Prologue

::::::::::The Marked One::::::::::

Wayne Rivers was barely three years old when he was found by the ironclaw pack. He was barefoot, wandering through the charred remains of forbidden land near the red riverbank. The land that the whole clan had long erased from their maps.

No bird had sang as the ground burned cold, and ash had still clung to the trees while the cursed earth breathed.

“He’s... different,” one of the elders murmured, looking intently at Wayne, who neither spoke or cried.

He had just studied each of the men's faces with a serious expression, his brows wrinkling with faint lines, disappearing as quickly as they had appeared. Anyone could say that was the first and last day Wayne would be as brave.

A faint glow pulsed on his lower abdomen beneath his tattered pants. A mark that looked too ancient and wrong for a young boy like him.

“He’ll be studied,” the wizard king said as he crouched to his level. “He cannot be left alone.”

And Wayne was caged, not out of pity but out of caution. Because the mark on him was the first time something passed their knowledge, and wolves fear what they cannot understand.

Wayne never knew his parents, except for the nightmares and the glowing mark. He would often see giant wolves in his dreams, and cities he had never seen stretched out before him. And he'd always felt something sleeping inside him, watching and waiting.

He trained with the other kids, but struggled under the sun because he was too weak for combat. Only Ren, the pack’s Alpha, treated him differently.

“You’ll catch up,” Ren had said, his blazing storm eyes always softening when he addressed him. “You just need time, Wayne.”

Wayne smiled at him, believing him. And Ren would always smile back, not because he was The Marked One, but because he was Wayne.

Wayne strongly believed that Ren was the only reason he hadn't been cast out of the pack–yet. He would always allow Wayn to follow him around the training fields, letting him talk even when he has nothing to say. They were best friends and something more, or at least Wayne had thought they were.

Because for all the mystery and ancient stories, there was still one truth that would haunt everyone.

Wayne's true self.

—--

The moon had hung heavy that night, bearing the weight of regret.

Darius Storm stood on the ridge above the Bloodfang territory inhaling the scent of ash and blood that lingered in the wind. He hadn't arrived on time again. Seventeen years and Ren still hadn't forgiven him.

She had died protecting Ren, his mate that was not by fate. And Darius had married her to ascend the Alpha seat. It was respectful, dutiful and void of soul-binding connection, and she never blamed him. Not even the day she lost her life, but Ren had blamed it all on him.

Darius's jaw clenched as the memory fought its way forward. Ren had only been seventeen, and had found the bloodied body of his mother by the western border. The rival pack, or rogues. Darius couldn't even recall. He had been miles away attending a meeting of negotiation that couldn't wait.

“You weren't there,” Ren had whispered with tears swimming down his face. “Mom waited for you!”

Darius hadn't known what to say, and he had never felt so confused in his entire life. Not knowing how to grieve the death of the woman he cared for but never truly loved troubled him, but not knowing how to comfort his son haunted him.

And because of that, Ren had to leave the bloodfang at eighteen, carving his own pack into the wilds without saying goodbye, and Darius got the message as he hadn't tried to stop him.

“Darius?” a soft familiar voice called out his name.

He looked down to find a pair of green eyes staring back at him.

“What are you doing all the way out here, Astra?” Darius asked.

“I should ask you the same,” Astra replied, jogging her way up to him.

He exhaled, his breath turning into fog that curled in the night air “You know it's dangerous to be out here alone. What about the guards?”

“I didn't want anyone to know I was gone," Astra said, waving her hand dismissively. “I woke up and didn't find you on your side of the bed.”

Darius averted his gaze. "I just...needed air.”

“Trouble sleeping again?” Astra asked, her lips stretching with a faint practiced smile that didn't reach her eyes. The kind that had become accustomed to Darius's insomnia.

She took his hand and tugged at it gently. “Come back to bed.”

Darius hesitated after a beat, before following Astra slowly behind like a child aching for his mother, and his mind needed the distraction anyway.

Yes. He could live with his son's hatred, because he had been doing so for years. But what he hadn't expected was Wayne.

And now? Fate had twisted the knife, and there would be no turning back.

Darius's fated mate was the one everybody looked down on, and bullied. The one his son will mock and reject.

And that.

That was going to ruin everything for everyone.