THE NIGHT MY MATE BURNED ME ALIVE

I always thought my mate would be the last person standing beside me when the world turned against me.

Instead, he was the one who ordered my execution.

The iron chains around my wrists rattled as a cold wind swept through the execution square. The sound carried farther than it should have, scraping across the uneasy silence of the crowd. My skin was raw where the shackles had rubbed against it. Dried blood clung to the metal, sticking to every small movement, but I barely felt the pain anymore. Physical suffering had long since stopped being the worst thing happening to me.

The entire kingdom seemed to have gathered for my death.

Nobles stood beneath embroidered banners. Warriors filled the front rows in polished armor that glinted beneath the moonlight. Servants crowded the edges of the square, whispering among themselves. Children sat on their fathers' shoulders, too young to understand what they were watching but eager for the spectacle all the same.

Every one of them had come to see the traitor burn.

I swallowed against the dryness in my throat and lifted my head.

My eyes found Kael immediately.

They always did.

Alpha Kael Blackwood stood atop the royal platform beneath the silver wolf banners of his house. Moonlight washed over the sharp angles of his face, catching in his dark hair and turning his golden eyes into polished amber. He looked exactly as he had the first time I saw him—powerful, untouchable, devastatingly handsome.

The sight still hit me like a punch to the chest.

That realization was almost embarrassing.

After everything he had done, after everything that had happened, some foolish part of me still reacted to him.

Inside me, my wolf let out a low, wounded whine.

Not fear.

Heartbreak.

Because our mate wasn't looking at us with anger or grief. He wasn't looking at us at all. His gaze was distant and cold, the gaze of a ruler delivering justice to a criminal. There was nothing in his expression that suggested we had ever mattered to him.

No trace of the bond.

No trace of the years we'd spent together.

No trace of the future I had once believed we would share.

A bitter laugh threatened to rise in my throat.

Five years.

Five years of loving him. Five years of waiting for him to choose me. Five years of convincing myself that one day he would look at me the way I looked at him.

I had built my entire future around that hope.

Gods, what a fool I'd been.

Movement near the platform pulled my attention away from him.

The crowd parted almost instantly, making room for Vivienne.

My cousin crossed the stage with effortless grace, every step measured, every smile perfectly practiced. Her golden hair shimmered beneath the moonlight, and the silver dress she wore looked as though it had been stitched from starlight itself.

She looked every bit the future Luna.

The irony was enough to make me sick.

Vivienne reached Kael's side and slipped her arm through his.

The gesture was small. Casual, even.

It still felt like someone had driven a blade between my ribs.

The crowd erupted immediately.

"Luna Vivienne!"

"Our future Luna!"

"Long live the Alpha and Luna!"

The cheers rolled across the square like thunder.

For a moment, I wasn't standing in chains. I was seventeen again, sitting alone in my room with a needle clutched between my fingers, carefully sewing silver beads into a ceremony dress I thought I would one day wear. I remembered blushing whenever someone mentioned Kael's name. Remembered imagining what it would feel like to stand beside him before the kingdom.

I remembered believing those dreams would come true.

The memory hurt more than the chains.

Vivienne looked down at me from the platform, satisfaction glittering in her blue eyes.

"You still look proud," she said softly.

I didn't answer.

Her smile widened.

"I wonder where all that pride will go once the flames start."

Laughter broke out across the crowd.

Actual laughter.

For a second, I simply stared at them.

These were the same people I had fought for. The same people whose children I had protected during rogue attacks. The same people who had once smiled at me in the marketplace.

Now they watched me like entertainment.

A strange numbness settled over me.

I used to care desperately about their opinions. I used to lose sleep trying to earn their respect.

Looking at them now, I couldn't remember why.

My gaze drifted across the crowd, searching for familiar faces. Men and women I had helped over the years avoided my eyes. Some looked guilty. Most looked relieved.

Not one stepped forward.

Not one spoke up.

I should have expected it.

The betrayal still stung.

Kael stepped forward then, and the noise died instantly.

Silence swept through the square.

When he spoke, his voice carried easily to every corner.

"Seraphina Nightshade."

Hearing my name on his lips nearly broke me.

For years I had imagined him saying it with affection. I had imagined hearing it whispered against my skin, spoken with warmth, spoken with love.

Instead, it sounded like a sentence.

A judgment.

The final nail in a coffin.

"You stand accused of conspiring against the Crown."

The crowd roared.

"You stand accused of practicing forbidden blood magic."

More cheers.

"You stand accused of treason."

Someone near the front spat onto the ground in front of me.

I stared at the dark stain soaking into the dirt and felt something inside me go cold.

The trial had been a farce. The evidence had been fabricated. Witnesses had lied under oath. Everyone knew it.

No one cared.

Once a kingdom decides who the villain is, truth becomes little more than an inconvenience.

When I looked back up, Kael was watching me.

For one long moment, neither of us spoke.

I searched his face desperately, hunting for some sign that he doubted this. Some sign that he remembered who I was. Some sign that beneath the Alpha King's mask, the man I had loved still existed.

I found nothing.

The emptiness in his expression crushed whatever hope I had left.

"Do you have any final words?" he asked.

My chest tightened.

Memories flooded through me so quickly they almost stole my breath. His first smile. His first touch. The way my entire day used to brighten whenever he walked into a room. Every dream I'd built around him.

Every future I would never have.

Tears burned behind my eyes.

I hated them.

Hated myself for still caring.

Slowly, I pushed myself to my feet. The chains clinked against the stake as thousands of people watched.

"You once asked me why I never feared death," I said.

A faint crease appeared between Kael's brows.

He remembered.

Good.

"Do you remember what I told you?"

The silence stretched.

A bitter smile touched my lips.

"I told you I wasn't afraid because I believed you would never let anything happen to me."

The square went completely still.

For the first time that night, something cracked in Kael's expression.

Pain.

Real pain.

It appeared for only a second before disappearing again, but I saw it.

So did Vivienne.

Her fingers tightened around his arm immediately.

Interesting.

Perhaps she wasn't as confident as she pretended to be.

I looked away from them both and lifted my gaze toward the moon hanging over the kingdom.

"I loved this place," I said quietly. "I loved these people. I loved my mate."

My throat tightened painfully.

"But none of you ever loved me back."

This time, nobody laughed.

Nobody cheered.

The words settled over the square like smoke.

Then the High Elder raised his staff.

Ancient runes flared to life around the execution stake. Blue fire erupted from the symbols carved into the stone, filling the air with the sharp scent of burning magic.

For the first time all night, fear hit me.

Not abstract fear.

Not the distant awareness that I was going to die.

Real fear.

The kind that made your stomach twist and your pulse hammer against your ribs.

I was twenty-two years old.

I wasn't ready to die.

I still had dreams.

I still had hopes.

I still wanted a future.

The first flame touched my skin.

Agony exploded through me.

My scream tore across the square as the fire climbed higher. Heat consumed everything. The crowd vanished behind a blur of tears and smoke. The world tilted violently around me.

Through the flames, I saw Kael move.

Only a single step.

But he moved.

His face had gone pale. His fists were clenched so tightly I could see the tension in his arms.

And suddenly I understood.

He wasn't certain.

He had never been certain.

He doubted the verdict.

He doubted my guilt.

And he condemned me anyway.

That realization hurt far more than the fire.

Then something deep within my chest stirred.

A pulse.

Ancient and powerful.

The flames around me shifted from blue to crimson.

The ground trembled beneath the kingdom.

A roar split the heavens.

Not a wolf.

Not anything this world should have contained.

The crowd screamed.

Red lightning tore across the sky as strange symbols ignited beneath my skin. They burned through me like living fire, and a voice older than kingdoms whispered through my soul.

"The Dragon Queen has returned."

My breath caught.

The crimson flames exploded outward.

And for the first time that night, every person in the kingdom looked at me not with hatred—

But with fear.