"Are you betraying us?!" August’s voice ripped through the wind, sharp as a blade.

I couldn’t answer. The storm in my chest stole my words as Aidan collapsed to the ground. His wolf form dissolved into human flesh—naked, bleeding, broken. I flinched as he writhed at my feet, his pain mirrored in the tears pouring down my face.

"We trusted you! We loved you!" Aidan growled, trembling with fury as he rose. "But because of your selfishness, Janna could die!"

"No—"

"Don’t speak!" His snarl cut through me like a lash.

He lunged forward, eyes wild, fists clenched. The Aidan who once would’ve fought the world to keep me safe was gone. Now he looked ready to tear me apart.

And August… August, my protector, my steady rock, stood beside him, silent and cold.

“If you leave without repentance," August said, his words slow and deliberate, "without facing the pain you’ve caused—"

"August, please—"

“—I will punish you myself.”

Terror crashed into me. My heart raced, my pulse pounding against the walls of my ribs.

“Punish me… how? You'll torture me like those rogue? You're willing to kill me?” I seether in anger because how could they?!

This is Rain they're talking about! I am Rain and before all of this shit, I am their most treasured person.

But now…

“Yes,” they both answered, their voices a grim chorus.

My knees buckled. A sob ripped free from my chest as my heart shattered into shards.

“If I have to be this pack’s alpha to protect Janna,” Aidan said coldly, “then I will. Even if it means ending you.”

But I was your childhood friend, childhood sweetheart! Your precious one. Your baby girl. The woman you promised to love forever.

Now your claws were out. Your fangs were sharp.

All for her.

All for Janna—the rogue I saved, the woman I pulled from death’s edge, the wolf who now owned every piece of what used to be mine.

“You’re not the men I once knew,” I whispered.

“And you,” August hissed, “are no longer the Rain we loved. The Rain we trusted would never plot to kill Janna. Would never push her off a cliff. Would never poison her for your own good.”

I staggered, breathless. My throat closed around a scream.

“I didn’t!” I shrieked. “I’m not a murderer!”

"You attacked her!" Aidan roared.

No. I tried to stop her. She was destroying them from the inside. She was using them, poisoning their minds and tearing the pack apart. Why am I now the villain here?

“I was trying to save you,” I whispered, my heart breaking under the weight of their hatred.

But they didn’t believe me.

I saw it in their eyes.

August turned away first. "Take her to the cell."

Aidan sneered. "Your jealousy made you a liar. It made you pathetic. And almost made you a killer. You’re poison, Rain."

Rough hands grabbed me. I cried out as I was dragged across the sharp, jagged branches. Pain tore through my skin, but the guards didn’t care.

I had fallen.

Once, I was their queen.

Now I was nothing.

The prison cell swallowed me whole. Its cold stone walls closed in, suffocating. Niveria, my sanctuary, had become my tomb.

I sat in the shadows, curling into myself. I shivered, not from the cold, but from the dread creeping into my soul.

My twenty-first birthday loomed—a heartbeat away.

If I stayed here, I would die.

The curse would break my heart in two, and I would fall into eternal darkness. Unmated. Unloved.

Alone.

"Rain Stabler."

The voice made my blood run cold.

The delta stood at the edge of the cell, his eyes heavy with judgment. His was the hand that delivered death.

I pressed myself into the corner.

"Don’t be afraid." He stepped closer. "I know what haunts you. The curse. I know the way to break it."

I stopped breathing.

He tossed a photograph onto the floor.

My eyes fell to the image, and horror tightened around my heart.

“That,” he said, his voice like gravel, “is the cursed beast of the Tribean City pack. The youngest son of their alpha.”

The cursed beast.

A lycan prince who had been trapped in sleep for decades.

Women who dared to approach him never lived to tell their stories. His wolf—feral, monstrous—would tear them apart before sinking back into its eternal slumber.

He was death itself.

"He can save you." The delta’s eyes gleamed with something dark. "His family will pay the blood price for yours. His curse for your curse."

I picked up the photo, my fingers trembling.

The man in the image wasn’t terrifying—his beauty was cold, regal, untouchable. But behind those eyes lay a monster that devoured anyone who came too close.

"Marry him?" My voice broke. "He’ll kill me."

"He might."

I swallowed hard, my heartbeat thundering. "Why would I agree to this?"

"There’s only one rule, Rain Stabler."

My pulse stilled.

"One rule?"

"Never touch him."

My breath hitched.

"Never let your skin touch his," he warned, his voice low and dangerous. "If you do… you’ll regret it."

My throat tightened. "Why? What happens if I touch him?"

The delta stared at me, silent.

The weight of his words hung between us, suffocating.

And I knew.

I was already damned.

Would I survive the monster I was about to marry?

“Then I'd watch you meet your demise in his hands.”

"Rain Stabler, daughter of the fallen Stabler family, once the betas of Gorion City?"

The old woman’s voice rang sharp and cold, cutting through the suffocating air. She looked down her nose at me, her sharp features carved with disdain.

"Yes, Madame," replied the delta at my side. His tone was clipped, devoid of warmth. "She is fit to be your son’s wife. This arrangement will serve its purpose."

The woman’s upper lip curled as she studied me with thinly veiled disgust. Beside her, her husband’s gaze bore into me, more calculating than cruel. I could feel the weight of their scrutiny, every glance a judgment. Fear crawled up my spine as I thought of their son—the beast I would soon be bound to. Yet something deeper, darker, warned me that rejection would be far worse than the fate awaiting me in that tower.

"Cursed blood," the old man muttered. His lip twitched with contempt. "Why bind our line to another weakling? Why pair one cripple with another?"

His words burned.

The woman’s eyes flashed in anger which shocked me.

"Alaric is not weak!" she spat.

"Then where is he now?" the old man roared. "Locked away! Hiding! Ever since he turned four, he has brought nothing but shame on this house!"

With a ferocious snarl, he hurled his goblet against the marble floor. The shattering glass echoed like gunfire, and I flinched. His hand shot out, pointing at me, a trembling finger full of malice.

"Take her. Marry her to Alaric. And if this fails," he threatened, "I will kill him myself and be done with this curse!"

A tremor raced through my body, my knees threatening to give way. I felt the walls closing in, my breath shallow. But the woman’s sudden movement drew my eyes—so swift it was almost supernatural.

Before I could react, she was in front of me.

Her eyes glowed red.

Red. Not the golden hue of our kind. But… we’re Lycans…

A sharp gasp escaped my lips, my heart thundered against my ribs. My mind raced with the impossible truth. Lycan eyes don’t turn red. She is cursed, too.

Or perhaps I was hallucinating.

"You’ll never obey my son," she hissed. "You will never listen to his temptations. You will never break the rule. If you do…" Her nails dug into my arm. "You will die. And death, girl, is not an option. I need you alive. My son will not survive if you die. Do you understand?!"

Terror swelled in my chest. The delta at my side shifted.

"You have no choice, Miss Stabler," he whispered. "Death or servitude. Risk your life, or lose it now."

The silence followed us as the shaman and I crossed the forest. The path grew darker with each step, the trees twisting into shapes like grasping hands. Wind howled between the trunks, a mournful, haunting sound. I felt the weight of unseen eyes.

We stopped at a door of ancient stone, cold and unmoving. The shaman placed her hand on the carved surface.

"Listen closely," she murmured. Her eyes glimmered with warning. "The creature within is cunning. When I bind your soul to his, his blood will crave you. He will want you. Do not yield to him."

Her words burned into me, heavy as iron.

"Temptation is death."

Every step up the spiral staircase felt heavier than the last. Shadows thickened, pressing in around me. The air turned cold. My breath hitched as something sharp scraped my neck.

I reached up, my fingers brushing the wet warmth of my own blood. A thin crimson thread floated from my wound, twisting, shimmering in the darkness. It stretched forward, reaching…

I stopped.

At the center of the room lay a bed carved from stone, draped in dark velvet.

He was there.

Naked but for a thin cloth at his waist, his chest rising and falling with a rhythm far too slow. His body was a vision of impossible perfection, carved muscle and golden skin. But a darkness hung over him, a terrible, suffocating power.

A wound on his wrist dripped with blood. It joined with mine, a glowing red thread that pulsed between us.

A voice—deep, commanding—filled my mind.

"Help me!" it cried. "Wake me, mate. Free me from this prison!"

I clutched my head, shaking. The voice was everywhere, a desperate, suffocating plea.

"I need you," it groaned. "I need to see you. To hold you. To kiss you."

Terror gripped my heart. My lips trembled.

"Kiss me," the voice whispered again, low and sinful.

I clenched my fists, refusing the lure. My heart may have been broken by Aidan’s betrayal, by August’s coldness—but my first kiss, my virginity, would never be for this… beast.

"Who are they?" the voice roared. A growl, vicious and furious tore me. "Who are the men who fill your thoughts when you are mine?"

My breath caught. He could hear me.

"Let me rise, mate," he snarled. "Let me tear them apart. I’ll end them both."

“But you’re cripled. You’re weak!” speak my mind.

My legs buckled beneath me.

"You don’t understand. I’m no mere wolf."

A cold, dark smile filled his laughter.

"I am hybrid," he hissed. "Lycan and vampire. I kill with claws or with fangs. Choose your poison.”

I couldn’t breathe. My body shook with the truth of it.

That’s why they called him a beast.

And that’s why every woman before me had died tragically.

“Please, help me! I can’t do this anymore! I'll take it back!” I screamed at the shaman.

They locked me inside this cursed castle—a week of solitary confinement to “calm the beast” with my presence.

“I won’t tell anyone about this! Just please!”

The shaman turned to me.

“There’s no turning back. Your lives are bound now. You’re married to him.”

Before I could argue, the man who had escorted her shifted his form, his body melting into the shadows as they both disappeared, leaving me alone.

I turned to the man lying unconscious on the cold stone floor—a beast in a man’s skin. My heart clenched with regret. I should have never accepted the offer. I knew death awaited me on my birthday, but at least it would’ve been a clean death, not something horrifying like this.

If I died here, no one would even know. My body would likely be torn apart and scattered across this tower.

I’d learned something in my time here.

The women who had come before me didn’t disobey the rules because they lacked willpower. They obeyed because they couldn’t resist. Alaric was a predator designed to seduce his prey. The bond between us made me crave him in ways I didn’t want to admit.

I shuddered painfully. I wanted him to touch me, to hold me, and that thought terrified me.

Now, on my sixth day in the tower, I woke drenched in sweat, my mind fogged with the remnants of a vivid dream. He had been there, faceless but relentless, his touch burning into my skin. His whispers echoed in my mind.

“Come to me, mate,” his deep voice purred. “Wake me up. You know you want to.”

“No,” I muttered.

I wasn’t his. I couldn’t be.

I thought of August, the man I had once wanted to marry, and Aidan, the one I had foolishly loved. Either of them would have been better than this. But those feelings were long buried beneath betrayal and pain.

“Those names again.” His voice sharpened in my mind. “I will kill them the moment I awaken.”

A sharp pain stabbed through my skull, and I felt warm blood trickle from my nose. His anger fed my suffering, his hunger consuming me from the inside out.

“But you can’t disobey the rules, Rain,” I whispered to myself.

“Yes, you can,” he countered. “Don’t fight it. We’ll both enjoy this.”

I pressed myself into the corner of the room, trying to block him out. But his voice was relentless.

“Those people you loved—they abandoned you. But I won’t. I’ll keep you safe, mate.”

His words pierced through me, stirring memories I had tried to bury.

I thought of Janna, her bloodied body standing on the cliff edge. She had attacked me that day, and when I fought back, she slipped and nearly fell. Aidan and August had seen the scene, but they believed her over me. They believed I had tried to kill her.

They didn’t listen when I tried to explain.

Their betrayal had driven me into the delta’s trap. That man offered me an escape from their wrath, but it came with a price I was now paying with my very soul.

Tears streamed down my face. I’d been hunted, cast out, and left to fend for myself. And now, I’m married to a monster.

“Feel this, mate,” the beast whispered.

A searing heat erupted in my chest, spreading through my body like wildfire. I gasped, clutching at my throat as the pain overwhelmed me.

I stumbled through the room, desperate for water, for anything to soothe the fire burning inside me. My vision blurred, and I tripped, falling against something solid and warm.

My hands trembled as I felt the contours of a muscular chest.

“No,” I whispered, dread pooling in my stomach.

Laughter rumbled in my mind, turning into a deep, guttural growl that filled the room. I forced my eyes open and froze.

Before me stood the beast. His fangs glistened, his eyes glowing with hues of red and gold. His gaze pinned me in place, predatory and hungry.

“Mate…”

My heart pounded as I realized what I had done. I had touched him. I had broken the one rule I was supposed to follow. I had awakened him.

“Now,” he growled, a wicked smile spreading across his face, “let’s take care of our needs.”

The walls shuddered as his laughter echoed through the tower, but the sound was interrupted by two powerful growls from the staircase.

The beast stepped in front of me, shielding me as two figures emerged from the shadows. My breath caught in my throat.

Aidan and August.

The brothers shifted back into human form, their golden eyes blazing with fury.

“She’s ours,” they snarled in unison.

I staggered back, my mind reeling. How could they claim me after everything they’d done—after they had hunted me, imprisoned me, and left me to rot?

The beast’s laughter thundered again.

“She is my mate. You cannot take her from me.”

“Let her choose,” August snapped. “She’ll come to us. She belongs with us.”

The beast turned to me, his gaze challenging. “Is that true?”

I hesitated, my heart caught between fear and despair. Despite everything, I couldn’t deny the small, fragile hope that they could still save me.

“Y-yes,” I whispered,

“Then let me kill you before I hand you to them,” he snarled, his fangs bared as he lunged.