Chapter 1He rejected me at the altar. In front of every Alpha. While my daughter screamed for me from the arms of his mistress. And the entire Blood Moon Pack cheered.
The words still echoed off the stone walls of the ceremonial hall—"I, Kael Thornwood, Alpha of Blood Moon, reject you, Sera Voss, as my mate and Luna."
Pain detonated through the mate bond like a silver blade dragged through my chest. I doubled over, gasping, clawing at my ribs where the bond was shredding itself apart. Blood filled my mouth. My wolf howled inside me—not with rage. With grief.
"Mama! Mama, no!"
My daughter. My Lily. Four years old, thrashing in the arms of Kael's chosen woman—Ravenna. His secretary. His lover. The she-wolf who had slithered into my pack, my bed, my life, and smiled while she poisoned everything I built.
Ravenna held my child like a prop, one manicured hand gripping Lily's arm, the other resting on the swell of her pregnant belly—carrying Kael's second child. The heir he actually wanted.
"Someone take this… creature out of my sight," Kael said, adjusting his ceremonial cloak like I was a stain on his evening.
The Alphas at the long table didn't flinch. Some smirked. One raised his goblet.
"Mama!" Lily screamed again, reaching for me with both hands, tears streaming down her face. "Please—Mama—"
I lunged for her.
Two enforcers caught me before I made it three steps. Their grips were iron, bruising my arms as they hauled me backward. My knees scraped the stone floor. I fought—clawed, kicked, bit—but without my wolf's full strength, I was nothing against trained warriors.
"Let me hold my daughter!" I screamed. "She's terrified—Kael, please—"
He didn't look at me. He was already walking toward Ravenna, his hand settling on her belly with a tenderness I hadn't seen in years. Maybe ever.
"Ravenna is the true Luna of Blood Moon," he announced to the gathered Alphas. "She carries my son. My heir. The girl—" He waved dismissively toward Lily. "—is not of my blood. The paternity test confirmed it."
A gasp rippled through the hall.
"That test was falsified!" I choked out, still fighting the enforcers. "Ravenna tampered with it—she bribed the pack healer—"
"Enough." Kael's voice cracked like a whip. He finally turned to me, and his eyes—those golden eyes I once thought held the universe—were flat. Dead. "You've embarrassed yourself enough for one lifetime, Sera. Take whatever dignity you have left and crawl out of my territory."
Ravenna leaned into him, her smile soft, her voice softer. "Don't be too hard on her, my love. She's clearly unwell. The delusions… the lies… perhaps the rogue shelter would take her in."
The Alphas chuckled.
My vision blurred. My wolf was clawing at my insides, howling, begging me to shift—but I couldn't. Not here. Not surrounded by wolves loyal to him.
"Lily," I whispered. "Just let me take Lily."
Kael's jaw tightened. "That child stays here. She'll be raised properly—by Ravenna. Not by a deranged, rejected she-wolf with no pack, no status, and no mate."
"She's MY daughter—"
"She's pack property," he said coldly. "And you are no longer pack."
The enforcers dragged me toward the doors. I screamed until my throat shredded. I screamed Lily's name until the stone walls swallowed the sound. The last thing I saw before the iron doors slammed shut was my baby's face—red, wet, terrified—and Ravenna's hand clamping over her mouth.
Then darkness.
They threw me into the exile pit—a stone cell beneath the pack house, reserved for wolves sentenced to banishment. No light. No warmth. The walls wept with moisture and the air tasted like rust and old blood.
I pressed my back against the cold stone, trembling, and pulled out the one thing they hadn't taken—a small, cracked phone I'd hidden in my boot.
One contact. One name I swore I'd never call.
My fingers shook so violently I could barely tap the screen.
It rang once. Twice.
Then—
"Damien speaking."
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Chapter 2
My breath came in ragged pulls, each one scraping my ribs like broken glass. Damien Volkov. The name alone made my wolf stir—not with fear. With something older. Something I had buried so deep I thought it was dead.
"Damien… it's Sera."
Silence. Not empty silence—the kind that breathes. The kind that calculates.
"Sera." He said my name like he was turning a coin in his fingers, examining both sides. "Eight years and you call me from what sounds like a grave."
"Please." My voice cracked apart. "It's Lily. My daughter. Kael rejected me and he's keeping her. He gave her to his mistress. She's only four—she doesn't understand—Damien, please, I'm begging you—"
A low sound came through the line. Not a laugh. Something between amusement and contempt.
"So," he said, "the woman who chose a lesser Alpha over me now needs the wolf she threw away."
The past hit me like a wall of water.
Eight years ago, before the mating ceremony, before Kael's pack swallowed my future whole—there had been Damien and me. Two young wolves running through the Blackwood Forest at midnight, drunk on moonlight and the electric pull of something that felt bigger than fate. He was nobody then—a packless rogue with blood on his knuckles and fire in his eyes. His wolf was enormous, terrifying, a beast that made even born Alphas step back. But his name carried nothing. No territory. No wealth. No alliance.
I remembered the night my father dragged me from Damien's arms and told me the truth: marry Kael Thornwood or watch the Volkov family be hunted down and slaughtered. Every last one. Damien's mother. His younger sister. The pack of strays he'd gathered and tried to protect. My father would burn them all to secure the Blood Moon alliance.
I remembered Damien on his knees in the rain, gripping my hands, his wolf surging beneath his skin. "Run with me. I'll protect you. I'll protect all of us."
I remembered choosing survival. I remembered telling him he was nothing—a rogue, a stray, a wolf without a future. I remembered ripping the braided leather cord he'd woven for me—our bonding promise—and throwing it into the mud.
He picked it up. He didn't cry. Wolves don't cry.
But his eyes broke.
"You remember that night, don't you?" Damien said now, his voice controlled like a blade held perfectly still. "You chose safety. You chose a cage with golden bars. You told me I smelled like dirt and blood."
"I know," I whispered.
"And now you're calling because the cage has teeth."
"Yes." I had no pride left. Pride was a luxury for wolves who still had their children. "I'll give you anything. Everything. My body. My servitude. My life. Whatever you want—just bring my daughter home."
The silence stretched so long I thought the call had dropped.
Then: "You'll belong to me. Completely. No conditions. No escape. You understand what that means, Sera?"
My wolf whimpered inside me—not with fear, but with something that felt terrifyingly like recognition. Like coming home.
"Yes," I breathed. "I understand."
"Then it's done. My wolves will find Lily. And when they do—you're mine. Every breath. Every scar. Everything Kael threw away."
The line went dead.
I pressed the phone to my chest and sobbed in the dark, the sound swallowed by stone walls that didn't care.
Six hours later, the iron door groaned open. One of Kael's enforcers threw a bundle of clothes at my feet.
"Alpha says get out. Cross the border by dawn or we hunt you down."
I stumbled into the night, barefoot, half-broken, the exile mark burning on my wrist like a brand. Rain soaked through me instantly. I made it to the tree line before my phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
A location. A hospital name. A room number.
And below it, three words:
She's safe. -D
My knees hit the mud.
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Chapter 3
I ran.
Through rain-soaked forest, through the no-man's-land between pack territories where rogues prowled and the law was teeth. Branches whipped my face, roots clawed at my bare feet, and my wolf howled inside me with every stride, pushing me faster, harder, desperate.
When I burst through the hospital doors, I didn't stop for the receptionist's shout. I followed the room number burned into my memory, slammed the door open—
Lily.
My baby girl.
She was curled on the hospital bed, so small she barely made a shape under the white sheets. Her face was pale, her eyes swollen shut from crying, and there were bruises—finger-shaped bruises—on her tiny arms where someone had gripped her too hard.
I shattered.
I fell against her, pulling her into my chest, my sobs ripping out so violently my whole body convulsed. Her small hands found my shirt and fisted it, and her voice—hoarse, broken—whispered the only word that mattered.
"Mama…"
"I'm here," I choked. "Mama's here. I'll never leave you again. Never, never, never—"
I rocked her until her trembling slowed, until her breathing softened, until the terror loosened its grip on her tiny body.
The world outside could burn. Nothing existed beyond this room.
The door opened.
A man walked in—tall, broad, moving with the kind of casual power that made the air shift. His smile was sharp, his eyes sharper. Two massive wolves in human form flanked him like living walls.
"Sera Voss," he said, like we were meeting at a cocktail party. "Name's Roman. I work for Damien."
The doctor who'd been hovering vanished so quickly I barely registered it.
Roman leaned against the bed rail. "Damien handled the wolves who took your daughter from Blood Moon's pack house. Would you like to know what's left of them?"
My stomach lurched. "No. Please. I just want Lily safe."
He chuckled softly. "Thorough work. Damien's specialty. They won't be guarding anything ever again." His gaze sharpened. "Curious who ordered them to hold her, though? Ravenna gave specific instructions. She told the enforcers to—and I quote—'discipline the brat until she stops crying for her mother.'"
Lily whimpered against my chest.
I tightened my arms around her and turned my back on Roman completely. "I don't care about Ravenna right now! I only care about my child."
Roman's smile widened. "Very well. Damien will arrive within the week. You have seven days to sever your pack bond with Kael completely. When the week ends, he'll come for you himself."
My throat tightened. "Thank you," I whispered, because it was the only thing I had left to give.
His eyes glittered with something knowing. "Don't thank me, little wolf. Damien doesn't want gratitude. He wants possession. Your wolf. Your soul. Everything you denied him before."
He straightened, winked like it was all a game, and left with his men melting into the corridor.
The room felt heavier without them. Smaller. Lily shifted, whimpering in her sleep, and I rocked her gently, humming a lullaby through tears while the night pressed in like the walls were closing.
I don't remember falling asleep.
The buzz of my phone dragged me awake. Lily's small hands rested against my collarbone, her breath warm and steady. For one merciful moment, I thought it had all been a nightmare.
Then I saw the screen.
Kael.
My hand shook as I answered.
His voice exploded through the phone like a detonation. "Where the hell are you? My enforcers say someone breached the pack house and took the girl. If you think you can steal pack property and humiliate me—"
I looked down at Lily—her fragile face, the bruises on her arms, the way her lashes brushed her cheeks.
I ended the call without a word.
I powered off the phone.
The silence that followed was thick—but it tasted like rebellion. For the first time, I chose quiet instead of his fury.
By morning, my body ached and my clothes were stiff with dried rain and sweat. Lily stirred, and I smoothed her hair, forcing a smile.
"Mama will be right back, sweetheart. I'll get us clean clothes. Then I'll come back looking pretty for you, okay?"
I stepped into the hallway.
The world tilted instantly.
A gurney rushed past, wheels shrieking. Medics crowded around it. On top lay Ravenna's son—Asher, Kael's five-year-old heir—pale, clutching his stomach, crying in sharp, piercing howls. Ravenna ran beside the gurney, shrill and frantic, screaming at the doctors. Kael followed, barking orders, panic cracking his Alpha mask.
Then he saw me.
He broke away and seized my arm, fingers crushing bone.
"Sera!" His hand cracked across my face before I could blink. The slap split through my cheek like lightning.
"You poisoned him," he snarled, grip tightening. "One of the omegas confessed—she said you ordered wolfsbane put in Asher's food. You tried to murder my heir."
My cheek burned. My chest burned worse.
I swallowed the scream clawing up my throat. No denial would matter. Kael had already decided his truth.
Asher wailed louder. "Daddy! Daddy, it hurts!"
Kael released me and sprinted after the gurney, chasing the child he cherished. Over his shoulder, he threw one last sentence that sliced me open.
"We're not done, Sera."
Ravenna passed by moments later, her perfume thick and cloying. Her lips curved ever so slightly.
Calm. Satisfied.
That was all the proof I needed.
She had poisoned her own son—and pinned it on me.
I bit down hard and kept walking, spine straight, refusing to break where she could see.
At the elevator, I pressed the button and waited. When the doors slid open—
Ravenna.
She leaned against the frame, blocking my path, smile sweet as nightshade.
"How's little Lily?" she asked lightly. "Still breathing?" She tilted her head. "I told those enforcers to squeeze her arms until she stopped screaming for you. Pity they didn't squeeze harder. And when your bonding with Kael is fully severed." She leaned closer. "I'll make sure Lily ends up in the rogue lands. Alone. At night. Let the wild wolves decide what to do with her."
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