Chapter 1

“Protect the Alpha King!”

The shout jolted me awake.

Blood and gunpowder filled my nose. My heart slammed against my ribs.

I looked down.

My stomach was round and heavy beneath my coat. A tiny foot kicked hard against my palm.

My baby was alive.

I had been reborn.

I should never have been anywhere near the outer perimeter at eight months pregnant.

But before marrying Lucas, I had designed security systems for the Hawthorne Pack. He still depended on my work, even after taking my name off every report. That morning, he ordered me to deliver the final summit maps personally, then left before I arrived.

I had thought duty called him away.

Now I knew exactly whose bed he had gone to.

“Bang!”

The gunshot ripped through the air.

There was no time to run. No time to think about revenge, Lucas, or the future.

Kaelan Windsor, the Alpha King, stood only a few feet away. A blade had already cut across his abdomen, and the second assassin had his gun aimed straight at his heart.

I lunged.

The silver bullet meant for Kaelan tore through my left shoulder and buried itself beneath my collarbone.

White-hot pain exploded through me. I curled one arm over my stomach as the impact threw me backward.

My other hand still held my gun.

I fired.

The assassin dropped.

Then my knees hit the ground.

Silver burned through my veins like molten metal. My wolf howled inside me. The baby kicked wildly, terrified by my racing heart.

“Healer!” Kaelan’s voice shook the ruined corridor. “Get the royal medical team here now!”

He caught me before I fell onto my stomach.

Only then did memories from my last life crash over me.

Lucas had been the officer in charge of the outer perimeter that day. He should have been standing between the assassins and the Alpha King.

Instead, he had taken the entire elite unit to a private lodge to comfort Serena.

In my last life, I had covered for him.

I had triggered the level-one alarm and ordered his men back. Lucas arrived just in time to kill the assassins and take all the credit.

The Alliance promoted him to War Minister. He became the first Beta ever to hold the position.

But Serena had stormed away from the lodge when he left her. Rogues found her outside the protected zone and tore her apart.

Lucas never forgave me.

When I went into labor at his victory banquet, he injected me with wolfsbane and threw me into the same kind of rogue pit that had killed Serena.

My baby had cried once.

Just once.

Then the rogues reached us.

I pressed both hands over my stomach now, desperate to feel another kick.

For one terrible second, there was nothing.

Then a weak movement brushed my palm.

“Please,” I gasped. I did not even know whether I was speaking to Kaelan or the Moon Goddess. “Save my baby.”

Kaelan looked down at the blood spreading across my coat. His ice-blue eyes changed.

The cold ruler every pack feared was gone. In his place was a man staring at a pregnant woman who had just taken a silver bullet for him.

“You are both going to live,” he said. “That is an order.”

The royal healer dropped beside me and ripped open the shoulder of my coat.

His face went pale.

“The bullet broke apart,” he said. “Silver is already entering her bloodstream. We need to get her into surgery now.”

Fresh blood flooded the corridor. It mixed with gunpowder, burned silver, disinfectant, and the blood pouring from Kaelan’s own wound.

The sharp scents swallowed everything else.

I clutched Kaelan’s sleeve before the healer could carry me away.

“My King,” I whispered, forcing every word through the pain. “My name is Evelyn Hawthorne. Lucas Mercer’s mate. He is the officer responsible for your outer security.”

Kaelan went completely still.

His gaze moved from me to the empty corridor where Lucas and his elite unit should have been.

“Where is he?”

I let tears fill my eyes.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to reach him.”

Kaelan’s expression turned deadly.

“Find Lucas Mercer,” he ordered. “Bring him to me.”