Chapter 1

The mating bite on my neck was still bleeding when my Alpha dragged another woman onto the stage—at our Luna ceremony, in front of three hundred wolves, with my blood still on his lips.

My knees buckled. I grabbed the edge of the ceremonial altar to stay upright. Every eye in the great hall turned toward me.

Not with sympathy. With pity.

Drake Voss, Alpha of the Ironmaw Pack, stood beneath the blood moon banner with his arm around Lana Marsh's waist. She wore ceremonial white—Luna white—and a moonstone pendant I'd never seen before gleamed at her throat.

"I know this breaks tradition," Drake said, his voice carrying across the hall like a command. "But the Moon Goddess has spoken to me. Lana carries my pup. She is my true mate. She is your Luna."

The hall erupted. Gasps, snarls, the sharp intake of three hundred breaths. Drake's mother, Helene, stood near the bonfire, smiling.

She'd known. They'd all known.

I stood frozen at the altar, wearing the white dress I'd been given that morning—back when I still believed my mate wanted me. Back when I was stupid enough to trust a wolf who smelled like another woman every night he came home.

Lana looked straight at me. She pressed her hand to her belly and smiled—soft, victorious, like a she-wolf who'd already claimed her throne.

"Sera, don't make this harder than it needs to be." Drake stepped toward me, voice dropping low, meant only for my ears. "Accept the rejection. I'll give you a cabin on the eastern border. You can live quietly."

A cabin. On the border where rogues hunted. Where wolves went to be forgotten.

Three years as his mate. Three years running his pack house, hosting visiting Alphas, swallowing his mother's venom. Three years of silence when he stumbled in reeking of Lana's scent.

And my consolation was exile.

"You planned this," I whispered. My throat was so tight the words barely escaped. "You marked me tonight just to reject me publicly."

"I marked you so the rejection would be clean. Official." His jaw tightened. "Don't fight it, Sera. You're wolfless. Everyone knows it. You can't shift, you have no power, and the only reason this pack tolerated you was because of me."

That was the lie he'd built our bond on—that I was nothing without him.

Behind him, Lana swayed. "Drake, I feel faint…"

Instantly, he turned. "Someone bring water! A healer! Think of the pup!"

Five wolves rushed to her side. Helene stroked her hair. The pack healer materialized from nowhere.

Nobody looked at me.

I stood alone at the altar, blood dripping from the bite wound on my neck, and realized I had never been more invisible.

Then my phone buzzed.

A message from a number I'd never seen. But the words hit like lightning.

"Sera, your grandfather is dying. He's asking for you. Come to the Thornwood estate. It's time you learned what your mother died to protect."

My hands trembled. Not from sadness. Not from humiliation.

From something stirring deep inside me—something locked away so long I'd forgotten it existed.

I looked at Drake, still fussing over Lana, and something ancient and furious shifted behind my ribs.

"Keep your cabin," I said.

He barely glanced back. "Don't be dramatic."

"I said keep it." I reached up, pressed my fingers to the bleeding bite mark on my neck, and spoke the words that would sever our bond forever. "I, Sera, reject you, Drake Voss, as my mate and Alpha."

The bond snapped. Drake staggered, eyes wide.

"What did you—"

"You'll find out."

I walked out of the great hall, past the whispers, past the stares, past the woman in white who thought she'd won.

The night air hit me like ice water. My phone buzzed again.

"A car is waiting at the eastern gate. Black. Unmarked. The driver knows your real name—Thornwood."

Thornwood.

The name my mother had burned from every document. The name behind the Alpha King's bloodline—the ruling line of all five packs. A dynasty of wolves so powerful that entire territories bowed at the sound of it.

My name.