Chapter 1

The last thing I remembered was the sickening crunch of my own ribs. Killian had stood over me, his eyes colder than the winter mountains, as he watched his whip strip the flesh from my bones. I had died in the mud, discarded like carrion, while my pitch-black pup lay cold and lifeless beside me.

Then, a jolt.

"Elara? What are you staring at? Focus!"

The searing pain vanished, replaced by a sharp nudge to my shoulder. My eyes snapped open. I wasn't in the mountains. I was standing in the Great Hall of the Silver Moon Pack. The air was thick with the scent of pine, rain, and the pheromones of dozens of unmated she-wolves.

I stared at the man beside me. My father, Silas Vane. He looked younger, his face free of the grief that would later consume him.

I was back. Back to the day of the Crimson Selection. The day the future Wolf King would choose his Queen.

Silas leaned in, his voice a frantic whisper. "You carry the Twin Wolf lineage, Elara. You are the jewel of the Vane family. When Prince Killian chooses you, the throne is ours. Do not fail me."

I stayed silent, my heart drumming a frantic rhythm against my ribs. In the center of the hall stood the King, Fenris Thorne, a mountain of a man with scarred skin and golden eyes. Beside him stood his only son—Killian.

The 'White Wolf.' The miracle heir.

Killian’s gaze swept across the line of eager females, eventually landing on me. In my past life, this was the moment I had felt chosen by the heavens. He stepped forward, his boots clicking on the marble, and gripped my hand.

"I choose Elara Vane, Father," he declared, his voice ringing through the hall.

My skin crawled at his touch. I wanted to scream, to rip my hand away, but my throat was frozen.

To seal the bond, the blood covenant was needed. Killian drew a silver blade, ready to nick my finger and merge our life forces. But just as the steel touched my skin, he paused. A strange, knowing flicker passed through his eyes—a look of pure, unadulterated hatred.

He shoved me away with such force I nearly stumbled.

"I refuse!" Killian roared, his voice echoing with a sudden, savage authority. "I will not marry Elara Vane!"

The Hall fell into a deathly silence. King Fenris’s expression darkened instantly, his aura of a True Alpha crushing the breath from the room.

Killian didn't look back at me. Instead, he strode toward my cousin, Sienna Blythe—a lowly brown wolf from a disgraced branch of the family. He took her trembling hand and raised it high.

"I wish to marry Sienna instead, Father! She is my true mate!"

The realization hit me like a physical blow. Killian was reborn, too.

The fool. He thought by choosing a different female, he could change the 'curse' of his pups. He thought it was my blood that had produced that weak, black pup in our past life.

He didn't know the truth I had discovered in my final, dying moments. He wasn't a pure white wolf. He was a half-breed, sired by his father’s mistress—a tigress from the enemy clan. He was sterile to our kind, a biological dead end.

I watched him whisper sweet promises into Sienna’s ear, his eyes burning with a monstrous, vengeful fire. I wanted to laugh. Let him have her. Let him find out that no matter who he marked, his bloodline was a dead branch on the royal tree.

But the King was not a man of mercy.

Fenris descended from his throne, his rage rolling like a thunderstorm. He didn't look at his son. He looked at Sienna, who was basking in her stolen glory.

SLAP!

The sound of his hand hitting Sienna’s face was like a gunshot. She crumpled to the floor, her cheek blossoming into a bruised red.

"How dare a common cur covet the blood of the Wolf King!" Fenris thundered.