Chapter 1

For eighteen years, I used the Moonlight Blessing bestowed upon me by the Moon Goddess to lift my Alpha husband, Basil, to the pinnacle of power.

Until I discovered he had stolen my child—replacing her with the bastard son he'd fathered with my adopted sister, making that boy his heir.

While my true daughter was exiled to a bottom-rung settlement, beaten and broken.

And my parents had known all along, keeping silent to protect their interests.

I didn't weep. I didn't beg. I simply reached out through the mindlink to the Alpha of the Northern Pack—Ronan Nightveil.

"I'm willing to transfer my Moonlight Blessing to the Nightveil Pack," I said. "I have only one condition—I want Delphinium Pack destroyed. Completely."

Basil once thought controlling an Omega was like keeping a pet on a leash.

He was wrong. When he loses the Blessing, when his allies abandon him, when he's on his knees begging for my forgiveness—

I'll make sure he knows exactly what it feels like to be ripped out by the roots.

...

...

The night before my son Caspian's eighteenth birthday, my husband Basil informed me that I would not be attending the Shift ceremony.

"An Omega's scent interferes with the first Shift," he said without looking up, his tone laced with contempt and impatience. "Just stay home."

Eighteen years. I had never missed a single milestone in Caspian's life—and now, on the most important night of his existence, my husband was telling me to stay away.

"Basil, I'm his mother."

"Precisely because you're his mother, you should be thinking of what's best for him." He finally raised his eyes, his gaze calm but utterly non-negotiable. "Serena, don't be difficult."

Don't be difficult.

The words slid into my chest like a thin needle.

As if insisting on attending my own child's coming-of-age ceremony was somehow an unreasonable demand.

I said nothing more.

But at midnight, when the full moon climbed to its zenith, I slipped out of our home anyway. I followed the glow of the ritual bonfire through the silver fir forest until I reached the outer perimeter of the clan's sacred grounds.

At the center of the stone platform, Caspian knelt beneath the moonlight. His muscles were undergoing their first reshaping—shoulder blades rising, spine curving, knuckles beginning to distort. Basil stood behind him, his black-gold eyes blazing like lanterns.

And then I saw someone who shouldn't have been there.

Breenda.

She stood in the inner circle—the position reserved only for immediate blood kin.

I, Caspian's mother, had been barred from attending. Yet she—my adopted sister, exiled years ago—stood brazenly in the closest position, hands clasped together, lips moving as though praying for Caspian.

My heart seized violently.

In the next moment, Caspian completed his Shift.

A young wolf rose in the firelight, lifted his head, and let out his first long howl.

His coat was clearly visible in the flames—a base of black-gold interwoven with silver-grey, like storm clouds split open by lightning in a dark sky.

Black-gold. Basil's color.

Silver-grey. Breenda's color.

And my wolf was moon-white—the color that should have flowed through my own flesh and blood—not a single trace of it existed.

My legs began to buckle.

I stumbled back a step. My spine hit a tree trunk, and the pain brought me partially back to my senses.

I don't remember how I made it home. I only know that when Basil pushed open the door at dawn, I was sitting in the dark, waiting.

"His color is wrong." My voice came out far calmer than I expected.

Basil's footsteps halted.

"Serena—"

"Black-gold and silver-grey. Your colors and Breenda's." I looked up at him. "Caspian isn't my child, is he?"

His reaction wasn't denial. It wasn't confusion. It was rage.

"Have you lost your mind?" He snarled like a beast on the verge of losing control. "You carried him for ten months! You're going to doubt your own son over fur color?"

"Then let's do a blood lineage test."

He grabbed my wrist with crushing force, enough to grind bone.

"No."

"Basil—"

"I said no!"

His pheromones exploded outward in an instant, Alpha dominance slamming into me like a wall.

My body trembled instinctively—an Omega has almost no capacity to resist that kind of pressure.

Then he released me, turned, and stormed out of the room. A moment later, I heard the front door lock from the outside.

I had been locked inside my own home.

I opened my palms and stared at the four crescent-shaped blood marks on each one. I started to laugh.

And somewhere in the laughing, the tears came.

Eighteen years.

For eighteen years, I had poured the Moon Goddess's Moonlight Blessing into the Delphinium Pack without reservation. Their warriors were formidable because of my blood, unkillable because of my protection, united because of my bond.

Basil had risen from the young leader of a third-rate clan to the most feared Alpha on the continent.

And me? I wasn't even allowed to attend my own "son's" Shift ceremony.

In the darkness, I activated my mindlink and reached out to someone I had never contacted of my own volition before.

The Alpha of the Nightveil Pack—Ronan Nightveil.

"Serena?" The voice on the other end carried obvious surprise.

"Ronan," I said. "About the Moonlight Blessing transfer—I agree."

A beat of silence. Then a low, measured response: "I'll send someone to collect you tomorrow."

"No. It's not time yet."

I severed the link and erased all traces.

After dawn, Basil came back. He stood in the kitchen, clumsily frying a cut of venison.

"Serena," he turned to look at me, his voice softened by three degrees. "Last night—I was too impulsive."

On the table sat warm wine and slightly charred venison chops. He sat across from me, and neither of us mentioned the night before.

"Caspian comes home next week."

"Mm."

His voice dropped lower.

"Serena, stop overthinking this, all right? When he gets back, we'll have a proper family dinner."

Family.

The word suddenly sounded obscene.

"What about the blood test?"

The tenderness on his face froze for an instant, then slowly drained away.

"Why do you insist on fixating on this?"

His knife and fork clattered against the plate, the sound sharp and piercing.

He stood up and left for the second time.

I stood by the window, watching his figure disappear into the morning mist, then walked into the study.

On the desk lay a mate-bond dissolution contract and a territory division agreement.

Just then, a voice appeared in my mindlink.

My mother, Gwendolyn.

"Serena, how have you been feeling? Oh, by the way—Breenda is officially returning to the pack next week. Basil arranged a Warrior Elder seat for her. It's been so long since we've all been together. We should have a family gathering."

I stared at those words, my fingertips ice-cold.

Breenda.

She was coming back.