Chapter 1

I felt the mate bond snap the moment Alpha Kael marked another woman on our wedding night.

Three years as his Luna. Two stillborn pups he blamed on my "weak bloodline." One rejection ceremony — performed in front of the entire pack while I was secretly carrying his twins.

The pack physician had confirmed it that morning — twins, both with Alpha blood.

I pressed my hand against my stomach and said nothing.

"Do you, Kael Nightcrest, Alpha of the Shadowfang Pack, reject Sera Voss as your bonded mate and Luna?"

His voice didn't waver. "I do."

The bond tore through my chest like a silver blade. I dropped to my knees, gasping, while five hundred wolves watched in silence.

No one helped me up.

His new chosen mate, Vivienne, stood beside him in white — the dress I had been promised. She placed her hand on Kael's arm, and he looked at her with an expression he had never once given me.

Tenderness.

I had spent three years earning that look. She had stolen it in three months.

"Sign the dissolution," Kael said, sliding papers across the ceremonial altar. "You'll receive a cabin at the border and a monthly stipend. Be grateful — most rejected Lunas get nothing."

I signed.

My hand was steady. My wolf was howling.

As I walked toward the pack house to collect my things, his mother blocked my path.

"Finally," Luna Morgaine said, examining her claws. "The stray is leaving."

I smiled. The same dead smile I had perfected at every humiliation.

"Goodbye, Luna Morgaine."

"It's the Luna. There's only one now." She glanced toward Vivienne. "A real one."

I walked past her without another word.

In my room — the small one at the end of the hall, not the Luna suite Kael had never let me use — I packed a single bag.

My phone buzzed.

A message from a number I didn't recognize.

[Sera. Your mother was not who they told you she was. Come to the Silvercrest territory. The High Alpha King is dying. And you are his only heir.]

I read it three times.

Then I laughed — a sound so broken the walls seemed to absorb it.

For three years, I had believed I was nobody. An orphan with no lineage, no wolf rank, no value beyond my womb.

My phone buzzed again.

[You are not a stray, Sera. You are the last Silvercrest. And your wolf has been sealed since birth. It's time to wake her up.]

I placed my hand on my stomach. Two heartbeats pulsed beneath my palm — strong, fast, undeniably Alpha.

Kael had rejected me because he thought I was weak.

He had no idea what he had just unleashed.

I walked out of the Shadowfang pack house at midnight, carrying nothing but a bag, a secret, and the future of a bloodline that could destroy his.

No one watched me leave.

They would regret that.