Chapter 1

Aliyah’s POV

The wind whipped against my face as I ran through the heart of the Shadow Claw Pack, the moonless sky cloaking my pain, the gravel beneath my bare feet tearing into my skin. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. My lungs burned. My breathing hitched. My throat tasted of salt and blood—but the tears just wouldn’t stop.

I didn’t care that the guards at the southern boundary stared as I passed. Or that Elder Marcus shouted something behind me. Nothing mattered anymore.

Everything was unraveling.

Cohen.

The name echoed in my mind like a curse.

I had given him everything. Every smile. Every kiss. Every part of me that was soft, pure, and believing. I could still remember the first time he said “I love you”—we were sixteen, lying on the hill behind the Crescent Training Grounds, laughing at the stars and dreaming of running our own warrior school.

I gave him my heart. My trust. My soul.

And now…

“No,” I gasped, slowing to a walk, my chest heaving. I clutched my stomach as I staggered beneath the cold glow of the Pack’s eastern lights. “No… Cohen wouldn’t do that to me.”

I tried to breathe, but it felt like something was sitting on my chest. A weight I couldn’t lift.

He wouldn’t betray me like this. Not Cohen.

But the rumors… the whispers at training… the snickers from the other she-wolves today…

I turned off the main road, my body aching, my soul already numb. I needed answers. I needed to see it for myself.

Minutes later, I found myself standing in front of the small studio apartment we used to spend our weekends in. The same door he used to sneak me through, whispering promises of forever into my ear.

But the moment I stepped inside, everything inside me shattered.

The posters.

Gone.

Our warrior club’s banners, the scribbled notes we stuck on the fridge, the sketch I made of him in wolf form—they were all gone.

I stood frozen, eyes trailing the blank wall, the unfamiliar gray couch, the pungent smell of cheap perfume that was never mine.

My knees trembled.

And then I heard the laugh.

Her laugh.

Soft. Sultry. And very much not mine.

From the bedroom, a woman emerged—barely dressed in one of Cohen’s old football shirts. My shirt. The one I used to sleep in.

And there he was.

Cohen.

God, he still looked like the man I loved.

Tall, with sharp cheekbones and hair that curled at the ends just enough to be charming. His eyes—a shade of grey that once promised devotion—met mine with zero remorse. His chest was bare, abs defined and glistening faintly under the dim light. He looked like the man I spent years loving, and yet… in that moment, he was a stranger.

“Aliyah,” he said, nonchalantly, as if I’d just walked in on him brushing his teeth.

The girl beside him—Tatiana, I recognized her now—smirked. She didn’t even try to cover herself.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Why?” I croaked. “Why would you do this to me?”

Cohen chuckled.

A chuckle.

Like this was a joke.

“You seriously didn’t figure it out?” he asked, stepping away from the girl and grabbing a drink from the counter. “Gods, you really are naive.”

I stood there, motionless. My fists clenched. My heart cracking with every second.

“I loved you,” I whispered. “I gave you everything, Cohen. I believed in you.”

He tilted his head, grinning. “That was the point, babe. I made a deal with my club. We all had this bet… who could get the innocent Papa’s daughter in bed first. And not just that—full exposure. Nudes, videos, the whole thing. You were the final dare.”

My world shattered.

“You… you were pranking me?” My voice broke. “You recorded me?”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” he said. “It’s not like I uploaded it anywhere. Yet.”

Tatiana laughed. “Honestly, you were always too good for your own good. Guess now you’ve learned what rejection tastes like.”

I stared at Cohen. At the man I once thought I’d mate. The man I once pictured standing beside me at the Luna ceremony.

“You said you loved me,” I whispered. “You said you’d never hurt me.”

He shrugged. “I say a lot of things when I’m bored.”

Something inside me snapped.

I turned away before the tears could spill again. I couldn’t let them see me fall apart. Not anymore. I stumbled out of the apartment, barely aware of how my body was moving.

The wind bit at my skin, but I didn’t care.

Everything felt… hollow.

The mate bond between us—I felt it. The last thread. Breaking.

I thought I would scream, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. The silence was louder.

All I could think of was how we used to be. The first kiss behind the training center. The way he’d wipe away my tears when I failed a trial. The letters he wrote me when he left for Alpha camp.

Lies.

All of it.

I didn’t know where I was going, but my feet carried me toward the town’s outskirts—toward the one place my father forbade me from ever visiting alone.

The Crimson Howl Bar.

They said it was dangerous. Filled with rogues, wanderers, and rebels. But I wasn’t scared. Not tonight.

Maybe I wanted danger. Maybe I wanted pain.

I walked in, and the scent of stale beer and cigarettes hit me instantly. Music roared from the back, and laughter echoed from the pool table.

And that’s when I saw him.

Asher Moretti.

Sitting at the corner table, a whiskey glass in hand, shadowed in darkness but glowing like a god among wolves.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Arms flexed with veined muscle. His jaw was sharp, peppered with a faint stubble, and his raven-black hair was messy in a way that looked criminally good.

His eyes—piercing and unreadable—locked with mine.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

But I walked toward him.

Maybe it was the anger. The betrayal. The void.

Maybe I just didn’t want to feel like nothing anymore.