Prologue

The night they killed her, everyone believed Nyxara Vale was finished—reduced to nothing but dust and the echo of a nightmare they all hoped to forget. Whispers of her death flickered through the dark like moths to a flame, and for a moment, the world exhaled. Her name, once spoken with awe and envy, became a warning, a cautionary tale for anyone foolish enough to rise too high.

Cassian Ward grinned as he hammered the final stake into the earth, his hands slick with sweat and satisfaction, convinced his work was done. Beside him, Brielle Shaw’s laughter sliced through the night, brittle and merciless, the sound of trust splintering beyond repair. Together, they watched the shadows, certain that their greatest rival—the untouchable heiress, too beautiful and cunning for her own good—had finally been wiped clean from the ledger of the living.

They thought they’d won. They thought Nyxara was gone for good.

They were wrong.

Pain, sharp as shattered glass, forced Nyxara back to herself. Death hovered, a cold, insistent presence, but she refused its embrace. In that suspended moment, where breath falters and the world narrows to a single pulse, something ancient and savage stirred in her blood. A memory older than fear—older than betrayal—awakened. From the abyss inside her, a wolf materialized: white as moonlit bone, wild as the storm that splits the sky. It prowled her veins, fierce and hungry, its promise echoing in her mind—vengeance, power, rebirth.

You are not done. Rise.

Nyxara’s eyes snapped open, violet fire burning beneath her lashes—an untamable inferno that would never be extinguished. Every betrayal flashed before her, each one forging her will into a weapon sharper than any blade. The dreams they’d tried to steal from her twisted into new forms—armor, claws, teeth. The world had crowned her the White Wolf’s heir in secret, but now, awakened by agony and rage, she claimed the title with every beat of her heart.

But rage alone was not enough. She needed patience. She needed cunning. So Nyxara forced herself to lie still, to let the illusion of her death settle over the city like a shroud. Let them celebrate, she thought—let the traitors toast their victory with wine sweeter than any blood. Let Cassian preen in the limelight, let Brielle dance in the ashes of what they thought was her ruin. The world could believe whatever it wished.

Let them all.

Because Nyxara Vale was not a memory. She was a reckoning waiting to unfold, and the storm inside her was only gathering strength. She would rise, not as the pampered heiress they remembered, but as something forged from sorrow and fury—a force that would tear through every lie, every alliance, every illusion they’d built on her grave. Cassian’s arrogance, Brielle’s cruelty, the world’s indifference—none of it would shield them from what was coming.

They had not destroyed her. They had unleashed her.

Nyxara Vale was not just a girl betrayed by those she trusted. She was the storm they could no longer outrun—the howl in the darkness, the bite of winter on the wind, the promise of retribution that would not be denied. She was coming for what she was owed, for what had been stolen, and for everything her enemies had ever feared.

And when she rose, nothing could stand in her way—not Cassian, not Brielle, not any who dared oppose the wolf whose rage and hunger had finally been unchained.