CLAIMED BY THE WILD.

“I, Alpha Cassian Vane, reject Lyra Vance as my mate!!” Cassian’s voice thundered through the stadium speakers, cold and merciless, broadcasting my destruction live to five million viewers across the East Coast. I was still on my hands and knees in the sharp gravel of the finish line. Blood poured from my palms where Calla Thorne had viciously spiked my ankle on the final turn, shattering my bone so she could steal first place. Right above my head, a camera drone hovered like a vulture, zooming in on my tear-streaked, dirt-smeared face. They wanted a close-up of the Vane Pack’s wolf-less trash breaking in high definition. “A glorious future requires a ruthless leader,” Cassian announced from the golden podium. He didn’t even spare me a glance as Calla strutted into the winner’s circle, still catching her breath, and draped herself against his chest. “The Vane Pack will not be dragged down by a defective human. Therefore, I sever our bond—and I claim Calla Thorne as my chosen Luna!” Before the crowd’s gasp could even fade, Cassian tilted Calla’s neck and sank his Alpha fangs straight into her skin, marking her on live television. CRACK. An invisible iron spike drove straight through my heart as my mate bond violently shattered, twisted by the ultimate betrayal of him marking another woman while our link was still warm. I screamed, vomiting a mouthful of bright red blood onto the track as liquid fire tore through my veins. My spine bowed until my forehead hit the dirt. In the VIP stands, the rival Alphas laughed. My own packmates stood up and cheered. Blinded by agony and pure, suffocating hatred, I dragged myself upright on my broken ankle. “You bastard!” I choked out, blood staining my teeth as the field microphones caught every ragged breath. “Last year under the blood moon, you got on your knees and begged me to hide our bond! You swore you loved me! You made me take the fall for Calla’s crimes so she wouldn't be disqualified from these games!” A lethal flash of panic crossed Cassian’s eyes—terror that the live feeds were catching the truth—before his expression hardened into sheer murder. “She’s delusional from the rejection,” Cassian lied smoothly into the mic, though his jaw was trembling from the backlash of our severed link. “And a liar has no place within our walls. Enforcers! Strip her of the Vance family crest and throw her into the Dead Zone. Let the scent of her blood feed the rogues!” “No!” I lunged back as two massive guards seized my arms, tearing my grandmother’s silver crest from my jacket so violently the fabric ripped. I whipped my head toward the front row, locking eyes with my best friend, Gia—the only other person who knew Cassian’s secret. “Gia, tell them! Tell them I was framed!” Gia clutched the diamond necklace Calla had clearly bought her, looked right at my bleeding mouth, and smiled coldly. “Goodbye, Lyra.” They didn't even let me walk. The enforcers dragged me by my hair through the service tunnel and straight out to the towering, silver-spiked boundary wall. The heavy iron gates screeched open, revealing the Dead Zone—a pitch-black, cursed forest crawling with rabid rogues. “Have fun dying, human,” the lead guard sneered, kicking me squarely in the center of my back. I flew forward, crashing face-first into the freezing mud as the massive steel gates slammed shut behind me. From the top of the wall, stadium floodlights snapped on, aimed directly into the forest so the live broadcast drones could film my slaughter for the pack’s entertainment. Suddenly, the night air turned dead silent. I wiped the blood from my eyes and looked up. The stars had vanished. Hanging above the jagged trees was an eclipse that defied nature—a massive moon bleeding thick, ink-black darkness straight down from the heavens. And inside my chest, the hollow pit where Cassian’s bond had died didn't fade. It detonated. A volcanic, ancient heat erupted from my very marrow, surging through my veins like liquid night. The human body Cassian had despised was never a defect—it was a magical seal. A cage built to contain something too catastrophic to exist, and Cassian’s foolish rejection had just shattered the lock. With a sharp, painless snap, my broken ankle healed instantly. Dark, glowing obsidian veins spread beneath my skin as black smoke from the cursed moon poured down, wrapping around my body like a royal mantle. Before I could take a breath, the bushes twenty feet ahead of me exploded. A massive, rotting rogue wolf burst from the treeline, jaws dripping with venomous saliva, lunging straight for my throat while the camera drones zoomed in for the kill. I didn't scream. I didn't even flinch. Because a fraction of a second before the rogue’s fangs could touch me, the darkness itself moved. A colossal, terrifying blur of midnight fur slammed down from the canopy above, intercepting the rogue in mid-air. With one brutal swipe of claws the size of daggers, the newcomer tore the rogue cleanly in half, painting the snow in crimson. On top of the boundary wall, the Vane Pack’s perimeter alarms suddenly shrieked in panic. Through the dead ash of our severed bond, I felt Cassian’s soul violently shudder inside the stadium—a sudden, suffocating wave of Alpha terror as he looked at the monitor and realized what had just stepped out of the dark. The giant beast slowly turned toward me, shifting effortlessly out of its monstrous form into the towering silhouette of a man built of pure muscle and lethal grace. Two glowing eyes snapped open in the shadow of the black moon—not the common gold of an Alpha, but a blinding, royal midnight violet. The forgotten color of the Lycan Kings. He stepped over the dead rogue, dropped to one knee in the mud before me, and pressed his warm, blood-stained knuckles against my cheek as his deep, velvet voice echoed not just in my mind, but loud enough to shatter the lenses of every drone hovering above us: “Eighteen years I’ve waited for that pathetic little puppy to break your seal, my Queen. Say the word, and I will paint his stadium with his own blood tonight.”