Nyx's POV
"They're here!" someone screams outside.
I stumble toward the cave entrance, my legs shaking. Silver light crackles around my fingers, but I don't know how to control it.
Ember grabs my arm. "You're in no condition to fight."
"I'm not hiding." I pull free. "Not anymore."
The cave opens into a canyon. Twenty royal guards stand at the entrance, weapons drawn. They're not here to capture us.
They're here to slaughter us.
The captain steps forward. I recognize him—Commander Drace from the Citadel. Cold eyes. No mercy.
"Exiles of the Forsaken Lands," he calls out. "Surrender the reject, and the rest of you can live."
"Go to hell!" Ember shouts back.
Drace shrugs. "Have it your way."
The guards charge.
Everything happens too fast. The exiles fight back, but they're weak, malnourished. The guards are trained killers.
Blood sprays. People scream.
I see Derek—the big man who threatened me—get cut down. A young girl barely older than fifteen takes an arrow to the chest.
They're dying because of me.
"NO!" The word rips from my throat.
Silver light explodes from my body like a shockwave.
Every guard freezes mid-swing. Their weapons fall from their hands. They drop to their knees, eyes wide with terror.
Even Commander Drace falls, gasping like he can't breathe.
I walk toward them, my bare feet crunching on ash. The power inside me is awake now, roaring like a wild animal.
"You came here to kill innocent people," I say. My voice doesn't sound like mine anymore. It sounds ancient. Powerful. "Because you're following orders from people who are afraid of the truth."
"W-what are you?" Drace chokes out.
"I'm what your precious Alphas tried to destroy." I crouch in front of him. "I'm an Omega Sovereign. And you just made a very big mistake."
I press my hand to his forehead.
Through our connection, I see his memories. His orders came directly from High Priestess Morvanna. She knows I'm alive. She knows what I am. And she'll keep sending assassins until I'm dead.
But I also see something else.
Drace has a daughter. Eight years old. Brown hair. Missing her front teeth. She's sick with the same curse that used to be on me—a tracking spell disguised as an illness.
"Your daughter," I whisper. "Morvanna cursed her to keep you loyal."
His eyes fill with tears. "Please. If you're going to kill me, just do it. But save her. She's innocent."
I could kill him. Should kill him. He was going to murder everyone here.
But I remember being helpless. Being at the mercy of people who saw me as disposable.
I won't become like them.
I place both hands on his head. Silver light flows through me, and I reach for the bond connecting him to his daughter. I feel the curse—dark purple magic, Morvanna's signature.
I grab it and rip it apart.
Miles away, in the Citadel, a little girl gasps as poison leaves her body.
Drace sobs. "Thank you. Thank you."
"Go home," I tell him. "Tell Morvanna that if she sends anyone else, I won't be merciful. And tell my five Alphas..." I pause. "Tell them I'm coming."
The guards run like their lives depend on it.
The moment they're gone, my knees buckle. The power drains out of me, leaving me empty.
Ember catches me before I hit the ground. "That was either the bravest or stupidest thing I've ever seen."
"Probably both," I mumble.
She carries me back inside. Tobias is waiting, along with a crowd of exiles who now look at me like I'm some kind of goddess.
"You saved us," a woman whispers.
"You healed Commander Drace's daughter from here," Tobias adds, his eyes wide. "That's impossible. Even the strongest healers need to be touching their patient."
"Nothing about me makes sense anymore," I say tiredly.
Ember sets me down on the bed. "Get some rest. We'll talk when you wake up."
But as soon as I close my eyes, I'm pulled into a dream.
No—not a dream.
A vision.
I'm standing in the Lunar Temple. But it's different. Wrong.
Lyra stands on the platform in a white dress—my dress. My five Alphas surround her, their eyes glassy and empty.
"Do you accept this bond?" High Priestess Morvanna asks.
"I do," Lyra says sweetly.
"NO!" I scream, but no one hears me. I'm just a ghost here.
Morvanna cuts Lyra's palm. Blood falls on the altar.
But this blood is wrong. It's too dark. Too thick.
And when it hits the stone, black smoke rises instead of light.
"What—" Kieran starts, but then he screams.
All five Alphas scream.
Black veins spread across their skin. Their eyes turn completely black. They're not bonding with Lyra.
They're being possessed.
Morvanna laughs. "Finally. After three hundred years, the Alphas will fall. And from their ashes, I will build a new order."
Lyra looks confused. "What's happening? This wasn't the plan!"
"You stupid girl." Morvanna grabs her throat. "You were never the plan. You were just bait. Bait to lure the Omega Sovereign out of hiding. Bait to make her weak with rage and grief. Bait to—"
She turns, and her eyes lock directly on mine.
Even though I'm not really here.
"There you are," she whispers.
She raises her hand, and I feel chains wrap around my body. Invisible chains made of dark magic.
"Did you really think you could spy on me through visions without me noticing?" She smiles. "You're strong, little Sovereign. But you're untrained. Uncontrolled. Which makes you easy to trap."
The chains tighten. I can't breathe.
"In three days, your sister will bond with your Alphas. The false bond will kill them slowly, and their deaths will kill you through your connections." She tilts her head. "Unless you come to stop it. Unless you walk right into my trap."
"Why?" I gasp. "Why do you want me dead?"
"Because Omega Sovereigns represent everything I've spent three hundred years destroying—balance, mercy, shared power." Her face twists with hatred. "The Alphas were easy to corrupt. Their pride, their need for control. But you? You'd undo everything. You'd remind the world that there's another way."
She steps closer, and I realize something horrifying.
She's not human.
She's something ancient. Something that's been wearing human skin for centuries.
"So come to the ceremony, little queen. Come try to save your mates. And I'll drain every drop of Sovereign power from your dying body." Her smile is nightmarish. "Your mother tried to stop me too. Her blood tasted delicious."
My mother.
She killed my mother.
Rage explodes through me, shattering the chains. Silver fire erupts, burning through the vision—
I wake up screaming.
Ember and Tobias burst into the room.
"What happened?" Ember demands.
"It's a trap," I gasp. "The bonding ceremony. Morvanna's using it to possess the Alphas and kill me." I grab Ember's arm. "And she killed my mother. She's been alive for three hundred years. She's not even human!"
Tobias goes pale. "That's impossible. High Priestess Morvanna is... she can't be..."
"She is." I push myself up despite the pain. "And she's right. I have two choices: let my mates die and die with them, or walk into her trap."
"There has to be another way," Ember says.
"There isn't." I look at both of them. "Unless I can get strong enough in three days to fight a three-hundred-year-old demon who's been planning this for decades."
Silence.
Then Tobias says quietly, "There might be one option."
We both stare at him.
"The First Temple," he says. "Where the original Omega Sovereigns trained. It's deep in the Forsaken Lands, in a place so dangerous that no one who's gone looking has ever come back."
"Perfect," I say. "How do we find it?"
"We don't. It finds you." He looks at me seriously. "If you're truly an Omega Sovereign, the temple will call to you. But Nyx, you need to understand—the trials inside break most people. Mind, body, and soul."
"I'm already broken," I say. "What's a little more?"
Ember stands. "Then we leave at dawn."
That night, I lie awake, feeling my five Alphas through the bonds.
They're scared. Confused. They don't understand what's happening to them.
Soon, they'll be possessed. Turned into puppets for Morvanna's war.
Unless I can save them.
The same males who rejected me, who threw me away like garbage.
I should let them die.
But my wolf whispers: "They made a mistake. Don't let their mistake destroy the whole world."
She's right.
This is bigger than revenge now.
I close my eyes and send a pulse through the bonds—not comfort, not forgiveness.
A warning.
I'm coming. And when I get there, you'll all learn what you rejected.
In five different kingdoms, five Alphas wake with my words echoing in their minds and silver fire burning through their veins.