Chapter 1
The dungeon at the edge of Moonstone Pack territory was perpetually damp and starless, the air thick with the stench of moldering hay and the acrid smoke of silver chains eating into flesh.
Today was the day Alpha King Alexander would hold his Bonding Ceremony with his so-called true love,Isabella, the noble Beta heiress.
I, Chris, the woman still technically bound to him as his Mate,the woman this pack had once acknowledged as Luna,lay on a battered cot beneath a single weeping ceiling-bulb, listening to the distant boom of ceremonial cannons.
Each blast was meant to celebrate the rise of the new Luna. Each one landed on my wolf's heart like the heel of a boot.
Lily, my Omega handmaiden, knelt at my bedside, her eyes raw and red-rimmed, holding out a bowl of oatmeal that had long since gone cold.
"Luna, please. Just a little," she choked out. "The Pack Doctor said your body is so weak now. If you don't eat, your wolf,your wolf might."
I lifted a feeble hand to silence her.
Every guard in this place was Isabella's. The Gamma Guard in his polished uniform leaned against the iron bars, twirling his baton like a bored bouncer, and let out a screech of laughter.
"Don't call her Luna anymore, Lily," the Gamma sneered. "Alpha King Alexander has stripped her of the title. The Luna of Moonstone Pack is now the noble Lady Isabella."
Lily lifted her head, fierce as a cub guarding its den. "Lady Chris took those wounds saving the Alpha! She is innocent!"
The Gamma spat on the stone floor in disgust. "Innocent? The whole pack knows she's rotted with jealousy. She tried to murder Lady Isabella with Wolfsbane. If our lady weren't so merciful, this little b***h would have been put down weeks ago."
I closed my eyes.
Inside me, the proud white wolf I had once been was curled tight at the bottom of my soul, her breath barely a flicker.
They all believed I was dying,eaten alive by jealousy, flayed apart by my own grief. And to be fair, when the Mate you have loved beyond reason locks you in a dungeon and prepares to bond with another woman, that kind of psychic flaying will kill almost any wolf.
What they didn't know was that I wasn't waiting to die.
I was waiting to be reborn.
I came from a hidden Rogue tribe, and my Mentor had been a powerful Witch who taught me a peculiar art,a secret of breath suppression older than any Pack. More importantly, the night before, I had swallowed a vial of an exceedingly rare, high-grade feigned-death elixir.
It would not merely stop my heart for seventy-two hours. It would sever, completely and cleanly, that excruciating thread of the Mate Bond that had been killing me by inches for weeks.
Lily was still arguing with the guard, defending what scrap of dignity I had left in this world.
I reached out a withered hand and tugged gently at the hem of her dress.
"Save your strength, Lily," I rasped. My voice felt like sandpaper drawn over bone. "If King Alexander chooses not to believe me, no explanation in the world will save me."
Outside, the cheers were swelling. That would be the moment Alpha King Alexander kissed his bride before the entire pack.
And in that very moment, the elixir took hold.
My fingertips went cold first. The chill spread quickly through my limbs and at last froze itself around my heart.
My breath stopped. The wounded wolf in the depths of my soul slipped into absolute silence.
The heart monitor at my bedside let out one long, piercing tone.
The Gamma Guard's face changed. He rushed in and held the back of his hand to my nose.
"Goddammit, she's actually gone," he muttered, recoiling like he'd touched something filthy. "Bad luck,dying on a wedding day. Bad luck for everybody."
Lily let out a wail that could have split the sky. "Luna! Lady Chris!"
In the chaos of her sobbing, my consciousness slipped down into a black, dreamless quiet.
Goodbye, King Alexander.
Consider this my wedding gift to you,a corpse, and a regret you will never be able to undo.
