PROLOGUE

VARGRHEIM:

The world had long whispered of monsters lurking in the dark, of beasts that walked among men with human faces and predatory hearts. But for centuries, those whispers were nothing more than cautionary tales—stories meant to keep children from wandering too far at night.  

Until Vargrheim rose from the shadows and thrived in plain sight.

It was not the first kingdom of monsters, nor the last, but it became the most feared.

While human rulers battled against the ever-growing dominion of vampires, fae, warlocks, and ogres, another kingdom was born—one that did not seek alliances, one that did not beg for recognition.  

A kingdom of wolves.  

The wolves of Vargrheim were unlike any other creatures that roamed the world. They were stronger than the vampires, who drained life from their prey. Faster than the warlocks, whose magic took time to summon. More cunning than the fae, who relied on their silver tongues and ageless wisdom.  

And above them all stood the Alpha.

A being neither god nor mortal, but something in between. A force of nature itself.

It was the Moon Goddess—a deity they worshipped, that chose him, who granted him a power so great that even the other supernatural races feared his existence. 

It was said the Alpha’s will could bend the very laws of their kind—that his howl could command the wind, that his rage could shake the earth.  

Where other wolves shifted only beneath the full moon, the Alpha could change at will into man, beast, something in between. No waiting. No limits. No mercy.

Where other wolves healing took hours, his took seconds.

 Where their strength had limits, his did not.  

The Moon’s blessing was a double-edged sword, for the Alpha was not merely a ruler. He was the balance itself. 

Unpredictable. 

Unrestrained. 

Unchallenged.  

The vampires called him a wild card.

The warlocks named him a living curse.

The fae? They called him a mistake...

The world plunged into a war not long after Vargrheim rose.

There had been a fragile peace once, a tense truce between the realms of men and the creatures of the night.  

Until the fae shattered it.  

For reasons lost to time, the fae—once watchers, sentinels of ancient law, allied with the humans to launch an all-out war against the werewolves and vampires. 

The battle raged for years, a bloodstained chapter in history that even the immortal races hesitated to speak of.  

The Alpha of that age was the last true king of Vargrheim.  

It was he who led the wolves into battle, his strength turning the tide again and again. It was said he could not be killed—that every blade that struck him shattered, that every spell cast against him fizzled into nothing.  

But in the end, even he was not enough.  

The fae’s trickery, their mastery of ancient magic, bound him.  

It took thirteen warlocks, a circle of fae high lords, and the blood of a thousand men to seal him away. 

Buried beneath rock and ruin, locked in a slumber that no one could undo. 

With him gone, the werewolves of Vargrheim had no choice but to retreat behind their Moon-blessed barrier. And subsequent Alpha’s after him were weakened. They did not possess his might.

The werekind remained untouched, their kingdom intact, but the cost was great. They had become cut off from the world, severed from its growth and power. The other supernatural races bent the knee to the fae.

But Vargrheim?  

It waited.

There was an old legend, whispered only in the darkest corners of the kingdom.  

It spoke of a time when the Alpha King would rise again.

When the Moon Goddess would choose her champion once more.  

He would come with fire in his veins and storm in his voice.

He would break the chains of the past and reclaim the throne stolen from their kind.

He would be the reckoning.  

The prophecy did not name him, but it did name his title—the Alpha King.

But legends, no matter how deeply buried, never truly die.  

And if the Moon’s will had changed…  

If she had chosen again…  

Then the world would tremble once more.

~~

A ‘he.’ Always a ‘he.’

The right to rule had only belonged to men alone.

For never in history had the Moon Goddess chosen a female Alpha.