Prologue: The Night She Died

Blood tastes like iron—and regret.

That’s all she can think as she lies sprawled across the cold marble floor, the same floor she used to dance on, spinning in circles while laughter spilled from her lips, believing with all her heart that this place was home. Now, the chandelier above her fractures the world into a thousand blinding shards, casting broken rainbows across her fading vision. Her heart stumbles and stutters in her chest, her world narrowing to a pinprick of light and pain. Every nerve screams, every muscle tenses, but she’s pinned by agony and betrayal, unable to move, unable even to cry out.

He stands over her—Adrian. Her mate. Fate’s cruel joke, the one she trusted enough to hand her soul to. The man who once whispered forever and now watches her bleed out, his shadow swallowing what’s left of her.

“Why…?” Her voice is barely more than a breath, a scrap of sound lost amid the echoes of her own heartbeat, broken and so terribly alone.

Adrian’s face twists into something monstrous, ugliness blooming where love once lived. “You were never meant to be Luna,” he spits, each word laced with venom, slicing deeper than any blade. “Weak. Fragile. Worthless.”

Behind him, a soft, mocking laugh slithers through the room, curling around her like smoke. Cassandra. The woman he betrayed her with. The one who wove lies as easily as breathing, who claimed a false pregnancy and set the ruin of everything in motion.

“What a waste,” Cassandra purrs, her fingers tracing circles over her still-flat belly, eyes cold and shining with malice. “All that trouble, all those tears—just for nothing.”

She wants to howl, to shift, to let her wolf tear the world asunder, to unleash the fury thrumming in her bones. But her wolf is silent, crushed beneath the weight of heartbreak, caged by the agony of trust shattered beyond repair.

Adrian’s boot smashes into her ribs, stealing what little air clings to her lungs. Pain explodes, white-hot and blinding, and for a moment the world is nothing but agony. He crouches beside her, strong fingers clamping her jaw so hard she feels the bruise bloom beneath his touch. He leans close, so close she can see the emptiness in his eyes.

“You were a mistake,” he hisses, breath hot and sour against her skin. “A burden. Now? Just a loose end.”

Hot tears spill, blurring the world into a mess of light and shadow. She isn’t afraid—not of dying, not even of the darkness creeping in. She’s gutted, hollowed out, her heart a raw wound. She’s empty in all the places love used to live.

“Adrian… I loved you.” The words slip out, a confession, a plea, a farewell.

For a single heartbeat, something flickers in his eyes—regret, remorse, a shadow of the man she once knew. But it’s gone in an instant, replaced by something colder, something victorious.

“That’s why this is easy,” he murmurs, voice almost gentle, as if her pain is nothing at all.

Her heart falters. Her body grows heavier, the cold creeping in, numbing her from the inside out. The edges of the world begin to dissolve, darkness pooling at the corners of her sight.

She thinks this is the end. That this is how her story closes—betrayed, broken, discarded.

But then—something impossible stirs.

The air thickens, heavy with a power older than the stones beneath her. Silver light spills across the floor, rippling like water, gathering around her in a shimmering tide. A low hum rises from nowhere, soft and mournful, the kind of sound that speaks of ancient sorrow and hope intertwined. Neither Adrian nor Cassandra notices; they are too busy savoring their victory, basking in her defeat, to see the light that begins to glow from within her skin.

Her soul stirs, rising from the wreckage of her body, untethered and weightless. She watches herself from above, sees the blood pooling out, staining the marble a deep, accusing red—a promise broken, a future stolen. A voice drifts through the darkness, gentle as moonlight on still water.

“Not yet, child.”

A woman steps out of the stars—tall, radiant, her presence commanding, eyes violet and deep as the midnight sky. She is beauty and terror, softness and strength, the living embodiment of every myth whispered to frightened children.

“You belong to me,” the goddess intones, her voice a symphony of thunder and lullabies. “You were never meant to die here, on this cold floor, by the hand of a traitor.”

The world fractures around her. The pain, the marble, the mansion, even Adrian’s hateful face—everything dissolves into a swirl of memories and grief, swept away by the goddess’s presence.

Only the voice remains, anchoring her soul.

“You will rise again—not as the girl they destroyed, but as the wolf they most feared, the one written of in stories and shivered at in dreams.”

Power surges through her, wild and untamed, silver fire igniting in her veins, burning away the agony, the sorrow, the remnants of her old self. She feels herself remade, reforged in pain and prophecy.

“You will return.” The goddess’s words are a command and a promise.

A hand, warm and sure, presses to her chest, sending a white-hot jolt through her soul.

“You will remember—every lie, every broken promise, every wound. Your power, your purpose, your vengeance.”

Her soul blazes—white, purple, fire—a storm of color and light that drowns out everything else. She is a star, a howl, a fury reborn.

“And when the time is right, the world will kneel.”

One last burst of moonlight shatters the darkness, and she is gone—ripped from her old life into something new and terrible and beautiful. Reborn as the White Wolf, the prophecy’s spark, the coming storm that will topple kings and tear empires asunder.

She died betrayed.

She will rise for vengeance.

And when she comes back, her enemies—Adrian, Cassandra, all who ever doubted her—will beg for the mercy she buried with her shattered, trusting heart.