Even though I could never win against Master's relentless coaxing, I still obediently took my medicine for six years. But he kept those words of mine close to his heart.

After I recovered, nothing sour or bitter ever appeared on my dinner table again.

I took the pot from Matron Thornwell's hands and, as if I couldn't feel the scalding heat, drank half the soup in one long gulp.

The remaining half I poured out beside Master's body.

I wiped my mouth. "Not bad, old man. But the blood mixed in makes it a little fishy."

"Have a taste yourself. Pay attention next time you make it."

That was what finally shattered Matron Thornwell's composure.

The tears she had held back for so long broke free all at once.

"Lynara, there won't be a next time. Your master is dead!"

Oh, right. There wouldn't be a next time.

Fine. Since Master couldn't look after me anymore, it was my turn to protect him for once.

I unfastened the cloak Master had sewn for me with his own hands and draped it over his body. My voice was calm. "Matron, watch over Master. Don't bury him."

"He'd be too lonely by himself. I'll find him some company for the grave."

Matron Thornwell couldn't stop me. All she could do was weep and beg me to come back alive. Somewhere beneath her words, I caught the salt-and-lavender scent of her grief thickening until it was almost unbearable, the hearth-smoke in it gone cold.

I carried my short sword and walked toward the Sovereign Grounds.

The stone path crumbled to dust behind me, and the whole mountain territory shook to its foundations. Every wolf within a mile radius felt it in their bones, a tremor that had nothing to do with the earth and everything to do with something old waking up.

Celestial-ranked soldiers rushed forward, blocking me outside the Gates of the Sovereign Grounds.

The one leading them was none other than my senior packmate from the Dawnveil Pack, Master's proudest wolf: Edwin Greymane.

He stared at me in surprise, brow furrowed. His scent hit me before his words did, that familiar damp parchment and tarnished copper, soured now with something I hadn't smelled on him before. Ambition, maybe. Or cowardice dressed up as pragmatism. "Lynara, if you've come to seek the Supreme Alpha's favor, you should keep your head down and your voice low."

"What's the point of making such a scene?"

I didn't bother looking at him. My eyes stayed fixed on the Gates. "Tell Fenris Voss to come out."

"Tell him an old friend has come to visit."

Edwin let out a weary sigh.

"Lynara, have you lost your mind?"

"We're mere low-born wolves. If not for this stroke of fortune, how could we ever have received Celestial Rank and stood before the Supreme Alpha?"

"'An old friend.' You're not embarrassed to say that out loud?"

Only then did I turn to look at Edwin, each word falling like a stone. "You call Master's death a stroke of fortune?"

Edwin faltered. A flicker of guilt surfaced in his eyes. His wolf dropped its gaze for half a breath before he forced it back up.

Rosalind Ashcroft, the second-ranked wolf, had just arrived. I smelled her before I saw her, that overripe berry sharpness cutting through the mountain air. She rushed to Edwin's defense the moment she saw his expression.

"Lynara, how dare you speak to Edwin that way?"

"Master's death wasn't our doing."

"If you want to blame someone, blame Master for being born with a Moonheart Core. We simply seized the opportunity that presented itself."

Looking at Rosalind's face, utterly devoid of remorse, all I felt was that Master had never been worth the love he gave them.

Edwin and Rosalind were the first wolves Master ever took into the pack.

He treated them no differently than he treated me.

He poured every ounce of his heart into raising them, even putting off having pups of his own.

That was why, after all those years, Master and Matron Thornwell never had a pup by blood.

Matron Thornwell would grumble about it from time to time, but that foolish old man would just laugh and wave it off. "It's fine. I trust my pack. When the day comes, they'll see us properly buried."

He was wrong, in the end.

But I knew that foolish old man.

He believed, to his last breath, that people were born good. Whenever his wolves made mistakes, he always gave them a chance to make things right.

I never agreed with that. But I didn't want him to die with his eyes open, restless and unsettled.

So I did what Master would have done. I gave Edwin and Rosalind one chance.

"I'll handle avenging Master myself. I don't need your help."

"Go back to the Dawnveil Pack now. Stay with Master and Matron Thornwell."

"Carry on Master's legacy. Make the pack flourish."

Rosalind had been spoiled rotten by Master since she was a pup, and her temper was as foul as they came.

The second she caught the commanding tone in my voice, her face soured. Something in my chest stirred, low and quiet, and I felt the air between us tighten. Rosalind's nostrils flared. She didn't understand what she was sensing, but her body did. Her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch before she caught herself and stiffened again.

She shoved me, her voice shaking with fury. "Lynara, who do you think you are?"

"How dare you speak to your senior brother and sister like that?!"

Edwin stepped between us, his expression the picture of composed reason. "Lynara, don't be rash."

"The Dawnveil Pack was always a small, unremarkable pack. Master spent his entire life trying to make it flourish and never could. What chance would we have?"

"Besides, all of us have received our Celestial Rank now. Isn't that a glory the pack can be proud of?"

He reached out and took hold of my arm.

"Come now, be good. I'll take you to see the Supreme Alpha. I'll make sure you get a fine rank..."

But before the last word left his mouth, my short blade was already buried in his chest.

Edwin never even had time to react. He crumpled to the ground, eyes wide and glassy, dead before he hit the stone. The scent of damp parchment and tarnished copper flooded the air, sharp and sudden, the way a wolf's scent always surges at the moment of death.

Every Sovereign Guard in the vicinity went rigid with shock. Weapons sang free of their sheaths, all pointed at me.

Rosalind stumbled back two steps, her face white. "Lynara, what kind of cursed thing are you holding?!"

She asked because Edwin had already received his Celestial Rank. The power of his Wolf Core shielded his body.

An ordinary weapon couldn't have come within a foot of him.

So in her mind, my blade had to be something unholy.

I raised the short blade, letting the light catch its edge. My voice was flat and cold. "Cursed? No wolf of the Abyss is worthy of wielding this."

"But you'll find out what it is soon enough."

I crouched beside Edwin's body and used the blade to carve out his heart.

"Since our dear First Beta had no heart to speak of, his heart's blood might as well serve a better purpose. A blood offering for my spirit wolf."

"Lynara, you vicious monster!"

Rosalind's eyes went red with rage. She called on her wolf's power and lunged at me.

But at the critical moment, a Sovereign Guard beside her seized her arm and hauled her back, his hand trembling as he pointed at the spectral shape coalescing above Edwin's corpse. A translucent wolf, black as the space between stars, lapping at the blood with a tongue made of violet fire.

"Lady Rosalind, look. Your junior sister's spirit wolf... something's wrong with it. It's drinking the blood on its own."

Rosalind didn't care. She scoffed. "Cursed relics never play by the rules. What's so strange about that?"

The soldier shook his head frantically. "No, you don't understand. You've only just ascended to Celestial Rank."

"In all the millennia since creation, there has only ever been one spirit wolf that craves the heart's blood of powerful wolves..."

Rosalind blinked, clueless. "What spirit wolf?"

The soldier's lips trembled around two words: "Soulreaper."

Rosalind's jaw dropped. The color drained from her face.

But before she could gather her wits, a voice split the air from the void above, heavy with authority that needed no anger to terrify. An Alpha aura descended with it, thick and suffocating, pressing against every wolf present like a hand on the back of the neck.

"Silence!"

"I destroyed that Primordial She-Wolf with my own hands. Soulreaper was shattered by my power. It no longer exists."

"You will not spread such baseless fear!"

I knew that voice. I knew it the way you know the sound of your own heartbeat. Fenris Voss. My enemy for as long as I had drawn breath.

And the one who had wounded me deepest of all.

My wolf, buried deep where I kept her still and silent, stirred at the sound. Not with fear. With something older than fear. Something that had no name except the taste of ash on the back of my tongue.

He was right about one thing. I was the Primordial She-Wolf he claimed to have destroyed.

I was also the only other true Primordial Alpha who had escaped the Abyssal Wilds alongside him, the only one who had survived the cataclysm.

The year the Wilds were annihilated, the two of us had nowhere left to go. We set aside our enmity out of necessity, clinging to each other to survive.

For thousands of years after that, Fenris treated me well.

Primordial wolves are born cold-blooded. He was the one who taught me how to cry and how to laugh.

Under his guidance, I slowly learned to live in the world beyond the Wilds.

So when he told me he wanted to take me to the Sovereign Grounds, that he would look after me for the rest of my life, I agreed without a second thought.

Three thousand years as mates. Every one of them devoted. Every one of them tender.

Until Fenris met a mortal woman, and everything veered off course.

That woman was Elara, the one he now called his mate.

Elara was flesh and bone, purely human. She could not set foot in the Sovereign Grounds. The only way was to replace the mortal essence inside her body with a Wolf Core and Abyssal power, or with the strength of a Primordial bloodline.

Fenris searched every corner of the Sovereign Grounds and found no justification to take what he needed from anyone else.

So he turned his attention to me.

He deliberately led the other packs to discover my true nature as a Primordial Wolf, then rallied all Three Territories under the banner of righteousness to bind me with silver chains soaked in wolfsbane.

I was already carrying his pup by then. My powers had waned, and I had no strength left to fight back.

I begged him to spare me. Begged until my voice broke. But all he left me with was a single, weightless phrase: The Abyssal bloodline cannot be allowed to exist. Then he ripped the Abyssal essence from my body and shattered my soul into nothing.

Even Soulreaper was ground to dust beneath his heel.

It was the pup in my womb who saved me.

He sacrificed his own life to lock my three ethereal souls and seven corporeal spirits together before they could scatter.

After a long silence, I reformed into a physical body, but only that of a two-year-old pup, barely able to hold a half-shift.

My heart was full of hatred. I knew I was no match for Fenris, yet I still set out on the road to the Sovereign Grounds to take my revenge.

But my bones had barely knit and my Abyssal essence had yet to coalesce. I couldn't even defeat a rogue wolf at the edge of pack territory.

Just as a feral beast was about to swallow me whole, a pair of large hands scooped me into a warm embrace.

The old wolf whose eyes already creased with wrinkles looked down at me, heartache plain on his face. His scent washed over me: mountain sage and old pine and the clean cold of high-altitude air after rain. It smelled like safety itself. "How's a little thing like you out here all alone with nobody looking after you?"

"Don't be scared, sweetheart. This old wolf will keep you safe."

I assumed his kindness was a passing impulse. I never imagined he would go on protecting me for years.

The year I pieced Soulreaper back together, I was nine.

I planned to make one last trip to the Sovereign Grounds and drag Fenris down with me, even if it killed us both.

But the night before I meant to leave, my master brought me a beggar's chicken. It wasn't particularly good.

He had no idea I was planning to go. He just scratched the back of his head, embarrassed, and said, "Lynara, you haven't been eating well lately. You're getting too thin. I went all the way down the mountain to learn this recipe from a famous cook in the valley."

"Go on, try it. If it's no good, I'll go back and learn again."

"And if you like it, I'll make it for you every single day."

I blinked, caught off guard. Suspicion crept in before I could stop it. "Why are you so good to me?"

My master stroked his beard and smiled. "Because I think of you as my own daughter."

"If my little girl starved, what kind of father would I be? I'd be heartbroken."

"I'm already old. I don't want to spend whatever years I have left crying my eyes out."

In that moment, looking at the white hairs that had grown in from worrying over me, I felt the walls around my heart crack for the first time in years. Somewhere deep inside, my wolf, which had been silent and feral since the day I was reborn, lowered its head and let out a sound that was almost a whimper.

So there was someone in this world who loved me after all.

All at once, I didn't want revenge anymore.

I buried Soulreaper beneath the hibiscus tree and buried all my hatred along with it.

But Fenris shattered my hard-won peace with his own hands, all over again, and dug my hatred back up from the roots.

I lifted my gaze toward the sky where his voice had come from and spoke, each word deliberate and distinct. "Fenris. It's been a long time."

Before the last syllable faded, a flash of white light split the air.

In the space of a blink, Fenris appeared before me with Elara Ashford in his arms. His scent hit me first: sunlit marble and white cedar and something sterile beneath it, like snow over a battlefield. Three thousand years, and it still smelled the same. My wolf recoiled.

He looked exactly the same as before. That face, beautiful enough to ruin kingdoms, hadn't aged a single day.

The woman cradled against him glowed with the same vitality. But her scent was wrong. Chamomile and clean linen and warm milk, the purely human smell of her, overlaid with a thin, artificial veneer of violet and cold stone that didn't belong to her. It smelled borrowed. It smelled like something stolen.

Fenris looked me up and down, his brow furrowing. "This Supreme Alpha has never laid eyes on you. What do you mean, 'a long time'?"

Oh. I had almost forgotten. After my body reformed, my appearance had changed completely.

No wonder he didn't recognize me.

But my attention wasn't on him. Every ounce of it was fixed on Elara, and I had no patience to spare for Fenris.

I stared at Elara, unblinking. "You're looking well. Rosy cheeks, bright eyes. My master's Wolf Core must be serving you nicely."

Back then, my Abyssal essence had only granted Elara passage in and out of the Sovereign Grounds. Without a Wolf Core, she still could not receive a Celestial Rank.

Fenris had once considered taking my Primordial Wolf Core instead, but the core of an ancient Primordial Alpha was far more than a mortal body like Elara's could withstand. He'd been forced to abandon the idea.

It had taken him all these years of searching to finally find my master's Wolf Core, the perfect match for Elara.

My words landed, and understanding dawned across Fenris's face.