of the warmth I once treasured. "Estella's pregnancy is already showing. If Aitana survives, I'll never be allowed to make Estella my chosen mate."

Each word drove into me like shards of ice. The mate bond I thought we shared—the one the Moon Goddess herself had blessed us with—had meant nothing to him. I was merely an obstacle to be removed.

"But Alpha," Amos protested weakly, "this goes against everything—"

"I didn't ask for your opinion," Josiah growled, his Alpha aura pulsating through the room. "Either do as I command or I'll find someone who will."

I heard Amos's defeated sigh, followed by the clink of glass vials. The mattress dipped as he approached, and I forced myself to remain limp, even as I felt the cold prick of a needle in my arm. A chill unlike anything I'd ever experienced flooded my veins, spreading like frost through my body.

My wolf—my beautiful, silver-coated companion since birth—whimpered in agony as the poison reached our shared core. I felt her strength curl inward, her presence dimming like a candle in a storm. The tears that gathered beneath my closed lids weren't just for my own pain, but for hers.

Footsteps approached, lighter this time, accompanied by a scent of lavender and deceit.

"Josiah," Estella whispered, her voice honey-sweet with false concern, "what if she wakes up? What if she tells someone what happened at the ceremony?"

I felt Josiah move closer to me, his fingers brushing my hair in a mockery of tenderness. "She won't. The arrow was just the beginning. Now we've taken everything that matters—her wolf, her future, her ability to bear pups. She has nothing left."

Estella's laugh was soft, mocking. "And the rogue who fired the arrow? The one who helped us stage the attack?"

"Gone. Paid off. A thousand gold coins for his silence and exile." There was a rustle of fabric, and I sensed him embracing her. "No one will ever know."

"You're brilliant," she purred, and the sound of their kiss made bile rise in my throat. "In three days, when we announce that I'm carrying your heir, the pack will have no choice but to accept me as Luna, comatose mate or not."

They thought I was broken beyond repair. They thought I had nothing left.

But they were wrong.

I was still the daughter of the Blue Moon Pack's Beta. I had trained in healing arts at my mother's side before her death. I had studied strategy with my father since I could walk. And now, I had something even more powerful: a burning hatred that would fuel me when everything else was gone.

Later that night, after the pack had fallen silent, I sensed Josiah's approach. His scent—cedarwood and rain—reached me before his footsteps. Once, that scent had meant safety. Now it made my stomach turn.

He knelt beside me, and I felt his hand slide beneath my pillow. The weight of my ancestral silver bracelet—the one his mother had given me before our ceremony, symbolizing my acceptance into the royal bloodline—lifted away.

So that was his final goodbye. Not even a word. Just theft in the darkness.

When he left, I allowed myself one moment of weakness. One moment to curl into myself, to let silent tears track down my temples, to mourn the life I'd thought I would have.

Then I breathed. Deep and steady.

I would not die like this.

Let them think I'm weak.

Let them believe I'm broken.

Let them celebrate over what they think is my ruined body.

But when I rise again—and I will rise—they will learn what happens when you betray a wolf who has nothing left to lose.

The Moon Goddess may have given me Josiah as a mate, but fate had given me something far more valuable: a purpose. Revenge.