Chapter 1: Somebody help me (ASTRID POV)

I tore through the forest, blind with fear. My arms pumped furiously at my sides, legs aching as I pushed myself farther from Iron Claw Pack.

The night pressed in around me, silver moonlight washing over the trees like a cold, silent witness. The full moon hung low in the sky—mocking me, maybe. Or just watching as I ran for my life.

My breath came in harsh, burning pants. Every gulp of air felt like fire dragging down my throat. My lungs protested, my chest tight and raw.

I could feel my heart hammering in my chest like it was trying to escape too. My hair whipped behind me, tangling in the wind, sticky strands clinging to my sweaty face.

I cast a frantic glance over my shoulder. My emerald eyes scanned the shadows, desperate. I didn’t see them—but I could hear them. The pounding of paws on dirt and leaves.

They were gaining on me.

The Alpha had sent his lycans after me. To drag me back.

A soft whimper escaped my throat as I pushed harder. If I could just make it to the pack’s border, I could vanish. No trace. No trail. Just gone.

I should’ve left years ago. I don’t know why I waited so long. Maybe I do—fear. Fear of the unknown. The outside world was a mystery, and even hell feels like home when it’s all you’ve ever known.

I was an orphan. Left at the gates of Iron Claw Pack as a newborn, discarded like trash. Alpha Kael found me—but he never loved me. He didn’t raise me as his daughter. He made me a servant.

The omegas raised me. They were the lowest of the low, and so I was treated the same. Especially after they realized I had no wolf. No shifting. No bond with the moon.

Kael didn’t take me in out of pity. The night he found me, I had a strange silver crescent moon on my palm. A mark. I didn’t understand it back then.

When I was eight, he burned it off. Made me swear never to speak of it. I didn’t. But I never forgot it. Deep down, I knew it meant something. Something important. Something about me.

But instead of answers, I got a life of pain. Omegas were nothing. Less than nothing. We were beaten, starved, punished for existing. That was my childhood. My life.

The women who raised me told me how Kael found me. No one ever questioned why I had no wolf. They just saw me as broken.

But tonight… Tonight was my eighteenth birthday. The day I was supposed to find my mate.

And somehow, I did.

Gerald. Kael’s son. The only boy I’d ever had feelings for.

Tears blurred my vision as his voice echoed in my mind, cruel and sharp like a whip.

*"I can't be mated to a scumbag like you. An omega mated to the future Alpha? Forget it, Astrid. I reject you."*

I let out a sob as I ran harder, my heart shattering all over again. His rejection was a knife. The laughter of the others still rang in my ears. I remembered the shame. The humiliation.

I ran into the forest to hide. To be alone.

But instead, I stumbled onto something worse.

I saw Alpha Kael. He was speaking with a group of shifters in hushed, angry tones.

"You should have come to us immediately you discovered the mark on her, Alpha Kael," one of them hissed. "We can’t let anyone find out she has the Keeper’s mark. If we’re going to kill her, it has to be now.

"The moment you saw the mark, you should’ve killed her as a child,”  another snapped.

Kael’s voice was cold, defensive. “I had no idea what the mark meant. That’s why I kept it secret. But it’s not too late. We’ll kill her tonight. She’s an omega. No one will care."

That’s when I knew. I wasn’t just unloved—I was a target. They wanted me dead.

In my shock, I stepped on a twig. It cracked beneath my foot like a gunshot.

Kael’s eyes locked onto mine across the clearing.

“Get her!"

And I ran.

Now here I was—running for my life because I finally understood that it was never going to get better. That they were never going to stop hurting me. That this time, they’d finish the job.

Branches tore at my skin. My legs trembled. I could feel them closing in, their growls like thunder in the trees.

I stumbled, nearly falling, but I forced myself forward.

Then it happened.

My foot caught on a thick root, and I crashed to the ground. Pain exploded in my side. I bit back a scream and forced myself up, limping, clawing through the shrubs.

And then—I saw it. The border.

Hope surged in my chest. I just had to cross it. Just a few more steps—

A body slammed into me, knocking the air from my lungs. We hit the ground hard, rolling, growling, limbs tangled.

Pain flared in my waist. I screamed.

I tried to crawl away, clawing at the earth, but it was too late. They’d caught up.

They surrounded me. No escape. No mercy.

The one who tackled me yanked me up and threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.

"LET ME GO!" I screamed, kicking, pounding my fists. "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

My voice rang through the trees. No one answered.

Hope drained out of me like blood. I was going to die. They were going to kill me, and no one would care.

"Moon Goddess, help me," I whispered, barely audible, as tears ran down my face.

Darkness tugged at my vision. My body gave in.

Then—

A roar split the night.

The lycans froze. I felt it ripple through them. Fear.

"What was that?" the one holding me asked through the mind link.

Before they could react, another roar came. Closer. Louder. Angrier.

Something was coming.

Paws thundered through the forest, growing louder by the second.

Then he appeared.

A massive wolf burst from the trees. Towering. Terrifying. At least eight feet tall. Its fur was the color of midnight, and its eyes—those glowing, blood-red eyes—locked onto me.

Fury radiated off it like heat.

The lycans backed away, trembling.

Then the beast shifted.

Dark fur receded, bones cracked, and in its place stood a man.

He was beautiful in a deadly kind of way. Dark hair, chiseled features, ruby eyes that seemed to see everything. Power clung to him like a second skin. An Alpha. A true Alpha.

He stepped forward. His voice was low and lethal.

“Take your hands off my mate.”