Chapter 9

Three days later. The full moon.

Aiden stood on the highest platform of the Silver Moon altar.

He should have been smiling, waiting for his Luna, but his eyes were glued to the main gates of the headquarters.

They were empty.

He didn't know what he was looking for. He just knew someone was missing.

The one person who always had his back. His warrior.

Even though he had banished her, even though he knew she would never return.

He was waiting for a miracle.

Or maybe just a reason to finally let go.

"Alpha?" an Elder prompted from behind him. "The Luna is waiting."

Aiden snapped back to reality. He glanced at Gianna, dressed in her ceremonial robes, looking at him anxiously.

He took her hand, ready to turn back to the altar.

Just then, a roar of an engine shattered the peace of the ceremony.

A moment later, a war-battered truck, caked in mud and grime, smashed through the main gates. Guards scattered like bowling pins.

"The ceremony is under attack!"

Guards yelled in panic as the crowd descended into chaos.

Gianna screamed and hid behind Aiden.

But Aiden didn't move.

He stood on the high platform, his pupils shrinking as he stared at the familiar vehicle.

It was my truck.

The truck screeched to a halt at the foot of the altar.

The door opened.

It wasn't an assassin who stepped out. It was my second-in-command, Liam.

He had fought by my side through hell and back. Now his face was unshaven and streaked with tears.

He ignored the weapons aimed at him. He ignored Aiden's shocked expression.

He turned to the truck, and with a reverence that silenced the chaos, he lifted a figure from the passenger seat.

Not a person. A body.

It was wrapped tightly in a black body bag, the face hidden.

But from the limp, dangling arm, the dried bloodstains, the fingers still clenched into a fist even in death...

Everyone knew who it was.

The entire pack fell silent.

Liam held me in his arms and walked up the steps, one by one. Each footstep was a heavy thud that echoed in the silence.

He stopped before the altar. He didn't bow to the Alpha. He didn't even glance at the woman who was about to become Luna.

He gently laid my body down on the sacred altar.

"Liam! Are you insane?!" Gianna shrieked, snapping out of her shock. "This is my mating ceremony! How dare you bring a corpse—"

"Shut up!"

Liam spun around. His gaze locked on Aiden, the hatred in his eyes burning free.

"You wanted Gianna," he spat. "Rhea paid for her with her life."

He took one step back and dropped to one knee.

And then, one by one, the warriors I had saved, the pack members whose lives I had touched… they all dropped to their knees, bowing their heads.

A single, mournful howl of grief echoed across the plaza.

Aiden's face was chalk white. He stared at the still form on the altar.

And then he felt it. An invisible hand wrapped around his heart, squeezed, and ripped.

A strangled cry of agony tore from his throat. His body began to shake violently. He clutched his chest and collapsed to one knee.

A raw power he had never known exploded inside him.

His wolf.

The wolf that had been sealed away since his puphood by the former Luna's poison and witchcraft. The soul that should have grown with him was now breaking its chains in the most brutal way imaginable.

"Aiden!" Gianna screamed in terror.

But Aiden couldn't hear her. His world had collapsed into nothing but pure, searing pain.

His wolf was howling.

In the first second of its awakening, it reached out for its other half—its fated mate—and found only the cold, silent void of a dead soul.

All those days of restlessness, the sleepless nights, the tightness in his chest… it was never anger.

It was his wolf, crying for the mate it was about to lose forever.

The fated bond hadn't just broken.

The moment he finally felt it, it was already a pile of cold ash.

Aiden lifted his head. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on the body wrapped in black cloth, his entire frame threatening to shatter.

He reached out a trembling hand, his voice a raw, shredded whisper.

"No… impossible… Uncover her…"

Tears streamed down Liam's face as he reached forward and slowly pulled back a corner of the shroud.

Her familiar face. Lifeless.

Aiden's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

A silent, soul-shattering scream erupted from his wolf.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Huge, scalding tears fell from the cold Alpha's eyes.

He finally understood.

"Rhea," he choked out, "She's my… fated mate…"

He forced the last, impossible question from his ruined throat.

"How… how could she be dead?!"