Chapter 1

The Price I Paid I didn't wake up trapped. I walked into the cage willingly. Five years ago, my brother Norton got sick. The healers called it Soul Withering—a disease that only attacks werewolves with ancient bloodlines. I watched him deteriorate week by week, his strength draining like water through a crack. Nobody could help him. Nobody except one man. Alpha Xethes. He controlled the entire North, and more importantly, he owned the only medical archives that might save my brother's life. Two transformation specialists worked for him. I'd heard their names whispered in academic circles as legends I'd never imagined meeting. I had one thing he wanted: myself. The contract looked fair on paper. In exchange for your commitment as mate, you will receive unlimited medical access for your sibling and elevated pack status. Words that promised equity. Reality was different. Veda arrived within the first week. She'd been Xethes' favorite concubine before I came, and she had no intention of letting some desperate stranger from a minor pack take her position. Within days, she'd implemented something called "The Pack's Internal Protocols"—a system designed to maintain order, she claimed. What it actually did was strangle me. "You'll need my authorization to leave your chambers for more than an hour," she explained, all sweetness and fake concern. "Meals arrive on schedule. Your day needs structure, dear Luna." I needed to get Norton help. That was my only goal. So I endured. Every humiliation bought my brother another week of treatment. Every restriction was the price of his survival. I learned to smile in the mirror without emotion—no despair to provoke Veda's cruelty, no satisfaction to make Xethes think everything was fine. A blank mask that gave nothing away. The worst part? Xethes barely noticed I existed. "Again with medical applications?" he'd say when I approached him. "Can't you see I'm busy? Veda handles those matters." He'd disappear to her chambers, and I'd stand alone in his office with my requests in hand. Five years of that.