Chapter 1

The Blood Moon would seal every mate-vow at midnight.

At seven, I heard my fiancé tell his pack he'd chosen another Luna.

Not me. Her.

"Wren will kneel as my Second," Rhett laughed. "She always does."

I stood outside that door holding the bonding cup and didn't make a sound.

And at 11:59, I swore my blood to his enemy.

We were supposed to be celebrating.

Eighteen years ago, my mother knelt in the snow behind the Ironpine pack house, took the hand of a six-year-old boy, and pressed it into mine. "Hold her hand," she told him. "Don't let go."

Rhett Calloway never let go. Not through our first shift. Not through two Pack Games titles. Not through the night he slipped a moonstone promise ring onto my finger and said, After the Crown Trials. We win the Council seat first. Then forever.

This was a Trials year. Every four years, the strongest Alpha-and-Luna pairs from every pack fought for one seat on the High Council. And tonight, under the Blood Moon, every heir had to name his Luna in the moon-ledger. Once the moon set, the vow was blood. Unbreakable.

We'd planned to seal it together. Side by side. After dinner with the pack.

I was carrying the silver bonding cup down the hall when I heard my name through the war-room door.

"So what about Wren?" one of the enforcers asked. "You two are the favorites. Everyone says Ironpine takes the seat this year."

A glass clinked. Then Rhett, easy as breathing:

"Relax. I already wrote it in the ledger. Sienna's my Luna for the Trials."

Silence. Then the room exploded.

"You're joking."

"The ledger's open to the whole pack," Rhett said. "Wren will see it, cry for twenty minutes, and swear the Second's oath so she can stay in the pack house. She'll wait four years. She can't fight without me. Try having someone hold your hand since you were six."

Laughter. Somebody howled.

"Why Sienna? She can barely hold her shift."

"Her father was exiled for treason. Her mate rejected her in June. She says if she doesn't make the Trials this year, she's done. Forever." A pause. "She asked me to get her there. One season."

"That's not it," someone sang.

"It's not like that," Rhett said, in the voice he used when it was exactly like that. "Just don't tell Wren I did it for Sienna. She'll lose it, and I'll spend three days calming her down. I don't have three days."

"Sienna's gorgeous, though," another voice sighed. "So delicate. You just want to protect her."

"Not like Wren," a girl laughed. I knew that voice. Tessa, who borrowed my wrist wraps every single morning. "No offense, but she's been wearing the same gray hoodie since we were pups. Next to Sienna? Not even close."

A chair scraped. Someone poured another round.

I looked down. My claws had come out without permission. Four crescents of blood bloomed in my palm.

Here's what nobody in that room knew.

I never fought for Rhett.

I fought for a she-wolf who once stood in the Northern arena in 1997, three months from the Crown Trials, when her Alpha told her he'd found someone younger. Someone with better blood. Someone easier to show off.

My mother never fought again.

She came south to Ironpine, married my father, trained pups in the snow, and died of silver sickness when I was twelve. In her last week, she pressed a carved bone token into my hand. A wolf's head. Northern work.

"Elder Marek," she whispered. "Frostfang. Whenever you're ready. He'll be waiting."

Frostfang. Ironpine's oldest enemy.

I never told Rhett. He knew my mother died. He never once asked why I trained until my paws bled.

And three days ago, Elder Marek had called me for the first time in twelve years.

"Kael Thorne's Luna partner just stepped down. Injury," he'd said. "He needs a partner. You need a reason. The ledger closes at midnight."

I'd laughed. I'd said I was happy where I was.

Now I set the bonding cup on the floor, very gently, so it wouldn't make a sound.

Then I walked out into the cold, sat in my truck with the engine off, and pulled up a number I had never once dialed back.