Nyx's POV
The wagon hits another rock, and I bite my tongue to keep from screaming.
My wrists are chained. My body feels like it's being ripped apart from the inside. The rejection wounds won't stop bleeding, soaking through the thin prison dress they gave me.
Three guards sit across from me, their faces hard. They won't look at me. Nobody wants to look at the reject.
Through the wagon's bars, I watch my home disappear behind us. The beautiful temples. The green forests. Everything I've ever known.
We're heading to the Forsaken Lands—the place where wolves go to die.
"Water," I croak. My throat is so dry it hurts to talk. "Please."
The youngest guard reaches for his canteen.
"Don't," the head guard snaps. "Alpha Kieran's orders. No food, no water. She doesn't deserve our kindness."
The young guard pulls his hand back, looking guilty.
Kieran. Even now, he's finding ways to hurt me.
I close my eyes and try to reach for that silver power I felt in the cell. That ice that spread from my fingers. But there's nothing. Just pain and exhaustion.
Maybe I imagined it.
Maybe I really am just broken.
The wagon stops suddenly.
"What's wrong?" the head guard yells to the driver.
"Someone's blocking the road!"
My eyes snap open. Through the front of the wagon, I see a figure standing in the middle of the path. A woman with long dark hair, wearing a cloak that seems to swallow the light around her.
"Move aside!" the head guard shouts. "We're on official kingdom business!"
The woman doesn't move. She raises one hand, and the air around us goes cold.
Magic. Dark magic.
The guards jump out of the wagon, drawing their weapons. "Last warning! Move or we'll—"
The woman makes a gesture like she's swatting a fly.
All three guards fly backward, slamming into trees. They don't get up.
My heart pounds. Is she here to kill me? Did Lyra send an assassin to make sure I actually die?
The woman walks to the wagon. Up close, I can see her face. She's beautiful but scary, with eyes that look like they've seen a thousand years of pain.
"Nyx Evermoon," she says. Her voice sounds like wind through dead trees. "The rejected mate. The incomplete one."
"Who are you?" I manage to ask.
"Someone who knows what was done to you." She reaches through the bars and touches my forehead. Her finger is ice cold. "Someone who can see the seal that's been placed on your wolf since you were an infant."
My breath catches. "Seal? What seal?"
"The one that's been keeping you weak. Keeping your true nature locked away." Her smile is sharp. "Your stepsister didn't do this alone, child. She had help from someone very powerful."
"Who?"
"That's not important right now." The woman's eyes flash purple—the same color I saw around Lyra's hands. "What's important is that the seal is breaking. Those rejections, all that pain—it's cracking the prison they built around your wolf."
Hope surges through me. "Can you break it? Can you free my wolf?"
"I could." She tilts her head. "But should I? Once your wolf wakes up, there's no going back. You'll become what you were always meant to be. And that will make you very, very dangerous."
"I don't care about being dangerous. I just want to stop hurting."
The woman laughs. "Oh, little reject. You think this is about stopping pain? This is about revenge. About power. About showing everyone who threw you away exactly what they lost."
She pulls a small knife from her belt. "I can speed up the breaking. Let your wolf wake up now, while you still have strength. But know this—once you transform, you won't be the same Nyx. You'll be something the five kingdoms haven't seen in a thousand years."
"What am I?" I whisper.
"Something they tried to wipe out because they were afraid." She presses the knife to my palm, the same one Morvanna cut in the ceremony. "Something that doesn't bow to Alphas. Something that makes Alphas bow to you."
My mind spins. This is crazy. I shouldn't trust a dark witch who just knocked out three guards.
But what choice do I have? The Forsaken Lands will kill me. The rejection wounds will kill me. I'm dying anyway.
At least this way, I'll die fighting.
"Do it," I say.
The woman smiles wide. "Smart girl."
She cuts my palm. My blood wells up, mixing with the old cut from the ceremony.
But this time, something happens.
Power explodes through my body. Not gentle. Not warm. It's like lightning and ice and fire all at once.
I scream as my back arches. The chains around my wrists shatter. The wagon itself starts to shake and crack.
Inside me, I feel her.
My wolf.
And she's not gentle or sweet like I always imagined.
She's furious.
She's been trapped for twenty-one years, screaming to get out, and now she's free.
My eyes snap open, and I know without looking that they're glowing silver.
The woman steps back, looking satisfied. "There she is. The Omega Sovereign. Welcome back to the world, little queen."
"Omega Sovereign?" I gasp. "What does that—"
Pain cuts off my words. Not rejection pain. This is different. It feels like five threads are suddenly pulling at my chest, trying to drag me in five different directions.
Through those threads, I feel them.
Kieran, gasping in pain in his throne room.
Cassian, collapsing in his library.
Darius, screaming as invisible wounds open on his chest.
Riven, falling to his knees during a meeting.
Zane, having a vision that makes him vomit blood.
They're feeling what I felt. Every bit of pain they caused me is flooding back into them through the broken bonds.
And it's killing them.
"What's happening?" I cry.
The woman's smile is wicked. "The bonds reversed, child. They rejected you. But you're an Omega Sovereign. You don't get rejected. You do the rejecting." She touches my face almost gently. "Right now, your five Alphas are dying. And you're the only one who can save them."
"Good," I snarl, surprising myself. "Let them die."
"Oh, I like you." The woman laughs. "But here's the fun part—if they die, you die too. The bonds work both ways. You're all connected now, whether you like it or not."
My blood runs cold.
"So here's your choice, little Sovereign," she whispers. "You can let them die and go down with them. Or you can survive, grow strong, and make them wish they were dead instead."
She vanishes in a swirl of black smoke, leaving me alone on the road with three unconscious guards and a decision that will change everything.
Through the bonds, I feel Kieran's heartbeat getting slower.
I have maybe five minutes before he dies.
Before we all die.
My hands shake as I press them to my chest, feeling the silver power swirling inside me.
I could let him die. Let them all die. Get my revenge right now.
But then Lyra wins. She gets everything while I die on a dirt road.
No.
I'm not dying today.
I survived the rejections. I'll survive this too.
And when I'm done, they'll all learn what happens when you reject an Omega Sovereign.
I close my eyes and send a pulse of power through the bonds—just enough to keep them alive.
For now.