VALERIE.
Pain.
Not the sharp, cruel kind I once knew from the lashes in the Lycan barracks or the brutal rejection by my supposed mates. This pain was deeper. Raw. Spiritual. I stood in the center of the spirit circle, runes burning around me as flames licked up from the earth and wind twisted into a cyclone above.
Madam Rose’s voice echoed through the chamber. “She must walk through fire, shadow, and moonlight. Only then shall the queen be born.” I trembled, drenched in sweat, every nerve singing with wild, ancient energy. My wolf growled from inside, pacing restlessly—no longer asleep, no longer broken.
She was waking.
The spiritual trial began at dawn, deep in the undercatacombs of Dorian’s palace. Rose said the space used to belong to the ancient priestesses of the three realms,
