CHAPTER 1

The sharp sting on her neck was the first thing Aria felt when she opened her eyes.

It pulsed. Hot. Like someone had branded her with fire.

She sat upright with a gasp, her breath fogging in the cold air. Around her stood towering trees like sentinels cloaked in shadow. Pine needles littered the ground, dew glistened on the leaves, and the bright moon filtered softly through the tree tops. Her fingers scrambled against the damp earth, disoriented, heart slamming hard in her chest.

This wasn’t her pack’s territory.

This wasn’t home.

She clutched her neck and she felt the mark…fresh, inflamed and felt the truth settle over her like a boulder on her chest.

Kael. The rogue.

It hadn’t been a dream. The moon ceremony. The explosion of growls and chaos. Rhys…the golden boy of the pack…reaching out for her…and Kael storming through the flames, declaring her as his mate to everyone there.

Her wolf had submitted.

Worse, she welcomed it.

“No….” she whispered, pressing her fingers to the mark and rubbing it furiously hoping to erase it. As if she could. As if she hadn’t betrayed her entire future in that one moment.

A sharp crack of twigs made her jump.

She turned quickly, eyes scanning her environment. Her pulse hammered as a figure emerged from the shadows, tall, broad-shouldered, and carved from moonlight and menace.

Kael…

His golden eyes didn’t flinch. Not even when she glared at him with all the anger fury she could muster. His dark hair was tousled from the wind, his jaw set hard like stone. A scar trailed down the side of his neck, a clear evidence of past battles, but it only made him look more lethal.

“You kidnapped me,” Aria spat harshly, voice shaking.

Kael’s gaze dropped briefly to her mark, then back to her eyes. “I claimed you,” he corrected, voice low, deep and rough like gravel.

“You had no right!”

“You were mine the very moment the bond snapped into place,” he retorted, unbothered by her anger. “Your wolf chose me.”

“No. she was confused.” Aria stood shakily, clenching her fists. “This is wrong. I was supposed to be mated to Rhys. I was going to be his Luna!”

Kael’s lips curled into a sneer. “Rhys is a puppet. A pretty boy groomed to lie.”

Her breath caught.

“You know absolutely nothing about him,” she hissed.

“I know he stood by while your pack hunted mine like animals.”

Aria flinched.

Kael’s jaw ticked. “You think you know the truth, Aria. But your life…the one you think was perfect… it’s built on lies. Every single thing you felt was true, is a lie!”

Her eyes welled up with tears she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Not in front of him. Not in front of the rogue who turned her world upside down with one bite.

“You destroyed everything,” she whispered.

“You mean the fantasy you lived in?” Kael stepped closer. “Your pack wore smiles in the sun while they spilled blood under moonlight.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” he pulled out a pendant from his pocket. It gleamed silver, the crest of her pack etched across its face.

It was broken.

“I found this near the bodies of two rogues…women. One had her throat ripped out. The other was barely fourteen.”

Aria swallowed hard. Her voice cracked. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you need to wake up,” he said. “If you go back… you’ll die. You don’t know who you really are.”

His words struck her hard like thunder. Her breath hitched, her heart pounded, and suddenly, her memories swirled like a tornado.

Flashback:

Laughter. Moonlight. Her cousin and best friend Leena adjusting Aria’s hair with trembling fingers the night of the ceremony.

“You look like a dream,” Leena whispered, her eyes gleaming. “You’ll make a wonderful Luna.”

Aria smiled then she became nervous and giddy. “You really think it’ll be Rhys’s?”

Leena nudged her shoulder. “If it’s not him, I’ll shift right here and bite the Moon Goddess myself.”

They had giggled. Everything had felt safer and just right.

But now, that memory felt like a cruel joke.

“You don’t get to twist my world and act like the hero,” Aria said, chin trembling as she blinked back the tears. “You kidnapped me, Kael. And you marked me against my while.”

His eyes darkened, but he didn’t apologize. “I protected you.”

She laughed bitterly. “From what?”

“From the people you trust the most.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but there was something in his gaze that made her stop. He looked like a man who had lost too much to lie.

Before she could speak again, a distant howl echoed through the woods. Not one of Kael’s. Sharp. Familiar. And searching.

Rhys’s?

Aria’s breath caught.

Kael stepped forward in an instant, his body tense. “Don’t answer it.”

Her eyes widened. “But it’s my pack…”

“It’s a trap.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know they’ll kill you before letting you be mine.”

Silence stretched between them like a blade.

Tears welled in her eyes, rolling down her face as she was unable to hold it in this time. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

Kael’s gaze softened slightly. He reached towards her slowly, like approaching a wounded animal. But she flinched before he could touch her.

His hands fell to his side.  “Trust your instincts, Aria. They won’t lie to you.”

The howl came again. This time louder and closer.

She turned toward it, heart tearing in two. But her wolf… her wolf didn’t stire. She didn’t push Aria towards Rhys. She stayed still. Watching Kael.

And Aria knew. Her world had changed forever.

Kael’s voice came out as a whisper, raw and resolute.

“If you go back…you’ll die.

You don’t know who you truly are”