I was never a person. I was a serial number on a black-market file: A-17. No name. No birthday. No family. Just injections, experiments, chains, and a single line stamped across the front page of my file: Extremely Dangerous. Do Not Provoke. Twenty years later, the De Luca family bought me out of hell. Don Enzo De Luca—my father—burned that file right in front of me and said: "From today on, your name is Vivian De Luca." Every night, Mama stood watch outside my bedroom door, afraid I'd wake up screaming from nightmares. My brothers locked the estate's armory behind three separate security systems, terrified that the sight of a gun might drag me back into the past. What they didn't know was— I wasn't afraid of guns. I knew them far too well. Tonight, the fake heiress, Isabella, showed up with her fiancé, Cassian Wolfe, and tried to stage a coup inside our home. The Wolfe family controlled the shipping routes along the East Coast. They thought stepping on the De Luca name would be their ticket to the top. They smashed through the mansion's glass entrance. They forced Papa to sign over the docks. They pinned my oldest brother, Santino, to the floor and stomped on his hand until the bones snapped. Isabella grabbed Mama by the hair and laughed while ordering me to get on all fours and bark like a dog. Then Cassian shoved an "unloaded" pistol into my hand. "Go ahead," he said. "Show us you've got guts." I took the gun. Dropped the magazine. Checked the barrel. Chambered a round. Three seconds. The smile froze on Cassian's face. I raised the muzzle. "Who told you..." "this was an empty gun?"

I clutched that medical form, wishing I could just vanish on the spot. In the exam room, the kind-looking female doctor adjusted her glasses and read my chief complaint out loud, word by word, with a smile: “Chief complaint—pain during intercourse.” Clack. The tall, lean resident standing behind her dropped his pen. I looked up. That face—seven years later—still so handsome, still so cold. Elliott Shaw. The guy I chased for almost two years as a freshman, only to get personally rejected by him. He bent to pick up the pen, straightened, and spoke in a voice like ice shards: “There are many possible causes for this.” “Overly aggressive activity.” “Too frequent.” “Lack of proper lubrication.” “Mechanical trauma.” The female doctor nodded approvingly, ready to continue. But he suddenly lifted his eyes, staring straight at me over her shoulder. One word at a time, practically through gritted teeth: “Quinn… these past seven years… exactly who have you been sleeping with?”

The godfather lost his memory. When he woke up, he grabbed my hand and asked who I was. I knew exactly how insatiable and ruthless this man could be in bed—he always left me unable to get up the next day. So I kept a straight face and lied: "I'm your stepmother. When your father passed, you swore you'd protect me." Dante believed it. From then on, he treated me with utmost respect and courtesy, even apologizing before so much as touching me. I was just relieved I could finally get a full night's sleep—until I saw his tablet search history: "Can a man marry his stepmother? Does the Church allow it? What do lawyers say?" I was about to run when the man blocked the doorway, his voice low and hoarse: "Vivienne, I've looked it up." "There's no rule stopping me from marrying you." —Perfect. Even with amnesia, he hadn't forgotten his true nature.

My family has an iMessage group chat called "The Carters." The members are my dad, my mom, my older brother, my younger brother, and my younger sister. Also included are my brother's golden retriever, Max, my younger brother's ragdoll cat, Mochi, and my sister's guinea pig, Buttons. Every pet has its own account. I'm the only one who's not in the group. One time I asked my sister, "Can you add me?" She was trimming Buttons' nails and didn't even look up. "That group's just for family. Wouldn't it be kinda weird if you joined?" I stared at the guinea pig making little chirping noises in her lap. The guinea pig had its own place in the chat. Me—its actual human sister? Apparently not. What I didn't know then was this— On the other side of the city, an old white-bearded man in a leather vest was riding a beat-up 1976 Harley. And for the past twenty years, he'd been searching for my family.

The day I was officially welcomed back into my birth family, the entire town crowded the crossroads to see me off. They cried like they were attending a funeral. My biological mother held me tightly and said she'd finally found her daughter. On my first night in the mansion, she slapped a bone marrow compatibility report into my face. My sister needed a transplant. I was the only match. So I yanked out her breathing tube. They didn't call the police. Instead, they beat me half to death, blindfolded me, shoved me into a car, and drove me to a place so notorious that sheriffs from three different states avoided it whenever possible. Just before they threw me out, my father smiled and said, "Those animals love girls like you. You'll be dead in three days." The blindfold came off. The first thing I saw was the faded wooden sign standing at the intersection. GRAY WOLF I couldn't help laughing. This dump was where I grew up. And the "criminal kingpin" my father was talking about? He was the man who found me as a baby wrapped in a blanket, gave me my name, and raised me for nineteen years.

I am the true-born daughter of the Conti Empire—Vivian Conti. When I was three years old, my mother was killed in an ambush targeting the Conti family. That same night, my father sent me away to Zurich and entrusted me to the care of his Chief Consigliere. The day I returned home at twenty, my father walked toward me holding the hand of a little girl clutching a baby bottle. "This is Papa's precious Chloe. From now on, she's your sister." Chloe smiled sweetly while all ten of my brothers fought over whose turn it was to carry her. I smiled too. What nobody knew was that, as my coming-of-age gift, the Consigliere had handed me the master access key to every underground surveillance system in the Conti Empire. Including every camera in her room. And every word she'd ever spoken to my brothers. At the welcome banquet, Chloe approached me with reddened eyes and offered me a glass of wine. "I'm so happy you're finally home, Sister. Mommy must be smiling down from heaven." In my earpiece, the Director of Intelligence spoke in a voice colder than ice. "Voice-stress analysis complete. Probability of deception: ninety-nine percent." I took the glass and walked toward my father. "Papa, I'd like to give you a gift."

The year my dad disappeared, I was eight. Everyone in Greyrock said the Iron Ravens’ road captain had stolen two hundred grand from his brothers, abandoned his wife and kid, and vanished somewhere down Highway 12. Three months later, Victor Brandt moved into our house. One week before my eighteenth birthday, he slapped a land-sale authorization form down in front of me. That night, I found Dad’s old leather vest in the attic. The stitching in the lining was fresh. I cut the seams open. Out fell a deed — the house, the repair shop, the roadside acreage. Under “Owner,” there was only one name. Rose Mason. Mine. Tucked inside was a note in Dad’s handwriting: “Find the Iron Ravens. Tell Preacher: Compass never betrayed his brothers.” What I didn’t know was this— That note would send two people to prison. And make three hundred Harleys escort a “traitor” to his grave.

Prologue:When I was six, I was snatched by human traffickers at the county fair. At the "Shepherd's" farm, every child had a brand burned into the back of their neck. On the transport route when I was nine, I jumped off the truck and crawled across the wasteland for two days—until a biker gang picked me up. The Wasteland Vultures MC raised me. Now, three hundred outlaws call me—President. Three months ago, a match popped up in the national missing persons DNA database. I just wanted to see who had abandoned me all those years ago. The report said—no one abandoned me. I had been kidnapped. My mother searched for me for twenty years. Back home, I pretended to be fragile, shaking even when revving a motorcycle, so as not to scare them. Mom baked me apple pies every day, dressed me in pink bear pajamas with lace trim. Dad spoke softly, even afraid to slam doors. My brother wouldn't let me touch a single wrench, worried I'd hurt myself on the metal. Until today. Twelve years after the so-called “returned” heiress Lyra tried to give my dad’s garage deed to Rattlesnake MC and, with her fiancé Kane, smashed through our front door. She had her men use pre-set adjustable wrenches to break three of my brother's fingers right in front of me. She dragged my mom by her hair across shards of broken glass from the porch. Kane flicked a cigarette onto my dad’s face: “Hick, sign it. Or we’ll torch everything—person and garage alike.” They stomped on the little stool my dad had made for me when I was four—a stool that had lasted twenty years. Something in my mind snapped. I sighed, slammed the garage door shut, and grabbed a thirty-centimeter tire iron from the tool wall. “Dad, Mom, close your eyes.” “What’s about to happen? God doesn’t want to watch, and the sheriff can’t touch it.”

After being brought back to Victoria Harbor City, I spent three months playing the perfect daughter. I bowed my head to call my father “Father,” smiled at my mother, and even fumbled with my fork and knife on purpose. Everyone bought it. Even the imposter who had stolen my identity for twenty-two years—Viola. Tonight was the Recognition Banquet of the West Harbor Alliance. She wore a white dress, arm-in-arm with her fiancé Luca, cutting my birthday cake in my place. Then, in the next instant, she pressed the tip of the knife against my brother’s hand. “Shares, the docks, the underground ledgers.” “I want them, in exchange for her.” Luca swirled his wine, like he was inspecting merchandise. “She’s got a nice face. Send her to the East District—it’s worth five million dollars.” Mother was crying, father’s head was bowed, and the table full of godfathers and capos were all watching the show. Viola smiled as she ran her fingers through my hair. “Be a good girl. Dying for the family is an honor.” I almost laughed out loud. She really thinks the last three months of my etiquette lessons were to become a socialite. I just didn’t feel like spilling blood in front of my real parents. So I pushed the plate aside and pressed the black call button under the table, still smudged with cream. Three seconds later, every gun in the banquet hall turned toward Luca, even the old godfather behind him stood up. I looked at Viola’s pale face and whispered, “Big sister, the price you just named can’t buy me—but it’s enough to buy your grave.”

On the night of the lunar eclipse, the Blood Moon Pack put me on public trial. Three years ago, when Rogues attacked a merchant caravan, Alpha Kieran decided I was the one who cut the safety line and sent his first love, Nadia, plunging off a cliff, leaving her crippled. His brothers even wagered their Northern silver mines on it, betting I’d drop to my knees like a dog and lick the snow off Nadia’s boots. “Three silver mines says she’ll do it. One word of forgiveness from Kieran, and she’d hand over her wolf soul.” Alpha Kieran toyed with the old leather bracelet I’d once given him, his voice colder than the winter wind. “This is the ninety-ninth time you’ve begged me. Complete your final act of atonement tonight, and I’ll be generous enough to make you my Luna.” I lowered my gaze to the countless needle marks covering my arms. Three years of selling my blood to pay for it. The needles, coated with silver dust, left wounds that never healed. What nobody knew was that my little sister, Lila, had died of Silverblood Syndrome the night before. She’d been secretly selling her own blood to help repay the blood debt Kieran demanded from me. I removed the moonstone necklace that marked us as destined mates and threw it into the blizzard. “Kieran, I’m done with you.”

For twelve years, I thought I was the luckiest adopted daughter in all of New York. Until the truth slipped through the crack beneath the study door. "The two Ferraro girls have matured nicely. Their livers and bone marrow are both within optimal compatibility range now. The client can be scheduled." I was still carrying a glass of warm milk for him. The same milk I'd been drinking every day for twelve years. The same faintly sweet "nutritional supplement." And suddenly, I understood. I wasn't a daughter. I was inventory. I took a step back. My shoulder struck the blue porcelain vase at the end of the hallway, sending it crashing to the floor. The voice on the other end of the call fell silent. Then he laughed. Warmly. Patiently. Dangerously. "Sera." His voice drifted through the doorway. "Come in." "I know it's you."

On the drive home.after Alpha Kael had personally pulled me out of the Pack Tribunal.I asked him to file the petition with the Council. To dissolve our Mate Bond. "Leah. There's a limit to how much you're allowed to act out." I looked at this man I had spent ten years calling mine, both hands clamped white-knuckled on the wheel of his black armored SUV, and I felt the strangest urge to laugh. I had already made up my mind. "Kael." I turned in the passenger seat. My voice was level. Steady. Final. "Let's let each other go." The SUV slammed to a stop on the shoulder of Moonshade Boulevard. The air inside the cabin dropped twenty degrees. "Give me a reason." His grip on the wheel had gone bone-pale. His tone was Arctic. "What are you throwing a tantrum about now." I looked at this Alpha.high above me, untouchable, the man I'd loved through ten winters.and somewhere inside, Anya let out a long, exhausted howl that only I could hear. I had stopped finding any of this interesting. I rolled down the window. I pointed at the rearview mirror. At the white SUV that had been trailing us, three car lengths back, since the Tribunal. "I'll wager ten seconds." "Then your fragile little Healer comes running to you in tears."

For eight years I followed Alpha Liam through every battle that built him. I bled in his place, I lied for his name, I let the wolves at the borders sharpen their teeth on me so they would never reach him. My own wolf, Selena, threw herself between him and a wolfsbane attack and slept for three years afterward, her breath so shallow I sometimes mistook it for death. I never thought he would write my name onto a mating contract that wasn't his. "The Sunfang girl Clara refuses to bond with that crippled Alpha at Shadowfang," he said. "You'll go in her place. Stand in for Clara, take Kael's mark, and Sunfang hands me the border trade rights." I looked into his eyes and found nothing there, nothing at all, and still my voice cracked when I spoke. "You want me to mate with the Alpha they whisper about? The one they say is cruel and half-mad?" He flicked an invisible piece of lint from his sleeve. "You've followed me eight years and you still don't have a name. Take Kael's mark and at least you'll get Luna out of it. What's there to complain about?" It felt like a wolf's claw raking across my chest. Eight years,eight years of running myself into the ground,and I had only ever been the road he walked on. I took the contract from his hand and let my mouth curve into something he could mistake for peace. "Fine. I'll give you what you want." What he didn't know was that, in time, Shadowfang would love me. That Kael would make me a Luna everyone envied. And that one day Liam would stand at the gates of my new pack, red-eyed and begging, while I looked down at him as though I had never known his name.

In a field of wolfsbane at midnight, I saved a dying black wolf. For seven full nights, I stayed by his side, using every herb I had spent years hiding away, never knowing who he truly was. After he recovered, he left without a word. A few days later, news spread through every pack in the territory: Alpha Aric Thorne, leader of the powerful Blackpine Pack, had survived a near-fatal attack. The black wolf I saved was him. But the one who stepped forward to claim the credit wasn’t me. It was Seraphina. The Gamma’s daughter. The pack’s Pack Doctor in name only. In front of everyone, she said she was the one who saved the mysterious wolf. No one would ever believe a lowly Omega could have done such a thing. And I was too tired to argue. I packed my bag, ready to leave the place that had never treated me like a person. Until the night the blood moon rose. Alpha Aric’s wolf spirit passed right over Seraphina and charged straight toward me at the very back of the crowd. Silver moonlight fell over us. The Moon Goddess herself declared me his fated Luna. He caught my wrist just as I tried to run, leaned down, and whispered in a voice only I could hear: "You really thought I wouldn’t recognize the hands that saved me?"

I spent five years turning a nobody into the King of New York. Tonight, that King sent men to kill the only person in this world who ever truly cared about me—just to cut off the mysterious “mastermind” he believed was controlling him from the shadows. He never knew that the mastermind… was me. A decrypted video lit up my screen. My husband, Lucian, had his arms wrapped around my best friend, Camille, smiling as he said he was finally free. I held onto Gianni’s old silver lighter so tightly I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. When Lucian came home, he didn’t even glance at me. He just threw out a line— "Sera, an orphan like you—don’t forget your life is something I gave you." He said that without him, I was nothing. What he didn’t know was that my real last name is one that this entire city would kneel before—and still not dare to look directly at. I wiped my tears away and dialed a number I hadn’t dared to touch in five years. "Papa, I was wrong. Send my brothers to bring me home." And on the other end of the line—the entire Castellano family… stood up.

As the Luna of the Crescent Family, I used to believe the Mate Bond between Damon and me was the strongest thing in the world. Five years ago, I took a silver bullet laced with Wolfsbane for him. My wolf, Selene, slept for an entire year. I placed the entire Family my father left behind into his hands. During my recovery, Celeste—the Healer from our allied Marchetti Family—came every week for rehabilitation therapy. Between sessions, she would blush and brag to me about her mysterious lover. She said he was the most powerful wolf in all of Ravenport, and that the first time they met, he had pulled her into his arms in front of everyone. I smiled and told her I understood that feeling. My Mate was eight years younger than me. The day we formed our Mate Bond, the way he looked at me was as if he were looking at the Moon Goddess herself. “Luna, look. This is the man I love.” Celeste held her phone up in front of me. On the screen, the man fastening a silver Mate necklace around another she-wolf’s neck— was Damon. The man who was supposed to be at a Commission meeting right now. The man who had just told me through the Mind-link that he missed me.

After one reckless night with Lucian Ferraro, he wired five hundred thousand dollars into my offshore account the next morning. I was still lying in his arms, tracing the family tattoo beneath his collarbone with my fingertips, when I asked him, "So what are we?" He held a cigar between his teeth and raised one lazy brow. "You sleep with me once and now you want me to make you my Donna?" A few seconds later, the payment notification came through. I accepted the money, smiled, and got up to retrieve my gown from the floor. "Good. Then if there's nothing else, I'll get going. My fiancé's car is waiting downstairs." The heir of the Ferraro family froze on the spot. What he didn't know was that the "accident" that saved his life twenty years ago... Had been arranged by me.

For almost a year, I was entangled with Alpha Dominic. The night before the alliance ceremony, he called me into his office and told me it was over. Tomorrow, he said, he would be marrying Alpha King Caspian's younger sister—a political match that would save his entire pack from ruin. Looking down at me from behind his desk, he told me to be smart about it. Stay out of sight. Don't embarrass him in front of the King's noble sister. Then he shoved a recommendation letter into my hands and told me to leave. Go work as a healer in some remote border pack. The farther away, the better. I folded the letter neatly and slipped it into my pocket. "Okay," I said. Inside my head, my wolf, Nyx, was shaking with fury. But I smiled. Because what he didn't know was that tomorrow, at that ceremony, the King's sister he planned to court so respectfully— was me. And the funniest part? After all this time, he still hadn't figured out that I was his fated mate.

Bianca Romano had been dead for three years. Every year, at the family dinner held on the anniversary of her death, I sat as far away from Matteo as possible---like a trophy nailed to a wall of shame. Tonight, Chloe slapped an ultrasound photo onto the dining table in front of the entire Romano family and announced she was carrying the family's heir. Underboss Sal raised his wineglass and smiled, suggesting that I---the Lawrence woman who paid a blood debt through marriage---should offer a toast and apologize to the unborn child. The whole table was waiting for me to humiliate myself. Matteo sat at the head of the table. His eyes were just as cold as they had been three years ago, the night he threw his wedding ring in my face. He had told me then: "I hate you. And if you ever try to leave me, it'll be over my dead body." Everyone thought I would endure it. Like I had for the last thousand-plus days. Swallow the pain. Keep smiling. Stay quiet. What nobody knew was that ten minutes earlier, my encrypted phone had vibrated. 【We found the dockworker who testified against the Lawrences. He's alive. The money used to buy his testimony came from inside the Romano family.】 I lifted my wineglass and slowly looked around the table. At every single person carrying the Romano name. Then I smiled and drained it in one swallow. The people who murdered Bianca and framed my family were sitting at this very table tonight. And Matteo--- the man who had hated me for three years--- was still sharpening the knife for the real killer.

At my wedding, the Capos of the Five Families lined up to pay their respects. But the hand they kissed was not mine. Without warning, the band changed songs. My husband, Don Falcone of New York, took the hand of my best friend, Aiden, in front of every godfather in the room. They danced the first dance. The dance I had waited seven years for. Aiden stepped back with red-rimmed eyes. “Massimo, no. This is Elliott’s wedding!” My husband wrapped an arm around his waist, his voice as calm as a verdict. “Luca took three bullets for me. You swore you would never set foot at another wedding for the rest of your life.” “This dance is me repaying a dead man’s debt to you.” The entire room rose to its feet, champagne glasses lifted toward the center of the dance floor. No one looked at me. No one remembered that the two hundred gold-embossed invitations had been written by my ruined right hand over seven sleepless nights. And no one knew that two years ago, the hand that stitched Don Falcone back together after those three bullets— was this one. I took off my wedding ring, dropped it into a champagne glass, and walked out. The moment the call connected, I heard my own voice, cold enough to chill the air. “Mr. Whitmore, take out the marriage contract that’s been sitting in the notarized vault for seven years.” “Tell the committee it’s time to honor the guarantee signed by those three old gentlemen.” “I want Don Falcone walking away with nothing.”

Three years ago, Alpha Austinn’s true love, Healer Tessa, left for the North to study advanced healing arts. Furious, he came to me—his fated mate—and made me his Luna.Now that Healer Tessa has returned, he informed me that he intends to break our mate bond. I had no choice but to agree. But just as I was preparing to leave the Alpha House, I learned that he had been poisoned by wolfsbane and had fallen into a coma. When he finally woke up, he had forgotten everything. I rushed into the healing lodge and threw my arms around him, sobbing. “My mate, have you forgotten everything... including the fact that you love me?” “You’ve lost your memory. Does that mean the southern estate you promised to give me is still mine?” “And what about the allowance you promised to double next month...?” Alpha Austinn rubbed his forehead in pain. “So what you’re saying is... I’m your mate, and... we’re deeply in love?”

I had concealed my identity, and used every trick I knew, to become Alpha Dominic's Luna,all because he was my fated mate. Everyone said I was after his power. They placed bets that the wolf inside him would tear me apart, that I would not survive five years. But Dominic, on the day of his Alpha investiture, in front of every allied pack present, gambled tens of billions of his own assets without flinching. "Then I will make the bet myself." "I bet on me,and on my Luna. Until death claims us both." Now I sat staring at that old news clipping, while across from me a pristine, blue-blooded she-wolf gazed at me with naked pity. "Dominic needs a vessel that can carry strong pups,not someone of your inferior blood." "Five years. Whatever novelty he found in you ran out long ago." She unbuttoned her coat, displaying her swollen belly. Beneath her skin throbbed the unmistakable life-pulse of a strong young wolf. "I can carry the strongest Alpha line for this Pack. You? What can you give him?" "Me?" I looked at the naked ambition stamped across her face,and I smiled, brilliantly. Because in that very instant, my wolf had stirred awake. "I will step aside, of course. After all,the Lycan King's daughter has no use for the Luna's seat in some second-rate pack."

The campfire eve before the Spring Hunt,and the whole pack was deep in the number-pairing game. I'd traded tags with the wolf beside me, my whole night fixed on one thing: becoming the prey of Number Two. Alpha Ethan. For six months we'd been hiding like rats in the walls. Six months. I was sick of it. I wanted a name on me. He came over and tore the still-warm tag from my palm. Without a flicker of mercy, he tossed it back into its rightful owner's lap. "You think a cheap trick like this earns you the right to be my woman?" He bent down and brushed a kiss against another girl's ear. A gentleman's kiss,soft, almost reverent. To her, an offering. To me, an execution. The girl flushed pink and didn't dare lift her head, but he didn't let her go. He pulled her closer instead, his arm wound tight around her waist. "Alpha Ethan, that one looked like first love. Not going to come clean?" "And the lonely one over there,another old flame of yours, maybe?" Alpha Ethan turned his head. The look he gave me was the kind of look one reserves for trash someone forgot to take to the curb. I dug my nails into my palm. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course I'm single." Only then did he laugh,long, loud,raising his glass like a man toasting a victory. His victory. Over me. Inside me, my wolf Anly howled in silent agony. If he wants single, then fine. Tomorrow we go to the rival pack. Tomorrow we bind ourselves to that brutal Alpha.

To make it to my Pack's Blood Moon ceremony, I'd gone three nights without sleep just to claw my way to two first-class tickets aboard the royal cruise. Aria, my wolf, had been tumbling through my mind in giddy little circles for days, dreaming of a romantic full-moon night with Alpha Drake. And then, just as I was about to head out, Drake's text came through, ice-cold: My first love is upset. I gave her your ticket. Catch a cargo ferry back on your own. I stared at the refund confirmation on the screen. Fury made my fingers tremble, and somewhere deep in my consciousness Aria let out a wounded snarl. He thought I was nothing but a no-name orphan,someone whose dignity he could grind under his heel without consequence. I drew in a long breath and quieted Aria's rage. Then I dialed the number I knew best. "Father,can the royal helicopter land directly at my dorm building?" Two seconds of silence on the other end. Then a low, indulgent voice: "Of course, my little princess. The Royal Guard will be there in ten minutes."

During the sacred Full Moon Ritual livestream, my husband,the pack's golden boy, our most coveted Beta Warrior,was busy putting on a Tandem Hunt with my stepsister for the camera. While his lips deliberately grazed her throat, while he played every viewer in the network for cheap heat, I'd already finished filing my petition with the Council to dissolve our Mate Bond. My face like ice, I climbed the altar steps and dropped the gold scroll,the formal severance,at Ryan's feet. He glanced down at it, careless. Then his pupils blew wide and trembled. But he caught himself fast. The smug, lordly mask slid right back into place, and he flicked the scroll into the ceremonial fire bowl with a cold little laugh. "Freya. I thought you'd finally accepted reality. I had no idea you'd stoop to staging a stunt like this on a live broadcast just to claw back my attention." His eyes raked over me, contemptuous. "How much did the prop cost? Did your allowance even cover it?" Beside him, my stepsister,the woman who wanted my title, who wanted to be Luna,let out a small, breathy gasp on cue. "Brother-in-law, grab my tail,that's my sensitive spot… come on, the viewers are waiting!" Ryan turned away from me without missing a beat, angled the camera for the close-up, and seized the half-shifted wolf tail trailing from the small of her back. The two of them were drunk on it. Drunk on the forbidden thrill, on the views, on the comments scrolling past like falling snow. They were certain the whole network was cheering them on. What they didn't know: The Alpha Council was about to come down on them like a hammer. Banned. Erased. Network-wide. And in three days, I'd be Luna of the most powerful Rogue pack on this side of the continent.

For five years, I stood at Alpha Kael's side as his mate,and never once bore his mark. Because his heart belonged to another. To Mira,the woman the entire wolf world had crowned its uncontested beauty. For five years, I watched Alpha Kael abandon me for her, again and again. On the night of the Blood Moon. In the smoking wreckage of the battlefield. At my grandfather's funeral. I bore the agony of my wolf-soul. I bore the laughter of those who watched and pitied. Until the day I pressed my fingerprint to the dissolution agreement and vanished from Alpha Kael's world. He lost his mind. Alpha Kael tore through every inch of pack territory, his eyes red-rimmed and wild, demanding of me, "Isla,what gives you the right not to want me anymore?" What Alpha Kael will never know is this. On the back of that contract, beside the date he signed his name, there is also a single line written in my own seventeen-year-old hand. It was what my wolf, Anly, recognized as fate the day I awakened. And now I will let Alpha Kael watch as the future he himself set ablaze collapses, slowly, in the firelight.

My wolf is a rare white wolf,her one flaw is that she never shuts up. And Alpha Caelum, scorched by wolfsbane, lost both his ability to shift and his ability to speak. The Moon Goddess bound us together. I became his Angel in name only. For an entire year, I talked to him every single day, believing my warmth could heal what was broken in him. Until the day I went to deliver his fresh leathers. I had just stepped up to his cabin when I heard him flirting with Lyra, the Head Warrior, inside: “How much longer are you going to play this mute game? Why hasn’t she filed to break the bond yet?” Caelum chuckled. “She talks a lot, but she’s a coward. As long as I keep playing mute, she’ll crack under the silence and walk away on her own.” The cold shot up through my feet and crowned at the top of my head. His silence had never been an injury. It was a weapon. A weapon to drive me out. I fisted my hands in the hem of my dress, walked straight to the Council, and filed for the dissolution of our mate bond. I didn’t say a word. But when the Elder slammed my dissolution petition down in front of him, the man who had not looked at me in a year smashed his fist through the table, his eyes red, and roared.

As the future Luna of Moonlight Pack, I'd always believed Alpha Ryan and I were the perfect pair the Moon Goddess herself had blessed. Until the woman reeking of cheap perfume was wheeled into my emergency tent. Her wounds weren't fatal. But she was screaming like she was being skinned alive, swearing she'd die if Alpha Ryan wasn't there to comfort her. I tried to inject her with a sedative. She slapped my hand away. "Don't touch me! Only Alpha Ryan gets to touch me!" She stroked her perfectly flat stomach with this smug, proprietary smile, her eyes dragging over me with pure contempt. "You know what? Alpha Ryan told me he hates self-righteous noble wolves like you. The whole stuck-up bloodline thing makes him sick." "He said the so-called Mate Bond is just a chain around his neck. I'm his Chosen Mate. I'm his real love." "For me, he'd defy the Moon Goddess herself." The air left my lungs. Words spilled out before I could stop them. "You've got the wrong man. Alpha Ryan is hosting the Full Moon Ceremony tonight. There's no way." My phone buzzed against my hip, cutting me off. A text from Alpha Ryan: Sorry, babe. Something came up at the Moon Temple. I can't get away tonight. I'll make it up to you. And in that exact moment, right in front of me, that woman tapped her screen and connected a video call. To Alpha Ryan. On the screen, my fiancé was looking at her with the softest, most adoring expression I'd ever seen on his face. Calling her baby.

The day Alpha King Alexander announced his marriage to his noble Beta childhood sweetheart, I drew my last breath in the dank dungeon beneath the Pack House. The Pack Doctor shook his head and pronounced me gone,even my wolf had stopped breathing. Everyone believed I had died of a broken heart. Only I knew the truth: it was the Witch's feigned-death elixir, potent enough to fool the keenest nose, capable of stilling the heart entirely and severing the Mate Bond at its root. While King Alexander shed his crocodile tears at my grave, I was already passing for human, perched on a stool at a sleepy beach bar in some forgotten border town, savoring sunshine and the chiseled abs of a handsome human surfer. This was supposed to be my perfect retirement,far, far from that suffocating pack. Until a hurricane tore through the cemetery and overturned my coffin. King Alexander charged into the rain like a man unhinged, desperate to gather what was left of my bones,only to find a pile of moldering, rotten potatoes inside the splintered casket. In that instant, fury reignited our Mate Bond. His howl shook the entire territory. Now every Warrior across the globe has received his command: tear up the earth itself, but bring back the cursed mate who shamed an Alpha King with a sack of potatoes.

Three years ago, I was forced to sign the papers dissolving our mate bond. Three years later, I walked back into Crescent Pack wearing the title of pack doctor. And the Alpha who once looked down on me from his throne , Ethan was lying unconscious on my examination table. Silver dust poisoning. His wolf teetering on the edge of permanent sleep. Ironic, isn't it? The reason he rejected me three years ago was that an Omega wasn't worthy of standing beside a future Alpha. And now, the only person who could save him was me. "Luna asked me to tell you," Beta Marcus said, his voice flat and cold. "If you let him die, the entire pack will never forgive you." I picked up my scalpel and looked at Alpha Ethan's ashen face. His wolf was fighting. Weakly. Like a candle flame about to go out. I leaned down, close to his ear. "Tell the Luna," I said quietly, "that three years ago, he drove me out of this pack with his own hands. I wonder if he ever imagined it would come to this." I straightened up, and my voice didn't waver. "Alpha Ethan. Do you remember what you said to me the night you rejected me?" "You said an Omega's blood was dirty."

They say I’m nothing but a gold-digger in the wolf realm. Six years ago, for eighty million, I “abandoned” my dying mate, Evan. Six years later, he rose to power as Alpha—then used the same eighty million to force me into marriage. The whole pack praises him for his mercy, claiming he repaid betrayal with forgiveness. But on the night of our bond ceremony, he kissed another woman in a crowded bar. He waited for me to break. Instead, I calmly handed him a hangover pill and whispered, “Drink less. Take care of yourself.” His composure snapped. His eyes burned crimson as he grabbed me and roared, “Do you even have a heart? Don’t you feel jealous?!” I lowered my head in silence, nails digging into my palm as I swallowed back the taste of blood rising in my throat. Let them call me a gold-digger. As long as no one ever discovers what that eighty million truly bought him…

For seven long years, my Alpha kept me trapped in a twisted game called The Taming Show. A game meant for the world to watch, a game meant to humiliate me. It wasn’t just a show. It was a bet—between him and his childhood sweetheart—on whether I, a stubborn, defiant Omega, could ever fall for him. The rules were cruelly simple. The night of the Blood Moon, when the marking ceremony was to be completed, he would claim victory. And just like that, in front of the world, he would turn to her, pledge his loyalty, and leave me behind like a disposable pawn. Finding out the truth shattered me. Every memory, every moment of supposed tenderness, had been a lie. I wasn’t loved. I wasn’t cherished. I was entertainment. A plaything for their amusement. And yet, here I was, standing on the edge of this fabricated kingdom, the wind whipping against my skin, facing him. Liam Shaw—Alpha, deceiver, the man who had stolen seven years of my life—was watching me. His eyes, wild and feral, locked onto mine. The cameras hidden in the shadows counted my heartbeat, my every move. I bared my fangs and let a bitter smile curl across my lips. Rage, sorrow, and triumph all mingled in that one moment. “I’m sorry, Liam,” I said, my voice steady despite the storm inside me. “The show… is over.”