Chapter 1

In my last life, my mate craved one thing, the Alpha King's throne. He used a dark witch’s potions twisted my body, forcing it to carry the first hybrid she-wolf. I gave him a daughter.

But the poison rotted me from the inside out. I died on my coronation day.

I opened my eyes. I was back.

The day the Alphas chose their Breeding Mothers from the human world.

I gasped for air, the ghost of my own death still choking me.

A sharp voice cut through the haze.

"I choose Alpha Colton!"

My sister, Selena.

In our last life, she chose the wealthy Alpha Baton without a second thought.

I saw the ambition in her eyes. The hunger. I knew. She was back, too.

She rushed to choose Colton, all because she died before me.

My poor sister has no idea at all what has happened to me.

"Are you mad, Selena?" Mother’s voice was a frantic whisper. "Colton's lands are a frozen hellscape! You can't throw your life away! We already have a sacrifice. Ronnie is enough."

Same words as last time. The same casual dismissal.

In their eyes, I was always disposable. The one who was just "enough."

"I don't want Baton. He'll never be Alpha King. Only Colton can bring our family glory. Please, Mother, let me go."

Selena whined, collapsing into our mother's arms.

A cold laugh escaped my lips.

She thought marrying Colton meant birthing a female hybrid. That she would be queen.

So naive.

Glory?

The memories flooded back. Colton’s nightly rituals.

The glint of the silver needle.

The poison burning through my veins.

My body withered while the child inside me thrived, fed on pure evil.

I gave him the first she-wolf in a century.

I remember my coronation.

The Alphas bowed before me.

Then I coughed up blood and collapsed on my throne. A queen for only a moment.

“No!” I stood up, my voice shaking but firm. “I refuse. I won’t choose any Alpha.”

These wolf Alphas see us human Breeding mothers as nothing more than cattle anyway. After a death that horrific, all I want is to escape.

Mother’s face turned ugly in an instant. “Ronnie! How dare you!”

“Ronnie,” Selena said, a flash of triumph in her eyes as she faked a concerned tone, “this is our family’s duty…”

“Shut up!” I snapped. “If you want to leap into that fire pit, be my guest. But you are not dragging me down with you!”

“Insolence! Utter insolence!” The family’s Grand Elder coughed, his body shaking with rage. “This is not your choice! Since Selena is willing to fight for the family’s glory, you must take what is left!”

“What choice is left?” I asked coldly.

The elders looked at each other.

“The Shadowclaw Pack,” a voice said from the corner. “Their Alpha, Huxley, is still without a mate.”

The entire hall fell deathly silent.

Shadowclaw.

The pack whispered to be cursed.

Their people can’t complete their shift, forever trapped in a twisted state between man and beast.

They’re seen as deformed monsters by all other wolves.

“I’d rather die!”

I turned to run, but two tall guards grabbed me in an instant.

The Elder gave a cold wave of his hand. “Knock her out. Send her over. The wealth we get in return will keep our family prosperous for another decade.”

Something hard and cold struck the back of my neck.

As my vision faded to black, the last thing I heard was Selena’s fake, sweet voice. “Oh, Ronnie, do take care of yourself…”

When I woke up, I was in the back of a rickety, broken-down carriage.

The air stank of sulfur and desolation.

I’d been thrown out like trash at the border of the Shadowclaw Pack’s territory.

The place was even bleaker than the stories.

Bare rock, twisted dead trees.

Every gust of wind sounded like a monster’s howl.

The horrifying rumors about this pack swirled in my head.

They drank blood and ate raw flesh.

Brutal and merciless.

Maybe my fate here would be even worse than my last life…

Then what was the point of being reborn?!

The memory of the potions eating me alive, combined with the horror of this place, made it hard to breathe.

Fear wrapped around my heart like vines.

No. I can’t just stay here and wait to die. There’s still time!

Under the cover of night, I stumbled out of the crumbling stone hut where I was hiding and ran for the deep woods.

But I only got a few steps before a colossal shadow fell from the sky, swallowing me whole.

He towered over me like a mountain, at least seven feet tall. Half-man, half-beast. Just like the legends said. A monster.

In the dark, his molten gold eyes locked onto me, filled with the predatory pressure of a hunter sizing up its prey.

“Trying to run?” His voice was a low, rough growl that vibrated through my bones.

My legs turned to jelly.

I took half a step back, and his huge hand flashed out, closing with terrifying precision around my slender neck.

I’m dead. That's the only thought in my head. This will be worse than dying at Colton’s hands.

Sheer terror froze me solid.

I forgot to even breathe.

He wasn’t squeezing, but I could feel the sharp tips of his claws prick the skin over my pulse—a silent promise of the absolute power he held over my life.

He leaned down, his hot, feral breath washing over my face.

“Nothing that belongs to me,” he rumbled, “has ever escaped.”

As I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting to be torn apart, my eyes flew open again.

I saw it.

The mark on the inside of his wrist.

Three interlocking crescents, encircled by ancient runes.

That mark… I’ve seen it before.

At my damned coronation in my past life. As I was dying, writhing in agony from the dark potions, a hand reached out from the crowd and pressed a vial into mine. A life-saving potion. That potion was the only reason I lived long enough to see my daughter born. Back then, I only caught a fleeting glimpse of the very same mark on my savior's wrist.

The monster everyone feared… was the stranger who had shown me a moment of mercy in my darkest hour.

And now, in this life, he was my mate.

Alpha Huxley.