CHAPTER ONE : The Night I Died, The Night I Woke

“You should be grateful.”

That was the last thing my father ever said to me.

His voice floated above me, thin and distant, as my knees dragged through the mud and rotting leaves of the eastern forest. My wrists were lashed behind my back with silver‑threaded rope. Every movement tore my skin a little more.

“You should be grateful, Aria,” he repeated, like a kindly reminder instead of a sentence. “Most girls would kill to be Luna of the Blackmoon Pack.”

I coughed, tasting blood. My throat burned with every breath. “I… didn’t… do anything,” I rasped. “Please—”

The word slipped out on habit, helpless and small.

A hand seized my hair and yanked my head back. My father’s face loomed over mine, eyes cold, lips twisted with disgust I’d never let myself see before.

“Still begging,” he snarled and slapped me hard enough that my ears rang. “Even now.”

The wolves around us snickered, low and mean.

I turned my head, trying to find my mother. She stood a few paces behind my father, hands crushing her shawl, eyes red but dry. She didn’t move. She never did.

“You should be grateful, Aria,” she whispered, gaze skittering away. “Grateful you were chosen at all.”

Chosen.

I almost laughed.

My sister stepped into view, red lips curved in a soft smile that didn’t touch her eyes. Lena’s pretty face glowed in the blood‑red light of the swollen moon.

“Oh, Aria,” she murmured, brushing imaginary dust off my torn dress with dainty fingers. “Really. You should be grateful. You got everything you ever wanted. Our parents’ attention. The Alpha’s name. A big house and fancy title. And now—”

She leaned closer, her perfume cutting through the copper stink of my own blood.

“You get to die important.”

My stomach lurched. I thought of all the times I’d given her my clothes, my savings, my time, because she’d smiled and said I was the best sister in the world. Because Mother had said, “You should be grateful your sister relies on you.”

I had been so very grateful.

A shadow moved between the trees.

The wolves fell silent.

Lucian Black emerged from the darkness like a verdict.

He was taller than I remembered from our wedding day, or maybe pain had just made the world seem smaller. Broad shoulders under a black shirt, sleeves rolled to reveal strong forearms dusted with dried dirt and blood. His hair was disheveled, as if he’d run his hands through it too many times. His jaw was clenched, a muscle ticking there, golden eyes fixed on me.

In another life, I’d thought those eyes were beautiful.

Now, in the light of the blood moon, they glowed wrong. Too bright. Too sharp. Like something other than human was staring through them.

They called him the cursed Alpha of Blackmoon behind his back.

I’d heard the whispers in the pack house:

He’s dangerous.

He goes black in the eyes when the curse takes him.

And when he loses control… someone always dies.**

Tonight, that someone was me.

I wanted to believe it wasn’t really him making this choice. That some invisible force was steering his hand.

But it was his mouth that opened now.

“Aria Black,” he said, voice carrying effortlessly through the clearing. No warmth. No hesitation. Just cold Alpha authority. “For the crime of treason against your Alpha and your pack—”

“I didn’t,” I croaked, chest burning. “I didn’t betray you, Lucian. Please, you have to—”

Our eyes met.

For a heartbeat, I thought I saw something there—confusion, pain, and war.

Then his gaze went flat again.

“—for conspiring with our enemies and endangering Blackmoon lives,” he finished, as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “I sentence you to death.”

I still didn’t even know what proof they thought they had.

What lie they’d spun around my name to make this feel like justice instead of murder.

The words sliced through what was left of me more surely than any claw.

My mother sucked in a shaky breath. “You should be grateful,” she whispered, voice cracking. “Grateful it’s quick.”

Grateful.

For this.

My laughter came out as a broken little sound. No one noticed.

Rough hands shoved me forward. I hit the ground on my knees, hard enough that bone met rock. Pain shot up my legs. Dirt ground into the open wounds on my palms where I tried, uselessly, to catch myself.

I looked up, past the ring of wolves and the hard line of Lucian’s shoulders, at the sky.

The moon hung heavy and swollen overhead, stained red like freshly spilled blood. Clouds crawled across it like dark fingers.

I tried to make my lips form the words one more time. I love you. I did everything you asked. Don’t do this.

Only a wet wheeze came out.

“Do it,” my father said.

Even as Luna, no one stepped forward to stop it.

The first bite hit my side like fire.

Teeth tore through flesh, ripped ribs. I screamed until my voice broke, until my throat filled with hot, metallic taste, and my own voice sounded like someone else’s.

Claws raked down my back. My spine felt like it shattered with each strike.

Above me, the wolves’ snarls blended with laughter. My father’s voice: “You should be grateful, Aria.” Lena’s soft hum. My mother’s choked sob.

Through it all, Lucian stood rigid, a statue carved in shadow and moonlight.

I saw him as my body finally gave way, as my arms failed and my face slammed into the cold earth. My blood seeped into the ground; the forest drank me up.

For a moment, his eyes weren’t empty.

They were wild with something raw. Horror. Fury. Helplessness.

His mouth moved. I couldn’t hear the words over the roar in my ears.

Then everything went black.

***

There was no tunnel of light for me.

Just quiet.

Weightless, painless darkness, like floating in ink.

I thought: So this is it. No more “you should be grateful,” no more rope, no more selling my life to men with bigger teeth.

I thought: At least it’s over.

Then, the world yanked me back by the throat.

I slammed into my body with a gasp, lungs seizing. Air burned as it rushed in like fire. My heart jackhammered.

I sat bolt upright, strangling on nothing, clutching at my chest.

No blood.

No forest.

No snapping bones.

I was in a bed.

In our bed.

The Alpha’s bedchamber wrapped around me: high plaster ceiling with a small crack in one corner, tall windows draped in navy curtains, a heavy four‑poster bed I recognized from too many nights lying awake on the very edge of it.

My fingers dug into the soft blanket.

This isn’t real. I’m dead. I’m—

My hands flew to my ribs, my stomach, my side.

Whole.

No shredded flesh. No broken bones. No scars.

My skin was warm and smooth under the thin nightgown, not clammy and cooling under a blood moon.

My breath came faster. The room tilted.

Slowly, I slid my legs off the side of the bed. Thick carpet met my bare feet. The floor didn’t sway. The walls didn’t bleed.

I stumbled to the mirror opposite the bed and gripped the carved wooden frame.

A stranger stared back at me.

Pale face. Wide grey eyes. Dark hair tumbling messily around my shoulders.

I knew that face.

But not like this.

Younger. Softer. No thin silver scar along my jaw from the rogue who’d slashed me last winter. No permanent creases of exhaustion between my brows. There is no dullness in my eyes.

I looked… twenty‑two. Not twenty‑four.

My fingers trembled as I touched my own cheek, my lips.

“This… can’t be,” I whispered.

The memories were too vivid to be a dream. The cold. The teeth. My father’s hand.

“You should be grateful.”

They all said it. Father, when he made me drop out of school to wait tables and pay down his debts. Mother, when she told me marriage to an Alpha was “more than you deserve.” Lena, when she took my dress, my savings, my room.

Lucian, when he looked through me and said, "I can’t give you more." You should be grateful for what you have.

I had been grateful.

I had bent. I had stayed. I had believed that if I gave enough, loved enough, swallowed enough, one day they would treat me like family. Like a wife.

Instead, they led me into the forest and watched me die.

Yet here I was.

Back in this room. In this body. On the night before the first time, they tried to frame me.

I lurched toward the bedside table. The small brass clock sat where it always had. The hands and date marker made my throat tighten.

The same day.

Two years ago.

My legs gave out. I sat hard on the bed.

I’d died.

And now I was back. Before the betrayal. Before the blood moon.

It's not a dream.

A second life.

Fear clawed up my spine with cold, bony fingers.

Last time, this is what I did: I smiled. I forgave. I obeyed. I swallowed every slight and every “you should be grateful,” and I told myself it would all be worth it if I just held on.

It ended with my body in the dirt and my blood in their mouths.

If I walked the same path, I would die the same way.

I pressed my palms to my knees. My nails dug into my skin until sharp pain cut through the panic.

Not this time.

I thought of my father’s hand hitting my face when I begged. Of Lena’s smirk as she watched me bleed. Of my mother looking away. Of Lucian’s eyes, wild and trapped, as his sentence killed me.

If I did nothing, they would march me right back to that forest and call it duty. Call it justice. Call it something I should be grateful for.

No more.

Three thoughts rose in me, hot and cold and sharp, like iron pulled from a forge and plunged into snow.

**Never beg again.**

**Never trust blood.**

**Never die quietly.**

If I was going to die in this life, it would not be for their comfort. It would be on my feet, with my eyes open and my teeth bing.

I pushed myself to standing and went to the wardrobe. My hands hovered over the dresses neatly hung there: high‑necked, long‑sleeved things my sister had chosen for me. Appropriate, she’d said. Demure. Respectable.

I bypassed them.

At the back, still wrapped in thin tissue, was a dress I’d bought with my own café tips long before the marriage. I’d never worn it. Lena had called it “too much” for a Luna. Father had said it made me look like I was asking for trouble.

Black, simple, clinging. Sleeveless, with a neckline that dipped just enough to show collarbones, and a skirt that hit mid‑thigh instead of my ankles.

I pulled it out and stepped into it.

The fabric slid over my skin like a secret.

In the mirror, the girl looking back at me didn’t look grateful.

She looked like a storm trying to remember how to be lightning.

A sharp knock sounded at the door.

“Luna?” a maid’s nervous voice called. “Alpha Lucian requests your presence in his office.”

My stomach flipped. Once, that summons had filled me with a flutter of hope and a sinking dread. I’d rushed, trying to be what he wanted: quiet, good, small.

I smoothed the dress over my hips with steady fingers.

“I’ll be there,” I said.

I saw my own reflection tilt her chin.

“Y‑yes, Luna,” the maid stammered, footsteps retreating.

I slipped my feet into the black flats by the bed and opened the door. The hallway stretched ahead—polished floors, framed paintings, the faint scent of pine, and old wood.

Each step toward Lucian’s office thudded in my ears.

The pack whispered that he was cursed. That he woke up with blood on his hands and no memory. That when his eyes went dark and the mark on his chest burned, you either ran or prayed.

And when he lost control… someone always died.

He had never lost control of me.

He had just killed me, calmly and officially, and watched the wolves do the rest.

Anger bubbled under my ribs, hot enough to burn away the fear.

At the end of the corridor, his office door loomed.

In my last life, I had walked in here with my shoulders hunched and my hope held out like a begging bowl: please see me, please hear me, please don’t send me back to them.

This time, I wrapped my hand around the handle and thought:

You took my life once.

This time, I’m taking it back—starting with you.

I turned the knob.

And stepped inside.