Second chances

✧⁠◝⁠(BROOKLYN POV)⁠◜⁠✧

I had been walking for hours.

Or maybe it was days. I couldn't tell anymore. Time had lost all meaning, blurring together into an endless haze of pain and exhaustion. My legs moved on autopilot, one foot in front of the other, carrying me through the dark, endless forest.

No food. No water. No strength left.

My vision swam, the trees around me twisting and blurring into grotesque shapes. Every step sent fresh waves of agony through my ravaged back, the lashes still weeping blood, the wounds refusing to close. My body was failing me, breaking down piece by piece, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I was going to die out here.

Alone. Forgotten. Unmourned.

The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it brought a strange sense of peace. At least the pain would end. At least I wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

But even as the darkness crept into the edges of my vision, something kept me moving. A stubborn refusal to give up. A burning hatred that refused to be extinguished.

They will pay. They will all pay.

I stumbled, catching myself against a tree trunk, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The bark scraped against my palms, but I barely felt it. I was past feeling anything except the bone-deep exhaustion that threatened to drag me under.

The forest had changed. The trees were taller here, older, their branches intertwining above my head like the ribs of some ancient beast. The air was thicker, heavier, charged with an energy that made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

I had crossed into another territory.

I froze, my heart lurching with a surge of adrenaline. This was bad. This was very, very bad. Rogues who crossed into foreign territories were killed on sight. And I was too weak to fight, too broken to run.

I tried to turn back, to retrace my steps, but my legs wouldn't cooperate. They gave out beneath me, and I crashed to the ground, the impact sending fresh agony through my battered body.

I was done.

This was it.

The forest around me erupted with sound. Snarls. Growls. The thunder of paws against the earth. And then voices—deep, commanding, dangerously cold.

"Someone's crossed the border."

"Trespasser. I can smell the blood."

"Kill it and be done with it."

"No. Wait. There's something else. Something—"

The voice cut off abruptly, replaced by a low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the ground beneath me. I tried to lift my head, tried to see what was coming for me, but my body refused to obey. I was too weak, too broken, too far gone.

Through blurry eyes, I saw them.

Four figures emerged from the darkness of the forest, their forms materializing like specters from the shadows. They moved with an easy, predatory grace, their bodies covered in intricate tattoos that seemed to writhe in the dim light. They were massive-easily the largest wolves I had ever seen, their human forms radiating power and danger.

And they were devastatingly handsome. Ruthlessly, dangerously hot, with sharp jaws, burning eyes, and the kind of raw masculinity that made lesser wolves cower in fear.

My blood ran cold.

I recognized them.

The Bloodmoon Brothers.

I had been to their pack once, years ago, when I was still an Alpha princess, still loved and cherished. My father had brought me to pay homage to the Lycan King, to show fealty to the most powerful pack in existence. I had been young, barely a teenager, but I remembered the terror that had gripped me when I saw them.

The four sons of the Lycan King. Fearsome. Unstoppable. Absolute monsters.

And now they were standing over my broken body, their eyes gleaming with something that looked like hunger.

The eldest, Knox, stepped forward with a lazy, almost bored gait. His body was covered in swirling black tattoos that accentuated the muscle beneath, and his eyes-dark, unreadable, ancient-scanned me with cold disinterest.

"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice like gravel rolling over stone. "And why are you on our land?"

I tried to speak, but only a pathetic croak emerged from my throat.

"She can't answer," the second brother growled. Raven. His eyes were darker than Knox's, more dangerous. "She's half-dead already."

"Then she's useless," the third said. Nathan. His voice was flat, emotionless. "Kill her and be done with it."

But before any of them could move, the youngest brother—Caiden—lunged forward, blocking his brothers with his massive body. "Are you both insane? Can't you see she's dying?! She's covered in blood! She can barely breathe!" He turned to me, his expression softening with a tenderness that seemed utterly at odds with his fearsome appearance. "It's okay. You're safe now. We won't hurt you."

Knox's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Caiden, step aside. We don't know who she is or what she wants—"

"I don't care!" Caiden snarled. "She's hurt, and I'm not going to let you—"

He stopped mid-sentence.

His pupils blew wide, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled deeply. The scent hit him like a physical blow, and he staggered back, one hand pressed to his chest as if something inside him had been violently ripped open.

"Goddess what's that scent—" Raven started, but then his own words died in his throat. His eyes went dark, his breath hitching, his body trembling with something that looked like agony.

"Mate."

Knox whispered the word first, and then Raven and Nathan echoed it, their voices hushed and reverent.

"MATE!"

The four brothers erupted.

They descended on me in a frenzy, their careful composure shattered, their beastly instincts taking over. Knox tried to reach me first, his fingers brushing my arm with desperate hunger, but Raven yanked him back with a savage growl.

"She's MINE!" Raven snarled, slamming his fist into Knox's chest. "I smelled her first!"

"You're both wrong!" Nathan shouted, shoving his brothers apart. "She's MY mate! I can feel it!"

"MINE!" Caiden roared, his eyes blazing with a ferocity that matched his brothers. "She belongs to ME!"

I stared at them, my battered mind struggling to comprehend what was happening.

Four mates.

I had four mates.

I had just been rejected by my fated mate, branded a murderer, flogged, and banished—and now the Moon Goddess had tied me to four of the most dangerous wolves in existence?

The Moon Goddess was either mocking me, or she had gone completely insane.

Even as the thought crossed my mind, I understood. The strange madness in their eyes. The violent possessiveness. The way their wolves had clawed their way to the surface the moment they caught my scent. This was what my mother had warned me about. This was why she had always forced me to cover my scent, to hide what I was.

My scent was dangerous. It drove wolves mad.

But knowing that didn't stop what was happening.

The four brothers shifted into their wolves before my eyes, massive black beasts with eyes like molten gold. They tore at each other with savage fury, ripping and biting and clawing, their snarls echoing through the dark forest like thunder.

Knox lunged for Raven's throat. Raven slammed into Nathan's side. Nathan crashed into Caiden, sending them both tumbling across the ground. It was chaos—absolute, uncontrollable chaos.

The guards who had accompanied the brothers stood frozen, their faces pale with shock. No one dared to intervene. No one was foolish enough to step between the Bloodmoon brothers when they were in a frenzy.

And through it all, I lay helpless on the cold ground, too weak to speak, too broken to move.

I was going to die here. Not from my injuries, but from the sheer violence of the wolves fighting over me like rabid animals.

Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the darkness.

The air around us thickened, grew heavy, suffocating. A cold, commanding presence settled over the clearing like a blanket of ice, silencing the snarls and growls in an instant.

"ENOUGH."

The voice was quiet. Controlled. Absolutely terrifying.

The four wolves froze mid-battle, their golden eyes snapping toward the newcomer. Their ears flattened, their tails lowered, and they backed away from each other with obvious reluctance.

Luciano Bloodmoon.

The Lycan King. The most powerful and dangerous wolf in existence. He was a legend among our kind-a creature who had lived for centuries, whose power was so immense that even the strongest Alphas trembled before him.

He was massive, taller than all of his sons, his body lean and powerful beneath a dark, tailored suit. His face was impossibly handsome, carved from marble, with sharp cheekbones and a jaw that could cut glass. But his eyes-his eyes were the most terrifying part of him. They were ancient. Cold. Devoid of anything that resembled mercy.

Behind him stood his Beta, another wolf whose name I couldn't remember. But I barely noticed him. All my attention was fixed on the Lycan King.

He approached me then, his boots crunching against the leaves. I tried to crawl away, to escape, to do anything other than lie there like a wounded animal waiting for the kill.

But my body had nothing left to give.

Luciano stopped directly in front of me, towering over my broken body like a god surveying a sacrifice. Slowly, deliberately, he leaned down, his fingers gripping my chin with a touch that was gentler than I expected.

His touch chilled me to the bone.

"Please," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "Please don't kill me."

His eyes met mine.

And then he ripped his hand away as if burned, his pupils blowing wide, his body going rigid with shock.

"Mate."

My mind went blank.

This couldn't be happening. This was impossible. I had been rejected, humiliated, broken and now I was fated to the four brothers and their father?

The Moon Goddess had to be drunk. There was no other explanation for this cosmic joke. The same goddess who had bound me to a man who rejected me, who had watched me suffer and bleed and break—

Now she had given me five mates.

Five mates who were all the same family.

I stared up at Luciano Blackwood, his golden eyes blazing with recognition and confusion and something far more dangerous. I stared at the four wolves behind him, their gazes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin crawl.

This couldn't be real.

This couldn't be happening.

Not to me. Not after everything I'd been through. Not after I'd been beaten and humiliated and rejected and banished.

But the madness in their eyes was real.

And I was too broken to escape.