Chapter 1

My cousin Lily had been taken by the Black Rock pack.

Their alpha, Valeria, had one demand: the head of the Frost Moon war general.

I was strapping on my armor, ready to lead the rescue, when my eldest brother Cassian slipped something into my drink.

I woke up bound in silver chains on the pack's ceremonial altar.

My three brothers — Cassian, the pack Enforcer; Julian, the Beta Treasurer; Killian, the Sentinel Commander — had once been my greatest shield.

Now Julian and Killian pinned me down while Cassian raised a silver-spiked rod, his eyes full of a pain he had no right to own.

"Elena, don't hate us. Lily is too fragile for Black Rock's dungeons."

The rod came down and shattered my wolf core.

Through the agony, I finally understood. They hadn't come to let me fight.

They had come to trade a broken war general for their precious, unscarred girl.

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The drug was still bitter on my tongue, blood rising in my throat.

"Lily is delicate," Cassian said, eyes cast down, a faint tremor in his voice — but the hand gripping the rod didn't waver at all.

"She wouldn't survive the dungeons."

"So I'm the one who suffers for it?" I said, holding his gaze, each word deliberate.

Julian crushed my shoulders into the stone, his face turned away.

"Elena. We're doing this for the pack."

Killian held down my legs, her usually warm eyes flat and cold.

"You're the war general. They probably won't kill you. You're more useful alive."

"Alive?" I laughed, the sound scraping out of my chest.

"This is how you keep me alive."

The rod rose again and fell.

The crack of shattering bone was obscenely loud in the silence.

Cold sweat soaked through my shirt instantly, darkness eating the edges of my vision.

The pain was a tide. It swallowed me whole.

Through the blur, I watched Cassian drop the rod and wipe my blood from his face with his sleeve — slow, careful, thorough.

He came to the altar and looked down at me.

"Sleep, Elena."

His voice was unbearably gentle.

"When you wake up, Lily will be home."

I dug my fingers into the stone, pulled every last scrap of air into my lungs, and forced out three words.

"Cassian. Ashford."

He went still. Shame flickered across his face before he buried it.

I smiled. Blood frothed at the corner of my mouth and stained my lips red.

"You will all regret this."

Julian and Killian released me and stepped back behind Cassian.

Three faces — same bone structure, same carved-in resolve.

Not one of them looked at me again. They turned and left.

The bolt slid home the moment the door closed.

I had become a prisoner in my own room, a war general who could no longer run.

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