Chapter 1
The rain poured in sheets, soaking me to the bone.
I stood at the door of the penthouse suite in the Moonlight Hotel. The dark mahogany door loomed tall and imposing—like the man behind it. I didn’t knock.
I kicked.
Bang!
The door slammed open, crashing against the wall. I stepped inside, drenched, seething.
A sickening wave of jasmine perfume smacked me in the sweet, cloying, and laced with something sour. It churned my stomach.
And then I saw them.
Serena.
She was sprawled across the silk-drenched bed like a queen in heat, fingers tangled in the silver-damp hair of the man between her thighs.
Alpha Andrew.
My mate.
His back was to me. His robe hung open, exposing three fresh claw marks raked down his skin. Still bleeding. Still warm.
The rug beneath them was an expensive Persian piece. Lying on top of it—half open—was a document lined with amethyst trim.
A prenuptial agreement.
Emblazoned across it in gilded letters: “By Life and Honor, Sworn for Eternity.”
But it was stained now. With something...disgusting. Crusted. Dried. A mockery of everything that once meant forever.
Andrew turned around.
His golden eyes flared with fury and alarm. A beast startled mid-hunt.
My wolf stirred violently inside me, growling in fury. “He’s provoking us. Tear. Him. Apart.”
I clenched my fists, spine burning with restraint. My wolf slammed against my bones, demanding to be released, but I held her back.
Not yet. He wasn’t worth the shift.
"Get out," he hissed, voice cold as winter steel.
I laughed.
Hatred had long since replaced pain.
Slowly, I pulled the knife from my sleeve. The blade gleamed, cold and merciless.
My wolf whispered: “Let me out. Let me offer his blood to the Moon.”
Instead, I raised the knife—and flicked the soiled contract up with its tip.
"Look at this," I said, voice hoarse with rage. “The family’s sacred honor pact.”
I threw it.
Smack!
It hit Serena square in the face.
“Do you wipe your ass with this?” I spat.
Then, with a flick of my wrist, I stabbed the knife deep into the oak bedpost. The wood splintered with the force.
Andrew’s jaw clenched, fury swirling in his eyes.
But I stood tall.
Louder this time, each word slicing the air like a blade:
“I, Mia Evernight, reject you, Alpha Andrew, as my mate!”
Boom!
The chandelier above exploded with light, flooding the room with blinding brilliance.
Andrew staggered, like something inside him had snapped. His knees hit the marble floor with a sickening crack—shattering the tiles beneath him.
Crash.
Fragments scattered across the floor like broken vows.
A raw sound tore from his throat, something between a growl and a scream. He clutched his head, golden eyes wide in disbelief.
“No… no, this isn’t real…” he rasped. “I saw wrong… I must’ve—”
The door burst open again. Pack Doctor Bartholomew rushed in, panic on his face.
“Alpha! You need to calm down!”
He grabbed Andrew’s shoulders, trying to hold him down. “You’ll destroy yourself if you keep—”
But Andrew didn’t hear him. Blood trickled from his temple, from his bitten lip. He reached blindly, like he was trying to grab something slipping away.
“My... my mate…”
Then came the assistants.
Three of them, all in Silver Moon uniforms, carrying black velvet trays. But they didn’t hold jewels.
They held documents.
Deeds. Shares. Control papers for everything Andrew owned.
Northern Mines. Western Ridge Port. Dark River Transport.
Everything.
He lunged for one of the certificates like a drowning man. Ripped it from the tray. Then—He bit down hard on his finger.
Blood spilled, running down his hand. He smeared it across the pristine page, scribbling desperately:
“This Domain Forever Belongs to Luna Mia.”
The red letters bled through the page. He reached for me with that same bloody hand.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, jerking back. His touch made my skin crawl.
My old wound flared.
His expression twisted in anguish—and rage.
Judgment Day. Morning.
Thick iron shackles buzzed with static around my wrists and ankles. I walked into the top floor of the Silver Moon Pack headquarters—straight into the tribunal chamber.
The room was vast. Cold. Empty, except for the silent weight of power.
Then—Whoosh!
Dozens of spotlights flared on at once, casting me in blinding white. I stood alone, centerstage.
The screen on the wall flickered to life.
Security footage. High resolution. Crystal clear.
The Pack's core treasury vault. Bronze doors. A figure cloaked in shadows stood before it.
She lifted a hand to unlock it.
Around her neck was my mother’s moonstone necklace. My mother’s.
She raised her hand. Her right hand.
The image zoomed in. The ring finger was missing a sliver of nail.
My finger.
My damn finger.
I remembered the pain. The Gamma warriors ripping it out with steel pliers that first night in solitary.
The camera didn’t lie.
Someone had forged my palm print.
The elder’s scepter slammed to the ground with a deafening crack.
“Tampering with the treasury. Theft of sacred relics. The evidence is irrefutable,” he said coldly. “Traitor Mia. You are sentenced to the highest penalty.”
Onscreen, Serena’s face appeared in the corner.
Smiling.
Wearing my necklace.
I could barely breathe as the iron cage descended around me.
Click. The lock sealed.
Just before the bars closed completely, I turned my head. Looked her dead in the eye.
And smiled.
Because I saw it.
The fresh bite on her neck. Raw. Bleeding. The mark of an Alpha.
Of my Alpha.
My heart twisted, a blade of agony digging deeper.
As the prison van rolled past the barbed gates, my finger throbbed. The same scar I’d earned shielding Andrew from an assassin years ago.
How poetic.
Eight hundred and thirty-seven days.
I would return.
And when I did—I would carve my name into every traitor's skin, using the steel nails they buried in my bones.
