POV: Aria
I had nothing to pack.
Omegas didn't own anything worth taking. I stood in the tiny room I shared with three other servants, staring at the thin blanket on my cot. Twenty-three years of life, and this was all I had to show for it.
"You're really going?" Maria, one of the other Omega girls, whispered from the doorway. Her eyes were red from crying.
"I don't have a choice." My voice sounded hollow. Empty. Like the place inside me where my wolf used to be.
She was still there—I could feel her presence faintly—but she wouldn't respond. The rejection had broken something fundamental inside both of us.
"Maybe if you begged the Alpha—"
"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "I'm done begging."
I grabbed my worn cloak and walked past Maria into the night. The moon was still full and bright, mocking me. The Moon Goddess's symbol. The deity who'd supposedly blessed me with a mate, then watched him destroy me without lifting a finger to stop it.
Some blessing.
My feet carried me toward the northern border on instinct. Toward the Forbidden Lands. I had two hours until dawn.
Two hours left to exist.
The pack was still celebrating behind me. Music and laughter drifted through the night air. I heard Kade's voice boom out another announcement, followed by thunderous applause.
They'd already forgotten about me.
"Aria, wait!"
I turned to see Lisa running toward me, her mate Thomas close behind. She pressed something into my hands—a small bag.
"Bread, dried meat, and a water skin," she said quickly. "It's not much, but—"
"You shouldn't be helping me." I tried to give it back. "If anyone sees you—"
"I don't care." Lisa's voice cracked. "You're my friend. The only one who ever treated me like I mattered before I found Thomas."
Tears burned my eyes again. I thought I'd run out of tears, but apparently not.
"Thank you," I whispered.
Thomas stepped forward, his expression grim. "The Forbidden Lands are dangerous, Aria. Rogues, dark creatures, things that shouldn't exist. If you're smart, you'll stay near the border. Don't go deep."
I almost laughed. Stay near the border? So the pack hunters could find my body easier?
"I'll be careful," I lied.
Lisa hugged me tight. "Maybe... maybe you'll find a way to survive. Maybe something good is waiting for you out there."
I didn't believe her. But I hugged her back anyway.
They left, and I continued north alone.
The trees grew thicker as I approached the border. Darker. The cheerful sounds of the pack faded behind me until all I heard was my own footsteps and the whisper of wind through branches.
Then I heard something else.
Music.
Not the celebration music from the pack. This was different—a haunting melody played on instruments I didn't recognize. And voices. Lots of voices, all cheering and laughing.
I froze at the tree line marking the border between pack lands and the Forbidden Lands. Through the trees, I could see lights. Torches. A huge gathering of wolves.
Kade and Seraphina's mating ceremony.
They weren't waiting two weeks. They were doing it tonight. Right now.
My wolf stirred for the first time since the rejection, and the feeling that flooded through me wasn't sadness.
It was rage.
He'd rejected me, exiled me to die, and now he was celebrating? Binding himself to another woman while I walked toward my death?
"I, Alpha Kade Blackthorn, take you, Seraphina Vale, as my chosen mate and Luna."
His voice carried through the night, clear and strong. The same voice that had shattered my soul hours ago now pledged forever to someone else.
"I accept!" Seraphina's delighted squeal made my stomach turn.
The pack erupted in celebration. Again.
Something inside me cracked. Not broke—it had already been broken. This was different. This was the final piece of who I'd been falling away.
The Aria who'd believed in fate? Dead.
The Aria who'd thought being chosen by a mate would save her? Gone.
The Aria who'd begged and cried and accepted her place at the bottom?
Destroyed.
I turned away from the lights and crossed the border into the Forbidden Lands.
The difference was immediate. The air felt heavier here, thick with old magic. The trees were twisted, their branches reaching toward the sky like clawed hands. Even the moonlight seemed dimmer, as if the Moon Goddess herself avoided this place.
Good. I wanted to be somewhere she couldn't see me.
I walked deeper into the forest, past the point where Thomas had warned me to stay close to the border. I didn't care about safety. Didn't care about surviving.
I just wanted the pain to stop.
My wolf whimpered softly. For the first time since the rejection, she spoke.
We're going to die here.
"I know," I whispered back.
Alone.
"Better than living as the pathetic Omega who got rejected by her own mate."
She didn't argue.
I walked until my legs ached. Until the sounds of Kade's mating ceremony faded to nothing. Until I was surrounded by silence and darkness and trees that had probably never seen sunlight.
Then I heard it.
A howl.
Not a normal wolf howl. This was deeper. Older. The sound vibrated through my chest and made my broken wolf suddenly alert.
Another howl answered from the east. Then a third from the west.
They were surrounding me.
I should have been terrified. Should have run. But I just stood there, waiting.
If something wanted to kill me, fine. At least it would be over quickly.
The bushes rustled. Trees creaked. And then they emerged from the shadows—three wolves, each one massive. Easily twice the size of any wolf I'd ever seen.
Their eyes glowed in the darkness. Silver. Ice-blue. Blood-red.
They circled me slowly, and I felt power radiating from them like heat from a fire. These weren't normal wolves. These were something ancient. Something that shouldn't exist.
The silver-eyed wolf stopped directly in front of me. Our eyes met.
And my wolf, my broken, shattered wolf who hadn't responded to anything since the rejection, suddenly surged to life with a force that knocked the breath from my lungs.
Power exploded through my body. Light—bright silver light—erupted from my skin.
I screamed as something inside me awakened.
The last thing I heard before darkness swallowed me was a deep male voice in my mind:
"Finally. The Shadow Crown has returned."