Chapter 1

When Great Elder Peter found me, I was holding my daughter Bella's body and staring blankly ahead.

Her body was cold, and her cheeks were hollow from prolonged malnutrition.

The last time I saw her was five years ago, at her mating ceremony with Mark.

She didn't know then that her father had already ordered me to go serve the Moon Goddess.

I'd had to fight just to be allowed to attend her ceremony before leaving.

When it was over, she finally found out.

She held on to my hands and cried until she was a mess.

"Mom, I'm grown up now. I can help you and Dad protect the pack too.

"Please don't go."

Seeing her cry made it even harder to leave.

But she and Lucas were only safe if the pack was safe.

So I pried her fingers loose.

"Don't be sad. I will be back before you know it.

"By then, who knows? Maybe you will have made me a grandmother."

I never imagined that would be our last goodbye.

I buried her carefully. Then I ran my hand over her headstone and spoke, my voice cold. "Peter, my only daughter—the Dawnlight Pack's only princess—was starved until she was skin and bone, poisoned with wolfsbane, denied the antidote, and left out in the open even after she died.

"Is this what I got for spending five years serving the Moon Goddess for this pack?"

Peter stood off to the side and let out a breath.

"Well... Bella was always rather frail herself. That may have had something to do with it."

I gave a silent, bitter laugh.

Every pack keeps a supply of wolfsbane antidote.

In the vision of her final moments, I'd heard them say that Bella had tried to poison Faye but accidentally exposed herself to the wolfsbane too.

But everyone knew it was a lie cooked up by Mina—Faye's mother and Lucas's sister-in-law.

A little antidote would have saved her.

Instead, they threw her out of the house and made her kneel outside Lucas's villa for three days without giving her a single dose of the antidote.

I set the broken necklace down in front of him.

"They said Bella didn't deserve the antidote, even though she'd been poisoned.

"Is this how you kept your promise to me? Your promise to take good care of her?"

The moment Peter saw the necklace, he knew I'd learned the whole truth.

He didn't say anything else.

I hadn't expected him to.

He was an Elder of the Dawnlight pack. All he cared about was its survival.

In his eyes, if I, the Luna, could be sacrificed for the Dawnlight pack, then so could my daughter.

But they'd forgotten something. I had Alpha blood, and I'd awakened my white wolf at 14.

Only three such wolves had ever existed, and each could communicate with the Moon Goddess through their blood.

Lucas had never been in line to become the Dawnlight Alpha.

His older brother was.

He'd only become Alpha because I'd fallen in love with him and taken him as my mate.

None of it would have been possible without my offerings. Only through them could the crystal pillar grow on the mountain and grant the Dawnlight Pack a century of prosperity.

Peter finally spoke. "Luna, you have to go back to the mountain.

"The pillar needs another two weeks. If you walk away now, the Dawnlight pack will fall, and the Alpha will die with it!"

They'd said the same thing to me before.

Back then, I'd loved Lucas. I couldn't bear to see him die or watch the pack I'd given everything to fall apart.

So I'd let them separate me from my mate and my daughter, and I'd devoted my life to serving the Moon Goddess.

And all I got in return was a mate who betrayed me and a daughter who died in agony!

Peter stepped forward, blocking my path.

"Luna, I know losing Bella is unbearable, but you can't destroy the pack's future over someone who's already dead!

"In two weeks, you'll be back with the Alpha, and there'll be more pups.

"And Bella was always kind. She wouldn't want you bringing the pack down for her sake."

Even now, he was trying to hold me back with the same words he'd used five years ago.

But there was nothing left to take from me.

I kicked him square in the chest and turned toward Dawnlight territory.

I left him staring after me.

"Bella was kind. That's why she let all of you walk all over her.

"But I'm her mother. I have to get justice for my daughter."

"If the pack falls, it's exactly what it deserves."