Chapter 1

ARIA.

My heart was pounding so hard it hurt, every beat threatening to split me in two as I ran. I wasn’t just fleeing the house – I was trying to outrun the reality pressing down on me, the one that would crush me alive if I slowed for even a second.

I didn’t even bother with clothes, tossing the reins over to my wolf instead. My body launched off the cliff’s ledge, bones breaking and reforming mid-air as Thea surged forward. Silver fur rippled against the night. The air tore past us, sharp and cold, the wind howling in her ears like a warning.

For the span of a heartbeat, we were weightless, untouchable. Free. Nothing else existed.

Then gravity reminded us that freedom was a lie. Thea’s paws hit the earth, and she exploded forward like a bullet, devouring the ground. I clung to her speed as if it could save us, but I knew better. We weren’t running toward safety. We were hurtling toward an unavoidable collision. I just didn’t know what surviving it would look like.

So, I let Thea run, while my thoughts devoured me.

Helpless. That was all I was. If it were only my life on the line here. I wouldn’t hesitate to go rogue. The irony was laughable. I’d rather face a death sentence than obey my father’s command.

Because that’s what being a rogue was: death wearing different masks. Young females like me didn’t last long. Most ended up bleeding out in the dirt, their names forgotten. The rest… they ended up wishing they had. Maybe I could scrape by if I were a fighter, but Thea and I were no warriors. She was fast, yes, but speed didn’t save you when teeth sank into your throat.

And my father had made sure of that. He forbade me from training beyond the bare minimum every pack member received. He wanted me defenseless – his pawn, never a player, never a daughter.

‘He wanted control,’ Thea growled. ‘Not family.’

Father. The word felt like poison on my tongue. A laughable title.

Warden. Boss. Ruler. Tyrant. Any of those fit better.

I didn’t even know why he hated me. Not one damn clue what made me so unworthy of his blood. I’d stopped hoping years ago that he might see me as his daughter again. His love had rotted away the moment Mom walked out – walked out on him, on us – leaving three children in her wake.

Jory was twenty-six. I was nineteen. Piper was six. She’d been barely a year old when Mom disappeared.

And because our father couldn’t be bothered, it fell on me to raise her. To shield her. To love her.

There was nothing I wouldn’t do for Piper. And he knew it. That’s why she became his favorite weapon. The perfect trump card to force me into obedience. Case in point: his latest decree.

I, Aria Morgan, was going to be mated. Whether I liked it or not.

Who was the lucky guy? Dane Holden, Alpha of the Shadow Vale pack. A man I’d never met, who nonetheless delivered a contract as if my life were nothing more than a business arrangement.

Why? Why would a powerful Alpha seek me out, offering my father paperwork instead of courtship? I didn’t have any answers to that.

But what I did have was a fresh bruise for asking the wrong question. I’d dared to ask what my father stood to gain. His hand answered instead of his voice. All he gave me was a deadline: midnight. Sign or face the consequences.

And Jason Morgan wasn’t a man who made idle threats. The cracked rib I carried now was proof of that – payment for telling him I’d rather run rogue than tie myself to Alpha Dane.

But Alpha Dane… Alpha Dane was worse. Cold. Cruel. A man who took what he wanted, when he wanted it, however he wanted it.

‘All the best qualities a mate should have,’ Thea spat, her voice dripping with disgust.

I agreed with her. It was the opposite of everything I’d ever dreamed of.

Like every girl, I’d once imagined my mate. A gift from the Goddess. The other half of my soul. My fated bond, unshakable and true. I never entertained the thought of a chosen mate. It felt like blasphemy to me. I’d never look down on someone who took a chosen mate because their choices were their own, just like mine should’ve been.

But that fantasy was ashes now. Because once I signed Alpha Dane’s contract, once he marked me, the bond would sever. My fated mate – if he existed at all – would be lost to me forever.

And my father knew it. That’s why he aimed his gun at my weakest spot: Piper.

If I refused, he promised to hand her to rogues and let nature take its bloody course. Not a threat. A promise. He didn’t give a damn about his offspring. He cared about leverage. The worst part? Everyone believed in the mask he wore. Jason Morgan was revered. A master chameleon. To the pack, he was honorable, respectable. To me, he was a demon in a man’s skin.

And when the pack turned their hatred on me after Mom vanished, he had only to stand back and let it happen. They called it atonement. They said her sins had bled into me. They believed she orchestrated the rogue attack that left pack members dead. Left families and friends grieving. With her gone, I became their scapegoat. Their punishment.

He never lifted a finger to defend me. Why would he, when their hatred made me easier to control?

By the time Thea slowed at our boundary tree, it was after ten. My muscles trembled as I shifted back, pulling on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from the stash we always kept there. I slipped inside the house, dread pressing on down on me like a weight.

“At least you can do one thing right,” his voice slithered from the kitchen, soaked in contempt.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted iron, forcing myself not to answer.

Jason Morgan sat in the shadows, a glass of whiskey in hand. He tipped it back, savoring the burn, then set it down with a heavy clink.

The silence stretched until it became unbearable, thick as smoke in my lungs.

“May I read the contract before I sign it?” My voice sounded foreign – flat, scraped clean of resistance. A ghost of me speaking.

His lips curved, slow and triumphant, as if he’d already heard my surrender in the hollow tone. He didn’t answer, only gestured toward the stack of papers resting on the counter.

My hand reached for them before my mind could catch up, and already I hated myself for it. The pages were heavy, their edges sharp enough to cut. The words swam, but they didn’t need to be clear. Their weight was obvious: permanent bond, obedience, isolation. My life dismantled and rebuilt into something unrecognizable.

And then I saw something that made me sick to my stomach.

‘Aria Morgan will give birth to Dane Holden’s heir. She agrees to undergo testing to ensure her body is capable of carrying and birthing said heir.’

The sentence seemed to echo, stamped against the inside of my skull. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Not a person. Not even a prisoner. Just a vessel. A body, hollowed out and repurposed.

“What will you choose?” His voice cut through, cold and deliberate, slicing into the last fragile pieces of me. “Your life… or the little bitch’s?”

The word struck harder than a slap. For a heartbeat, fury flared – sharp, electric, a reminder that some part of me still existed. But despair drowned it quickly. He knew me too well. He knew that Piper was the thread keeping me tethered to this world. And that I would gladly sever myself before I let anyone touch her.

I lifted the pen. My hand trembled so violently I could barely hold it steady. The ink bled across the paper, each stroke an epitaph. By the time my name was finished, I could no longer remember the shape of the woman who had written it.

When I set the pen down, something inside me went with it. A final collapse, silent and absolute. The future stretched out before me, not as a path but as a prison corridor, endless and airless.

I had thought the worst pain was losing freedom.

But no.

The worst pain was losing myself – and knowing I had given the last of me away.