Chapter 1

At the Blackwood heir awakening ceremony, I wore the Moon's Tear, the necklace that marked my status as Luna.

My adopted son, Jackson Blackwood, tore it from my neck before the entire assembly, using the claws of a beast he could not yet control.

The snapped platinum chain lashed back across my collarbone and chest like a razor, opening three bone-deep gashes.

Jackson stood by the ritual stone circle, his golden eyes flashing with a feral light as he looked down at me, kneeling and clutching my wound. That cold, detached look mirrored his father, Dominic Blackwood.

Jackson sneered, "You think that necklace makes you the Luna of this pack? Once my wolf is fully grown and I take over, the first thing I'll do is mark you rogue. You'll spend the rest of your life running."

The copper tang of blood mixed with something burnt and acrid, stinging my nose and drowning out the part of me that still ached to belong.

I looked at the boy I had raised as my own son. His hackles raised, his ears pricked with challenge, his muscles bunched tight to show dominance.

I did not cry. Not like the submissive she-wolves who wept. The wolf inside me was strangely calm. Almost relieved.

I wiped the blood from my face and drew a sharp breath. "You won't get the chance, Jackson. The contract ends tomorrow. I'm leaving."

The early spring wind cut as sharply as Dominic's Alpha command, carrying the meltwater chill from the distant peaks.

I took the towel from the Omega assigned to me. All I wanted was to return to my room, shed these blood-soaked clothes, and scrub away the stench of humiliation.

As I turned to leave, Jackson suddenly shoved me from behind.

I stumbled and crashed into the ornate glass display case in the corner of the hall.

The crystal perfume bottle hit the floor and shattered, exploding into a thousand glittering shards.

Instantly, Celeste's scent detonated in the air, thick enough to choke, a volatile blend of tuberose and custom pheromones laced with a trace of legal hallucinogen.

To wolves with senses this sharp, it was a chemical weapon.

Guests recoiled, hands flying to their mouths and noses. Someone retched.

The scent was too heavy and too thick. It was like an invisible fist clamping around every throat.

"You broke Mom's scent," Jackson shrieked, his voice cracking with hysteria. "That was the last bottle on earth. Now everything smells like filth. This is all your fault."

His wolf instincts were completely unleashed, his eyes blazing gold. It was the most dangerous phase of an Alpha's awakening.

His young face, still soft but beginning to show the hard angles of manhood, was twisted with pure hatred for me. As if my impure blood had desecrated a sacred relic.

I stared at the spreading pool of liquid, at the delicate crystal fragments. "Jackson, this was not the perfume your mother wore in life."

Jackson's mother, Celeste Blackwood, had been loud, flashy, and every inch a predator in life. She wore Clive Christian's limited editions, the kind that cost 20 thousand dollars a bottle and came in diamond-encrusted flacons designed purely for show.

This custom scent was something Dominic had made after she died. It was his romanticized, imagined tribute to his late wife.

Jackson was stunned for a moment, exposed and caught off guard, but his anger only burned hotter.

His wolf instincts churned with fury at being contradicted by a lower-ranked female.

He threw me a vicious look and ran. The tension in his stride and the set of his shoulders no longer looked like a sulking child. He looked like a young predator that had finally tasted blood.

I did not chase after him to offer comfort, as I had so often before. Nor did I release pheromones to calm his wolf.

After seeing the guests off, I headed back to the guest room next to the master bedroom.

This room, without the pack's protective runes, had been my home for ten years. It was a constant reminder of my role as a caretaker under the Alliance Contract

As soon as I opened the door, the heavy scent of blood slammed into me.

A dead golden retriever was sprawled across my bed.

Its throat had been torn open by fangs, the wound ragged. Its entrails were exposed, its limbs twisted at unnatural angles, the clear marks of a large canine that had mauled and toyed with its prey.

Not an accident. A deliberate killing.

Blood had saturated the down comforter and dripped onto the hardwood floor, spreading in dark, violent blooms across the white cotton sheets.