Prologue

The Great Hall of the Kenneally Pack was a cathedral of gold and irony. Heavy chandeliers dripped with crystal, casting a mocking glow over the hundreds of guests who had gathered to celebrate the mid-winter feast. But for Floreighn Amara Kenneally, the hall felt like a tomb.

She stood in the center of the marble floor, her knees trembling beneath a dress stained with red wine and filth. Her face was swollen from the "lessons" Kreygan’s hidden subordinates had delivered in the dark, and her hands shook as she clutched a shattered crystal carafe.

High on the dais sat the man she loved—the man the Moon Goddess had woven into the very fabric of her soul. Kreygan Lavigne, disguised in the rough tunics of a commoner, sat with his arm draped possessively around her twin, Serefy. To the world, he was a humble laborer. To Floreighn, he was a monster who used their sacred mate bond as a leash to drag her through hell.

"Look at her," Serefy’s voice rang out, high and melodic, cutting through the music.

"My sister is so desperate for attention that she’s begun breaking the fine china just to get a glance from a common man. Tell me, Kreygan, does she look like a wolf to you? Or a pathetic, mangy cur?"

Kreygan didn’t look away from Serefy. He leaned in, brushing a golden lock of hair from Serefy’s face, but Floreighn felt the truth.

Through the bond, Kreygan sent a wave of icy, jagged Alpha-contempt straight into her mind. It felt like needles piercing her brain.

‘You are a blight on my vision, Floreighn,’ his voice echoed in her head, a cold mental transmission only a mate could send. ‘Serefy is the sun. You are the dirt she walks upon. Be silent, or the men in the woods will find you again tonight.’

The threat should have silenced her. It should have sent her scurrying back to the kitchens. But something inside Floreighn—the last flickering ember of her pride—snapped.

The emotional torture had reached its limit. She realized Kreygan didn't just want Serefy; he wanted Floreighn to watch him love her sister until she withered away and died.

Floreighn took a step forward. The marble floor was cold against her bare, bruised feet. "No more," she whispered.

"What was that, shadow?" Serefy mocked, standing up. "Speak up so the Pack can hear your delusions."

Floreighn lifted her head. Tears, hot and silver, tracked through the grime on her cheeks. She looked Kreygan in the eyes—eyes that flashed with a momentary, hidden gold of an Alpha’s panic.

"I, Floreighn Amara Kenneally," she began, her voice cracking but growing steady, "the daughter of this Pack and the discarded half of a broken soul..."

Kreygan stood up, his face pale. ‘Floreighn, stop. I command you,’ he roared in her mind, his Alpha aura leaking through his disguise, a weight intended to crush her into submission.

She ignored the pressure, even as her nose began to bleed from the force of his mental command. She reached deep into her chest, grabbing hold of the invisible, glowing thread that connected her heart to his.

"I REJECT YOU!" she screamed, the words tearing from her throat like a physical blade. "I reject the bond, Kreygan Lavigne! I reject the fate that tied me to a coward who hides behind a commoner’s mask to torture his own blood!"

The air in the Great Hall curdled. A violent, thunderous crack echoed through the room—the sound of a soul being bifurcated.

The agony hit her instantly. It wasn't just pain; it was a spiritual flaying.

Floreighn collapsed, her back arching as if she were being burned alive. The mate bond, a sacred gift of the Moon Goddess, didn't just break; it was ripped out by the roots. Silver light, jagged and blinding, erupted from her chest, splashing onto the white marble like glowing blood.

Kreygan let out a strangled gasp, doubling over on the dais. He clutched his chest, his face contorting in a mirror of her agony. He had treated the bond like a toy, but now that it was being shredded, he felt the true weight of the Goddess’s wrath.

Floreighn’s wolf wailed in the back of her mind—a mournful, dying howl before falling silent. The warmth she had known since birth was replaced by a hollow, freezing void. Her heart was literally hemorrhaging essence, the silver light fading into a dull grey.

"It’s... over," she gasped, her voice a wet rattle.

Trembling, her body broken and her soul a shattered ruin, Floreighn dragged herself up. Every movement felt like glass grinding in her joints.

She didn't look at the shocked faces of the pack. She didn't look at Serefy’s pale, confused face. And she didn't look back at Kreygan, who was reaching out toward her with a hand that had only ever offered her pain.

Bleeding silver and weeping for the girl she used to be, Floreighn turned her back on her destiny. She stumbled out of the golden light of the hall and into the black, welcoming embrace of the Dead Woods—straight toward the territory of the deadliest Alpha they called Death.