Chapter 1

I was the only she-wolf in the pack with two mates—a pair of twin Alphas, Kael and Kieran.

They adored me, loved me, and would shift into wolf form just to carry me on their backs.

Until a healer named Sera arrived at the pack, with a pup in tow.

My mates started coming home smelling like her.

After one fight, Kael severed our mate bond without a second thought and walked away.

Kieran held me close, swearing he'd never leave—even as Sera's scent clung heavier and heavier to his skin.

I didn't dare confront him. Not until I saw Kieran step out of Sera's cottage with claw marks of pleasure raked across his back.

My soul ripped in two. I turned and ran, straight to my Alpha father's house.

"Father, the marriage alliance with the vampires—let me be the one to go."

…

"Elara, have you lost your mind?!"

My father—Marcus, Alpha of our pack—shot to his feet so fast his chair scraped against the floor. His amber eyes burned faintly red with shock. The wolf was close to the surface.

"They're vampire!" His voice rang off the study walls. "Wolves and vampires have been at each other's throats for a thousand years! Nobody knows what the hell will go wrong with this first-ever alliance marriage!"

I stood before him, fists clenched in the fabric of my skirt, fighting to look composed. But I knew the two faded marks on my neck gave me away. They were the scars left behind when a mate bond breaks—like two dead brands, reminding me of what I'd once had and what I'd lost.

"Father, I've made up my mind." My voice came out steadier than I expected.

Marcus drew a deep breath. The wolf receded from his eyes. He crossed to me and placed both hands on my shoulders. Alpha hands—warm, strong, full of the instinct to protect.

"What did they do this time?" His tone went cold in an instant. "Was it Kael or Kieran? I'll go settle the score right now—"

"Don't!" The word tore out of me almost as a shout. "Father, please don't!"

I grabbed his arm in a panic. Last time—when Kael severed our bond and left me for that newcomer Sera—I'd gone to my father in tears. He'd been furious, nearly drove Sera out of the pack altogether.

It only made everything worse.

The look in Kael's eyes shifted from tenderness to disgust. "Elara, do you have any idea what you're doing? Sera hasn't done a single thing wrong. She's just a mother who fled here with her pup, and you want to throw her out?"

"Take away your father's protection," he said with a cold smirk, "and what do you even have left? A she-wolf who can't even take care of herself—what makes you think you deserve to be this pack's future Luna?"

Those words hit like silver bullets through my heart.

And worse still, Kieran had grown distant. He no longer brought me blueberry muffins every morning, no longer ran beside me through the forest on full-moon nights, no longer whispered sweet things in my ear.

"Elara." My father's voice pulled me back. "You're my only daughter. I can't bear the thought of sending you so far away—to those cold-blooded vampires."

He paused, his amber eyes heavy with heartache. "But I can't just stand by and watch you suffer, either. The alliance roster is due in three days. Give yourself three more days to think it over. Will you do that?"

I nodded, though I already knew I wouldn't change my mind.

I stepped out of the study into a hallway lined with torches that cast dancing shadows on the stone walls. Our pack lived in an old manor—once a nobleman's castle, long since claimed by wolves. Soaring vaulted ceilings, Gothic windows—every inch of it steeped in age.

I walked slowly, because my soul was still writhing inside those two severed marks. A mate bond was the most sacred connection between wolves. When two wolves recognized each other as fated mates, they marked each other's necks. The mark gave off a unique pheromone that told the world: *this one is taken.*

But when a bond is broken deliberately—the pain is like someone carving into your soul with a silver blade, cut by agonizing cut.

I reached the front courtyard. A night breeze carried the chill of late autumn. Oak leaves crunched beneath my feet.

And then I saw him.

Kieran.

He stood at the bottom of the courtyard steps, moonlight silvering his brown hair into a pale halo.

He wore a dark gray sweater, hands shoved in his pockets, as if waiting for someone.

My heart hammered all over again.

Even though he'd severed our bond just last night.

But here he was.

Maybe he regretted it. Maybe he'd come back for me—after all, he had loved me so fiercely once.

Hope swelled in my chest. Wretched, burning hope.

Even after he'd hurt me. Even after he'd abandoned me. I would have forgiven him in a heartbeat, if only he'd come back.

That was the curse of the mate bond—even shattered, the love stayed carved into your soul.

I took a step toward him.

Then I heard a child's laughter.

A little boy darted out from a side door—five or six years old, at most. He giggled as he ran straight for Kieran and threw himself at him.

"Kieran! Kieran! Mommy said you promised to take me to see the fireflies!"

Kieran crouched down, and his smile was so gentle it broke my heart. I hadn't seen that kind of tenderness on his face in a long time.

"Of course, little guy." He grinned. "Hop on my back."

Then, as I watched, his body began to change.

Bones cracked and shifted. Skin rippled beneath a coat of dark gray fur. His frame expanded under the moonlight. In seconds, a massive wolf stood in the courtyard, amber eyes deep and warm.

That was Kieran's wolf form.

The little boy let out a whoop and scrambled onto the broad wolf's back.

I stood frozen. The world spun around me.

That was… that was the spot that had belonged to *me*.

On countless full-moon nights, Kieran would shift and let me ride on his back as we tore through the forest, chasing starlight.

He'd carry me to mountaintops for the sunrise, to streams where we'd catch fish, to patches of the sweetest wild blueberries.

"Only my mate gets to ride on my back," he'd once murmured against my ear. "And you, Elara, will always be my mate."

But now, another woman's child sat in that place.

Sera's child.

The great wolf bounded toward the forest with the boy on his back. Their silhouettes melted into the dark.

I stood where I was, feeling the last trace of warmth drain out of my soul.

Cold.

A cold that went straight to the bone.

I turned and stumbled back to my quarters.

It was time to leave.

Off to the Blood Kin. To those cold-blooded vampires.

Could it really be any colder there than it was here?