Vesper tilted her head, putting on a look of pity.

"Oh dear, look at your neck, it's all red. That must hurt so much. Why would you do something like this? It's just a pup. Cassian said you can always have another one."

She set the bowl of broth on the ground, stood, and brushed off her skirt.

"But since I happened to walk in on this, I suppose I should help."

She turned to the senior den attendant. "Go fetch Cassian. Tell him Nira tried to hang herself, and I saved her."

The attendant left at once.

Vesper crouched down, brought her face close to mine, and dropped her voice. The jasmine-and-copper scent of her thickened, cloying, wrong.

"You know what he's going to think, don't you? He's going to think you're threatening him. Using death to guilt him into pushing me aside."

"He despises that kind of trick."

She was right.

When Cassian burst through the door, there was no concern on his face. Only fury. His scent hit me before his voice did, pine resin gone sharp and acrid with anger, stripped of every soft note I'd once found comfort in.

"Nira! Have you lost your mind?!"

He grabbed me by the collar and hauled me up off the floor. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

I opened my mouth, tried to explain that I wasn't threatening him.

Not a single sound came out.

Vesper was shaking with sobs, pressing herself into Cassian's arms. "Is she blaming me? Is this because of me? Everything that's happened to her is all my—"

Cassian held her, patting her back gently. "Don't be silly. None of this is your fault."

Then he turned to me, his voice ice.

"I thought you were a sensible woman. I never imagined you'd stoop to this—crying, making scenes, trying to hang yourself. Every trick in the book."

"Don't blame her…" Vesper was still pouring fuel on the fire. "She just lost the pup, she must be heartbroken…"

"Enough." Cassian let go of Vesper, walked up to me, and looked down. "You want to die? Fine. I'll grant you that wish. But don't do it in my den. I won't have that stain on my threshold."

He turned to the attendant. "Lock her in the stone shed. No one is to visit her without my orders."

"Cassian…" Vesper caught his arm, performing reluctance. "Don't be too cruel, she's still—"

"She needs to learn."

Cassian left without looking back.

Vesper followed him out. At the doorway, she glanced back at me, her lips parting around silent words.

Wait to die.

The door slammed shut behind her.

The stone shed had no windows. The only light was a thin line bleeding in through the crack beneath the door.

I curled up in the corner, my neck burning, my body covered in wounds, a dull ache still grinding through my lower belly. Deep inside me, something I could barely name lay utterly still. My wolf had gone silent. Not sleeping, not resting. Just gone quiet the way a creature goes quiet when it has given up finding a way out.

After nightfall, the lock rattled.

Vesper pushed the door open. Moonlight caught her sweet, pale face, but the smile beneath it was vicious.

Two heavyset senior den attendants stood behind her.

"Tomorrow I enter the Heir Alpha's den for the mating ceremony. I mentioned, just in passing, that I wanted a luminous pearl from the Eastern Sea as a bonding gift, and Cassian rode out to find one that very night. No one will disturb us. We have until dawn."

I shrank back until my spine hit the cold wall, eyes sharp with alarm.

"What are you going to do?"

Vesper smiled, rose to her feet, and drew a whip from her sleeve. The warmth drained from her gaze.

"I've waited a long time for this."

The first lash came down across my body.

"This one is for seducing Cassian. He's mine—"

A second. A third.

She counted them out, unhurried, and soon there was no unmarked skin left on me, only welts and blood. Each strike landed where my wolf should have surged to protect me, and nothing rose. Nothing stirred.

The two attendants pinned me down so I couldn't twist away. All that escaped my lips was a thin, broken whimper.

Vesper lowered the whip and looked down at me.

"Look at you. You're less than a dog."

She seized my chin, her voice bright with triumph. "Tomorrow I enter the Heir Alpha's High Den to live in splendor, and you—you'll rot here, thrown away by Cassian like the nothing you are."

As she spoke, she produced a small crystal vial, dark liquid swirling inside. "I went through a great deal of trouble to find this little gift for you…"

The malice in her smile sent my heart plummeting.

Before I could react, the senior den attendants pinned me down and forced the ice-cold liquid down my throat.

Moments later, fire blazed through my lower belly, and I understood at once: wolfsbane-laced heat serum. A brutally potent concoction designed to strip a she-wolf of every shred of control.

Vesper clapped her hands. Two rogues shuffled in, mangy and rank, their faces twisted with leering grins.

"Filthy, feral vermin. A perfect match for a cheap she-wolf like you."

She backed toward the door.

"When my cousin comes home tomorrow and finds you tangled up with rogues… what do you think he'll do?"

A vicious scheme.

But she needn't have bothered. She didn't need to destroy whatever was left between Cassian and me. I'd stopped hoping long ago.

The moment my body healed, I would leave on my own.

The drug surged hotter. My mind began to scatter, but I bit down on my lip until the pain kept me anchored. Somewhere inside me, something stirred. Not quite a voice. Not quite a shape. A presence I didn't recognize, pressing against the edges of my awareness like a wolf trapped under ice.

The two males closed in from either side.

I fought with everything I had, but my broken hands had no strength to strike back. They slammed me to the ground.

The back of my skull cracked against a stone millstone. Blinding white pain split my vision open.

And then the memories came flooding in.

Dust and ash swallowing the sky above the Frostfang Northern Borderlands. Me in battle-scarred armor, standing before ten thousand wolves in formation. Atop the walls of the High Den, the Sovereign Alpha gripping my hand, eyes red, calling me "sister."

Every elder, every war commander on their knees, voices shaking the heavens: Long live the Alpha Princess!

I remembered.

I was no orphan called Nira. I was Lyra Nightbane, Alpha Princess and Defender of the Mooncrown Dominion.

Commander of war packs at twelve. Conqueror of three strongholds at fourteen. Pacifier of the Frostfang Borderlands at sixteen. The elder sister the Sovereign Alpha revered. The Alpha Princess the entire Moon Court had been desperately searching for.

My eyes flew open. Gold blazed through my vision. I ripped a slender silver dagger from my hair and dragged it across both their throats.

The next morning, a mating procession stretched for miles from the gates of the Thornridge pack estate.

Vesper wore the ceremonial regalia of a royal mate, and Cassian himself pinned a moonstone into her hair before sending her off to be claimed.

Heir Alpha Kael Nightbane had come in person to receive her. The pomp and spectacle already far exceeded anything a mere consort arrangement deserved.

Looking at Vesper's delicate face, something nagged at him. Her scent carried notes of jasmine and copper, but beneath it was something hollow, something that didn't match the presence of the voice whose moonsong had first drawn his attention.

Still, he stepped forward and clasped both of Vesper's hands.

She lowered her eyes in a show of bashful grace and was about to lift her foot toward the ceremonial carriage

when a voice, cold and clear, cut through the crowd and silenced the entire procession. The air thickened. Every wolf in attendance felt the pressure slam down on their shoulders like a physical weight, an Alpha aura so ancient and absolute that several attendants dropped to their knees without understanding why.

"I, the Alpha Princess, do not consent to this mating."