Prologue

Jennifer's POV

The rain had no mercy. It lashed through the rusted iron bars of my subterranean cell, pooling around my knees in filthy, freezing slush.

I huddled on the cold stone, shivering violently as the heavy iron collar cut deeper into the raw, infected skin of my neck. My wrists were swollen and bleeding from the silver chains binding me to the wall, and my plump, bruised frame trembled under the threadbare rags that barely covered my skin. For six months, I had been kept in this dark pit, starved, beaten, and left to rot in my own blood.

A heavy latch clicked open, the iron door groaning on its hinges. Torchlight flickered against the damp, moldy stone, casting long, menacing shadows.

Alpha Brandon stepped into the cell, his polished leather boots stepping cleanly over the filthy straw. Beside him walked Clara, her delicate fingers tucked tightly around his arm, draped in a lush fox-fur coat that Brandon had bought her using my family's stolen inheritance.

"Look at this miserable, disgusting pig," Clara cooed, her voice dripping with venomous glee as she raised a silk handkerchief to her nose. "She smells like trash, Brandon. How did you ever sleep next to something so flabby and repulsive?"

Brandon’s face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated disgust. He covered his nose with his glove, waving his hand in the air as if my very breath were toxic.

"She was a mistake," Brandon sneered, his voice cold and devoid of a single drop of humanity. "Five years I tolerated her useless presence because MoonGoddess made her my mate. Five years I had to pretend I didn't cringe every time her heavy body touched mine. Look at her... she smells like rotting garbage."

"Brandon... please," I choked out, my voice breaking, my throat raw from days of screaming. "I gave you... everything. I managed your pack... I loved you..."

Before the word loved could leave my lips, Brandon’s booted foot whipped forward, slamming viciously into my jaw.

CRACK!

Agony exploded behind my eyes as my head snapped back, crashing hard against the stone wall. Blood erupted from my mouth, spraying across the wet straw. I collapsed onto my side, clutching my bleeding face and sobbing in agony.

"Keep my name out of your filthy mouth, beast," Brandon snarled, stepping up to my trembling body. He stared down at me with absolute contempt. "You know, I actually considered tossing you into the guard barracks before your death. Letting my warriors have their fun with you. But do you know what they told me, Jennifer? Every single one of my men refused. They were too disgusted by your fat, repulsive body to even lay a finger on you."

Clara burst into a loud, shrill fit of laughter, the sound echoing off the dungeon walls like a whip cracking.

She stepped closer, her sharp stilettos clicking on the stone. With a cruel, wicked smirk, Clara raised her heavy leather boot and kicked me hard in the stomach. I gasped, curling into a tight, breathless ball, only for Clara to drive the sharp point of her high heel directly onto the side of my face, pinning my cheek flat against the filthy, wet floor.

"Look at you, Luna Jennifer," Clara hissed, grinding her heel down into my flesh until my skin tore and my bone throbbed with unbearable pain as I screamed in pain. "Lying in the dirt where you belong."

Clara leaned down, pulled a thick wad of saliva into her mouth, and spat directly into my bleeding face.

I cried out, tears of blood and shame scalding my face as Clara and Brandon laughed in unison, their merciless cruelty suffocating the last remaining embers of my broken spirit.

"Prepare the gallows, commander," Brandon ordered coldly, wiping his boot on my rags as if he had stepped in filth. "Hang her at sunrise and throw her worthless carcass into the ocean."

I was oddly happy after hearing that. Atleast I'll be in peace after my death.

The morning sky was blood-red.

They dragged me in heavy silver chains to the edge of the jagged ocean cliffs where the wooden gallows stood. Thousands of pack members, people I had fed, healed, and protected for years stood along the rocks, throwing rotten fruit and sharp stones at my face.

"Die, fat beast!" a voice screamed from the crowd. "Useless Luna!" another shouted, laughing as a jagged stone struck my temple, sending blood pouring into my vision.

They dragged my broken body up the wooden steps. The executioner roughly slipped the thick, coarse hemp rope over my neck, tightening the knot beneath my jaw.

I looked up toward the high royal balcony overlooking the sea. Brandon sat on a carved velvet throne, holding a glass of wine, laughing as Clara fed him grapes. He didn't look down at me once. He didn't care that the female who had dedicated her youth to him was about to be strung up like vermin.

Moon Goddess... I wept silently, the rough rope burning my skin as tears washed the blood from my cheek. Why? What did I do to deserve this? I only loved them... I only gave them everything...

"Any last words, disgraced wolf?" the masked executioner growled, holding his hand on the wooden trapdoor lever.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart shattering into a thousand irrecoverable pieces. If there is any justice in this cruel world... let me come back. Let me watch them bleed. Let me burn them all to ash.

"None," I whispered.

The lever pulled. The trapdoor snapped open beneath my feet.

SNAP!

A blinding, crushing agony exploded through my spine as I plummeted into thin air. The rope snapped taut, crushing my throat, cutting off every breath of air as my body kicked frantically over the abyss. My vision filled with dark crimson sparks, my throat burning as the life drained from my flesh.

With a final, cruel slash of a blade, the executioner cut the rope above my head. My limp, dying body fell hundreds of feet down into the dark, churning waves of the freezing ocean below.

In the depths of the icy sea...

Saltwater swallowed my lungs as my body sank deeper into the pitch-black abyss. My soul was hollowed out, floating into the endless void of death.

Suddenly, the freezing ocean water turned to deep, shimmering blood.

A brilliant red light cut through the dark abyss. Down in the deepest trench, a tall, impossibly beautiful figure materialized out of the shadows, swimming toward me with silent, predatory grace. Draped in ancient black velvet that billowed like smoke around him, he possessed hair as dark as midnight, skin as pale as marble, and glowing eyes that burned through the dark water.

He reached out with long, pale fingers, cupping my drowning face and pulling my limp, heavy body into his arms.

"Such a tragic, exquisite creature," a silky, hypnotic voice echoed directly inside my dying mind. "They shattered a priceless gem because they were too blind to see its worth. But I... I do not let sweet, vengeful souls drown."

His lips pulled back, revealing two long, curved, razor-sharp fangs that glinted like ivory beneath the crimson glow.

"I grant you a second chance," he purred, his voice dropping to an icy, possessive whisper against my lips. "Take my blood. Rise from the depths. And make them bleed for every tear you shed."

He bent down, sinking his fangs deep into my throat right where the rope had crushed my flesh.

An agonizing, magnificent surge of pure ice and liquid fire roared into my dead veins. My heart, dead and silent, gave a violent, thunderous THUMP.

"Awaken, my Hybrid Queen," the stranger murmured, his shadowy form dissolving into crimson foam. "I will come to claim what is mine when the blood moon rises."

GASSSSSSSSSSSPT!

My eyes flew open.

I bolted upright, clutching my chest as air violently rushed back into my lungs. Cold sweat drenched my skin, my heart hammering like a trapped bird against my ribs.

The heavy smell of cheap lavender perfume and rich wine filled my nose.

I wasn't in the ocean. I wasn't at the gallows.

I was sitting in front of a grand, gilded vanity mirror in the master dressing room of the Silver Moon Packhouse. I was wearing a sweeping emerald velvet gown, the exact dress I had worn five years ago on the night of Brandon’s rejection banquet.

Trembling, I raised my hands to my neck.

The skin was soft, pale, and whole. No rope burn. No heel mark on my face. No broken jaw.

I was reborn.

I leaned closer to the mirror, my breathing ragged as I pulled my lower lip down with shaking fingers. Beneath my canine teeth, two sharp, lethal white fangs gleamed under the candlelight before slowly retracting into my gums.

Deep within my belly, alongside the quiet, trembling whimpers of my reborn wolf, a dark, icy, carnivorous hunger roared to life.

A craving not for food... but for fresh, hot blood.