Chapter 1: the night I died
I died watching my husband mark another woman.
My blood soaked the floor of our park house. My chest burned where alpha kael had ripped my heart out - not literally. Worse.
He rejected me.
“You’re weak, Aria. You’re wolf less. My Lina cannot be wolf less,” he said, his arms around my sister, Selene.
Selene smiled over his shoulder. “You should have died at birth, sister.”
My sister. My mate. My pack.
I had given them everything. And they were letting me die.
As darkness swallowed me, a voice - ancient and warm - whispered in my head.
Child of the moon, do you want revenge?
Yes.
Then I will give you what they stole. Time.
A white light exploded.
I gasped.
Air filled my lungs.
I was not on the cold floor. I was in a bed. Warm. Soft. My bedroom- from five years ago.
My hands- small. Unscarred. No rejection mark.
On the wall, the calendar: my eighteenth birthday. The day of my mate ceremony. The day kael rejected me.
The door burst open.
And there he was. Alpha kael, 20 years old, handsome as a god, eyes cold.
He looked at me and said the words that ruined my first life:
“Aria thorn, I, alpha kael of the blood moon park, reject you as -“
“Stop.”
This time, I spoke first.
I stood up. My voice didn’t shake.
“I, Aria thorn, reject YOU, alpha kael, as my mate.”
The entire pack hall was silent.
Karl’s eyes went black with rage.
“What did you say?”
“You’re deaf and stupid? I said I REJECT YOU,” I smiled, even though my heart was pounding. “You don’t want a wolf less luna? Good. Because I don’t want a blind alpha.
Before he could move, a low, terrifying growl shook the windows.
And that growl didn’t belong to kael.
The doors of the pack house shattered.
A man walked in. Tall. Cloaked in black. Eyes like molten gold. The air turned to fire and ice at once.
Everyone one fell on their knees- even kael.
Because there is only one man whose growl makes an alpha kneel.
The Lycan king.
And he was looking straight at me.
“Aria thorn,” he said, his voice like thunder. “Finally. I’ve found you. My mate.”