Prologue. Meluna Lockwood. “Where have you been, bloody bimbo?” Alpha Roan, my fated mate backs me to the wall like he has no time to even be here, his fingers work at the hook of my gown and my brests spring free to him, still tender from his last visit, still bruised from the heat of his mouth. Just like every other day, he forces his gaze low on them because he knows it burns my skin with shame. The leather belt hisses as it slips free from his w***t. Roan is here to claim me like every other day but I don’t ever mistake it for want or desire. On what cursed planet would he ever crave the woman who ruthlessly stabbed his own mother? “Part your legs now.” He commands with his breath and I obey, scanning for where he wants me since I’m not near the bed. Like a panther dragging prey, he hurls me onto the vanity table and raises my dress. I know the rules. I am never to look at Roan. I must never m**n or make whimpering sounds of pleasure. I am not to t***h or grasp him during intimacy. Yet, his calloused fingers dig bruises into my t****s as he hooks my legs and presses me against the wall. “Look at me!” He growls but that’s not part of the rules. I am never to look at him! I open my eyes for I know better than to disobey the man who broke my brother’s bones in front of me. Disobedience means broken bones and my mate just happens to be the most powerful Dusthound Alpha in a century. “Look at me and m**n as I claim you!” He rasps and like pure butter, no finesse…just hunger. Roan slots between my t****s to find me where it aches. “Ahh…” I gasp in a tiny whisper at the first breach of his thrvst. It is a traitorous sound because I know this mate hates me to the core of his belly. He is only doing this because it is the only way to save his mother. The last solution lies in a bone marrow transplant. But Roan is too powerful and too much of a pure-blooded Dusthound for his marrow to be compatible. The doctors say the only chance now is to create a child. A baby. One born of his blood and mine. A perfect mix to save the woman I’m accused of killing. So, I am to lie with him when he commands. To be claimed. To be bent. To be touched by the mate who hates me. Two years ago, I stabbed his mother yet I don’t remember doing it. He sees me as a bimbo today and believes I spent the past two years selling myself to Alphas for protection when I was being hunted by him. He doesn’t see a person when he looks at me. Only a vessel. Only a means to an end. He has promised that when I give him his child...he will kill me and make my best friend, Luna. Chapter one. “Please!” I scream as they drag me through the Dunefang Pack House. The home of Alpha Roan of the Dusthound wolves, my fated mate. The one who’s been hunting me for the past two years. This is the pack I grew up in and today, I return…captured as a rogue with blood on her hands and no memory of the crime. My heart feels like it might stop as I'm yanked forward. There is a deep gash caused by a needle in my foot so I’m limping, trying to keep up with the pace of the two Delta gammas who have me by the arms. Delta gammas line the grand hallway in their uniforms dark as midnight. They growl. They snarl. They spit in my direction. They curse my name. I hear someone call me a traitor, another call me a bimbo. I can’t stop shaking as shame curls through me. I am heading to the moment where the same man who once held my gaze like I was his entire future… now wants nothing more than to watch me die. He led the hunt himself tonight. He’s the one who found me after I jumped into the ocean to drown and die, rather than to be tortured by him. A bucket of freezing water is thrown over me, and I shriek as it hits my skin. I convulse from the cold and tears spring to my eyes, mixing with the water as I begin to sob. I swear…I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to stab his mother! I don’t even remember choosing it. It was like something else had taken my body and twisted it into a weapon. One moment I was standing there, holding the knife. And in the next, it was buried inside her chest. It happened on the day of Roan’s coronation to Alpha. The Dunefang pack house had opened its gates to every high-ranking family and mine was one of them. I still remember stepping through those grand doors for the first time with nervous excitement. I had just turned eighteen. I didn’t expect to walk into that celebration and find out that my mate was none other than Roan, the Quarterback captain, the wolf who basically struck fear into the hearts of every student back at Delta Academy, our equivalent of high school where training and education are all mashed into one system. Roan was a senior, at least four levels above me. Everyone stayed out of his way, not just because he was our future Alpha, but because he is a powerful wolf. On that night, the elders made him mark me on the spot. Said fate had chosen its Luna, and there was no point in waiting. They wanted the bond sealed quickly, a wedding soon after, a united front. That was two years ago. Two years since everything fell apart and I became a rogue with a blood debt on my head. They drop me on the marble floor like a sack of ruined things. Then…every shout, every growl and every insult from the crowd around me is gone. I know exactly what this silence means. He’s here. I don’t dare lift my head. I’ve been a rogue for two, long, hunted, terrifying years and that was more than enough time to learn the worst truths about Roan. About what he’s become since that night…the moment I ruined everything. Roan isn’t just any Dusthound. He’s pureblood. A true-born. An anomaly of strength not seen in centuries. Where other wolves leave pawprints, Roan leaves nothing behind. I have heard my father say he was born from the bones of ancient wolf warriors of centuries ago. He is the kind of wolf that make even the bravest go still. They say his fangs are translucent. That his claws aren’t made of bone but obsidian, fused with iron. Where others slash, he pierces. Straight through skulls, through ribs, straight into the heart and he does it without resistance. And once his claws sink in, they lock like spears driven deep into the earth. My hair is yanked at once and I squeal, twisting to see the one who holds the strands in his hands and as I dare to lift my head, I cannot tell if he’s real or some cruel hallucination. I know he has always been the space between arcane and devil. But in two years, when did Roan have tattoos? Violent diagrams line his thick n**k like vines, disappearing behind his ears only to reappear along his temples, smudged along the sharp line of his brow. Two years ago, he was just a ruthless alpha now he looks like a prophecy. Taller than I remember during his coronation where our parents asked if we accepted the bond. We said only one word to each other. “Yes.” “Ah!” I scream as he yanks me and my feet barely t***h the ground before I’m face to face with him. His arcane gold eyes burn into mine and dilates with something unholy. My lungs seize, and I forget how to breathe. This is the first time we’ve laid eyes on each other two years. “The Beach tried to drown herself?” His l**s pull back in a cruel smile, and I see his teeth lengthen into his wolfen fangs! “Boys, should I show her how it’s done?” My legs trip over themselves and I fall to my knees, but it doesn’t stop him. His hand clamps around my shirt, jrking me along while the others pound their chests, cheering for my punishment. I’m crying… openly now, not just from shame but from the pain that pulses with every tug of his hand. I see a tub full with water so cold I can see mist rise from the surface. I barely have time to scream again before he fists the front of my shirt and hurls me forward, headfirst. I gurgle. My eyes sting, my chest screams, and water floods every opening as I trash. Is this it? Is this how I die? For one blurry moment, I think maybe it’s mercy because I wanted to drown anyway. When my strength starts to give out and my lungs begin to surrender, he takes me out of the water. I start coughing and vomiting as I lean to the side, throwing up everything I inhaled in the tub. My fingers… I can’t feel them. They’re stiff and white and frozen, like the rest of me. But Roan isn’t done. He tilts his head slightly, like he's disappointed I’m still alive. His hand fists my shirt again and plunges my head back into the freezing water. I kick. I fight. Then I stop. There’s a moment where the cold feels far away, like I’m falling somewhere darker until he yanks me out a second and third time. I collapse. He throws me down like garbage and I try to feel my fingers again. The sharp pain in my chest tells me I’m still breathing, but I wish I wasn’t. “Someone get me a bloody knife! Let me carve her! Let me butcher her! Let me pierce her as she did to my mother!” His fists pound his chest in a blasphemous rasp. A tall gamma offers the Alpha a blade and Roan begins to stalk. “For what reason did you pierce my mother?” My l**s barely work and yet I know I must say something. I want to tell him I'm sorry. I want to explain, even if I don't know how to. “P-please…” At the sound of that one word—please—his arm swings at me and I drop flat to the marble floor in a rush of instinct. The blade slices through the air where my n**k was just a second ago. Roan is on top of me in an instant as his knees pin my legs. Roughly, he pushes the wet strands of my hair aside to rip my shirt open and tears at the seams, exposing me further than I ever wanted to be in front of him. I flinch as his calloused fingers graze my skin…not in desire, not in care, but like I’m something ruined that he’s dissecting. The blade returns and he paints a cruel line of red across my chest. I cry! “This wasn’t even close to the depth you went when you stabbed my mother with a wolfsbane knife. You went straight through her chest, through her bones and left her there to drown in her own blood.” “I—I’m sorry—” Roan raises the knife high above him and I brace myself for the end of my life until someone yells. “Alpha, stop!” The doors open. “That’s your fated mate! You are a pureblood Dusthound and cannot have a second-chance mate if she dies! You destroy your only chance of a pup—” The words are cut off by the whistle of Roan’s knife as it thunks into the speaker’s genital area, missing the real thing by an inch. The elder freezes and I twist my head just enough to see his face blanch. Roan did not even look and yet he did something as vile as that!

Alpha Roan. What dear Elder Ren was about to say before the knife nearly took his manhod is that I shouldn’t forget one inconvenient little fact. “that only a fated mate can carry the pup of a pure-blood Dusthound like me.” “Roan, what is going on!?” That sounds like my uncle, Splinter. Judging by the multiple footsteps that came in through the door, I’m sure he’s brought the usual parade of dusty tradition-keepers. Elders. When I turn to look, I am rightfully so. “What does it look like? I got tired of the chase so I hunted the famous bimbo of Pacific state and Wolf Groove city myself.” I fix my gaze back at the pale, snow-white form on the floor. I remember every crevice of that innocent face. How could I not? It has haunted me for the last two years. When I claimed her as mine at my coronation, they wouldn’t meet mine. As if she knew one look would undo me. I thought she was beautiful even when she was four years my junior at the Delta academy. What are Atlantic oceans if not the color of her gaze? Big. Blue. Glittering with a shimmer I once mistook for innocence. My wolf, Ros…stirs inside me at the sight of them, drawn like he always was but I meet that pull with contempt. Her skin is the color of milk. Hair black as the ash after fire. She has a small nose. I am easily six times her size. That’s how fragile the mate we’ve been hunting for two years truly is. Quickly, her l**s begin to quiver for just as I am taking in the sight of her, she is taking in the sight of me and oh, that must be fking terrifying for a junior who already knows my history through the Delta academy. I hear the pull of knife from skin so I check back at the elder to see him clutch another man for balance in pain. There is sweat on his wrinkled brow as I’d missed his genitals by a whisper. Intentionally. “That’s for calling her my mate! Now get him the hll out of here before I neuter him properly.” One glance at my eyes and they’re dragging the old fool through the doors before he bleeds on my floors. "But she is your fated mate." Splinter repeats. He is the only man in this pack with balls enough to say it twice. "Traditions?" I stare back at the trembling bimbo. "I piss on traditions! This cunt basically murdered my mother. You really believe I’d stain my title with this backstabbing bimbo as my Luna? Plus. I’ve already chosen another as my replacement Luna.” "Though, since you all ask…maybe I should claim my mate's rights right here and give you all a proper show." I watch Meluna’s pupils dilate in terror as I undo my belt buckle. I fix her legs around me in a bloody indecent position as if I’m prepared to p*******e her. My Delta gammas erupt in laughter, pounding fists on wall with a few making crude thrvsting motions. The elders shift uncomfortably and I fling Meluna’s legs away from me. “Ah, but look at you all.” I muse and rise back on my feet. “I didn’t capture her for mating or legacy or any of your pitiful hopes. I don’t give a Dam about heirs. If you think I’m going to breed with this loose traitor, you must be losing what little mind you have left!” I growl at all of them. It is no rumour that mother has been in a vegetative state since the criminal left her in a pool of blood and vanished into the wild like a coward. Two years of vengeance simmering under my skin. I’ve counted every godаm day. I’ve measured the minutes. All that know, call me the Mad Wolf. In all fairness, I do give them reason to call me mad. At ten, I tore a loose jaguar from limb to limb after it pounced at my sister when it fled it’s cage at the zoo. I didn’t hesitate. I just ripped. The elders said no child should know how to make something scream like that. At fourteen, when I discovered an elder plotting against the pack, I didn’t exile him. No, I threw him in a pit wrapped in silver-laced chains and let him rot in the dark. During my first shift, I broke silver chains in under a minute and howled for three nights straight. The kind of howl that makes the stars pull back. They say I went mad after my father died. They’re wrong for I’ve always been this way. My father’s death just gave me the throne to sit on. Now I wear madness like a crown. I was exactly nine when the training for the Alpha seat began and it was grief of losing my father that sharpened me. We dusthounds are wolves born thousands of years ago from sun-split deserts and endless deserts of golden dunes. Our kind were considered royalty and superior. In the age when deserts had names only the wind remembers, we ruled and fast forward to current time, we still do. As Alpha—no, a direct offspring of that bloodline. I carry certain... exclusive traits better left unspoken. In Pacific state, the Dusthound pack is the apex. We own the landscape, the territory, the numbers. One call from me can derail legislation, silence an entire investigation and erase a rival pack’s assets before breakfast. That’s how deep we run in government. So, for my mate to believe she could outrun me? Even if she fled the continent, changed her name, changed her scent…she would still be mine to find. There is no place on this earth where my access does not reach. “Is that who I think it is!?” My aunt Dorothy comes through and when no one answers, she storms forward and brushes back the wet strands clinging to bimbo’s face. “She’s the one! She’s the one!” “Is she!?” Cynthia, my younger sister joins to look at the disgusting thing. Disgustingly, I’ve heard the rumours of how she’s been running from Alpha to Alpha, one pack to another. How these Alphas boast about how beautiful she was. That means something because every Alpha in this state is hungry to compete with me. To have a taste of what is mine. Therefore, when they caught wind that my mate had gone rogue, they joined the hunt, not to bring her back but to claim her. I have heard of how she traded her body for protection to anyone…to any alpha who would help hide her scent from me. I believe it. That’s the only way a pampered girl like her lasted this long in hiding. There is no way she survived without offering something in return. “I’m—I’m sorry…” I hear a whisper and I find the owner of it with my eyes. With retribution, I stalk towards her again! My claws extend halfway so naturally, her pupils widen in horror. “What are you sorry for!? It can’t be for stabbing my mother. It also can’t be for running away after your crime. So, are you sorry you failed?” “No…I—” I grab her up until her face is level with mine. “Why? Why did you do that to my mother!? Why!? Answer me!” “Reject me. Just kill me please!” Her eyes meet mine in tears. She would rather ask for death than tell me the truth? “Is it not obvious, Roan!? She stabbed my sister because she didn’t want to be bonded to you!” Dorothy, my aunt seethes. "Your precious mother pushed for the bond, dreaming of the day you’d finally meet your mate before this ungrateful little Beach repaid her with a knife to the heart." It doesn’t make sense at first. Yet, it does. She’d rather ask for death. This Dam Beach would rather become a rogue! She murdered my mother just to escape a bond with the mad wolf. She would rather sell her body in hiding than to allow me claim her possessively and with respect? My fingers tighten on her fragile arm until she whimpers. “Dorothy, what does pack law demand for this viper’s crime?” “A blood debt.” Everyone gasps at Dorothy’s answer. “For the attempted murder of your mother, Meluna owes you her life, her body, her soul, and her blood a thousand times over! A thousand times you are permitted to take from her. A thousand times to inflict pain, even if the first leaves her dead!” I push her back to her knees where she belongs. “Hear that? And if you didn’t, hear this, Meluna Lockwood for I do not reject you, not yet. I am not in the business of granting you fking wishes. I am in the business of ensuring that every heartbeat in your chest is on borrowed time. A time where you cannot tell if tomorrow will be the day you die. I will punish you a thousand times. One for every day I waited. One for every time I saw my mother’s state. One for every second you thought you could escape me!” “This is the bond you tried to sever…now you’ll live in it and every day shall be a reminder that you are the Luna I hate.”

Meluna Lockwood. The look in Alpha Roan’s eyes is pure disgust. Disgust like he knows something about me I don’t even know myself. As soon as he walks out after declaring my sentence, eyes fall on me. Gathered around are those who would have become my new family if I somehow survived long enough to make it to the bonding ceremony. I recognize a few of them. Splinter. The Alpha’s uncle. He’s a friend of my father’s. I remember him visiting once, years ago, always with a book in one hand. I think he’s the head of the Pack’s Bench—the part of the council that handles the pack’s judiciary and tradition. Instead of meeting everyone else's stares, I just look at him. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t look at me like I’m a ghost crawling through blood. Then, a woman steps in and her eyes land on me. “Aurora?” Splinter calls to her like he already knew she’d come. He looks at me again. “Take her to get cleaned and fed. She’s limping. She’s not healing. That tells me she’s malnourished.” He’s right. I have not nourished my body in four days. If my mom saw me like this… she wouldn’t even recognize me. “What!? You want to clean and feed her?” Dorothy snaps. She’s the Alpha’s aunt. The sister of the woman I stabbed. She has every right in the world to hate me. “Roan has decided to keep her alive—" “If it was someone from your family who got stabbed, you’d have used your position to execute the killer immediately!” “I’m not here to write new rules. I’m following the Alpha’s.” While they argue, the woman—Aurora—crosses the room toward me. I brace myself for more hatred. For her to spit, or glare, or step past me like I don’t even exist. But instead, she kneels beside me. Then gently, wraps her arm around my shoulder and helps me up. I can’t stop staring at her. “Slow steps.” Aurora mutters. I nod, and try. My legs feel heavier than before, like the shame and whispers are piling on my shoulders with every shuffle forward. We barely get moving before Dorothy steps in front of me. Her eyes stab into me like she wants to rip the truth out of my skin. Around us, the elders are murmuring but it is not low enough. I hear the words they don’t think I’ll catch. Words like incubator, can I still be Luna…wondering aloud how I survived being a rogue. Is the rumour true? Did she trade herself for safety? Did she offer her body for protection? My stomach twists. So that’s what they think. That’s why Alpha Roan looked at me like I was filth. They think I sold myself. That I used my body to crawl back alive. That I came back... tainted. Outside that suffocating room, the hallway is golden and grand. It reminds me of the first time I saw the packhouse and thought it was something out of a dream. But the dream shatters the moment I see the crowd of omegas. They part for Aurora and continue the conversations the elders didn’t finish. They are talking about my chastity, my worth, as if they have the right to judge whether I’m still "clean." Before I lower my head, I see someone familiar. Lisa—my best friend. My heart leaps before my body can stop it. “Lisa?” I catch her wrist. She sees me. I know she does but her eyes show no spark of emotion or recognition. I try again. “Lisa, it’s me—" She swats my hand away like it burns her! Quickly, a sob pushes up into my throat but I don’t let it out. “The replacement Luna and Meluna know each other?” someone mutters, and the words slaps me harder than her hand did. Replacement Luna? Is she what Roan meant by he had already chosen a replacement? Before I can ask, Lisa turns…not to me, but to Aurora. “What about Roan? Is he okay?” “He’s in definitely not in a good mood. It’s best you leave him alone tonight.” Aurora taps the elevator button and tugs on my arm. I look back at Lisa. I stare, long and hard, searching for anything that tells me I didn’t just lose my best friend too. I don’t get an answer as the elevator closes. ***** I chug the water first. It’s not graceful. I nearly spill half of it down. When I finally set it down, I dive straight for the rice, for the soup, for the herbal tea. I don’t care what comes first—spoonful after spoonful, everything goes down in messy bites. I cough, choke a little, but I don’t stop swallowing until the tight grip of hunger in my belly starts to ease. Looking up, both Aurora and an omega are staring at me. Their faces say they’re not sure whether to be concerned or to just give me space. I don’t blame them. I keep eating. I only stop when everything in front of me…every plate, every bowl, every single cup is empty. “Do you want some more?” I shake my head quickly. “No, thank you. I’m fine.” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine anymore. It’s too quiet, like it’s still afraid to make noise. “I think you should take your bath now.” the omega wrinkles her nose. She’s not wrong. I glance down at myself and one word. Rags. The kind of clothes I wouldn’t have touched back when I was still the pampered daughter of my father. I rise to my feet and brace myself for the limp but surprisingly, I feel none. “We’re healed.” Eluna whispers inside me. Of course, she’d feel better. Her mate is near and fortunately, that makes our healing process faster due to the link that still exists between Roan and I. The bathroom is shown to me and for the first time in two years, I take a warm shower without having to hurry for my next hiding place. The steam softens the ache in my bones, the filth from days…weeks? It peels off in slow ribbons. As I wash my hair, I stare at the shelves lined with shampoos, scented oils and thick creamy conditioners. Back then, I barely even noticed them. They were just things that were always there. Now? They look like miracles. By the time I tie the robe around my w***t, I look like a person again. A girl who just wanted to graduate Delta Academy and go for a vacation afterwards. Could it be… now that I’m here in the packhouse and not dead. I can find out what really happened—what made me do something I don’t even remember then maybe… maybe I can prove my innocence? That I’m not the monster they say I am. When I step out of the bathroom, Aurora and the omega are still there. It looks like the omega was in the middle of saying something but she stops the moment she sees me. “There are some clothes in the closet. Hmm, looks like you’re not limping anymore. It’s healed?” I nod at Aurora. My throat is still sore and I don’t trust my voice to not tremble. I’m also sure that her question isn’t out of care. it’s just a checkmark, a routine task. She doesn’t really care. She’s just doing what Splinter told her to. “We’ll leave you now.” Aurora adds and they leave. The very first thing I do is lock the door. Then I walk to the window, the pull of habit like a thread around my wrist. Outside, I see gammas in uniform. Some by the window. Others by the balcony. Their positions are meant for watching. Not guarding me, but guarding against me. I’m not even thinking about running. I just want to sleep tonight. I don’t t***h the clothes in the closet. They’re probably comfortable but I don’t care. I crawl under the covers still in the soft robe and fall asleep. I don’t know how long I sleep for, but my hands give me away. They start twitching and fidgeting against the sheets, even in my sleep because I’m always reacting. I’m always running and even when I’m not, my body is still on alert. It learned the hard way. When the whole country heard I was being hunted by Roan, it wasn’t just the Dunefang pack that came for me. Roan’s enemies came too. Enemies I didn’t even know existed. The first Alpha I dared to trust was from the Twin Pack who lied that my father had sent him. Innocently, I believed. What could I have done, I was starving and cold. My father never sent him, that bloody Alpha wanted to claim me. I don’t even remember what tipped me off. Maybe it was the way he looked at me. The way his hand stayed too long on my wrist. But when he tried to corner me, I grabbed a knife from his dinner tray and stabbed him in the knee. He screamed but his gammas thought the sound he made was from pleasure. That was the chance I took and ran. The Alpha of the twin pack will never admit to his pack that he was bested by a frail, half-starved girl. No, of course not. So, he spun his own twisted version and lied to the world that he claimed me. More traumatic memories of how other Alphas, rogues and males cornered me blurs together, their voices do the same and just like that, I rise awake with a gasp. It’s morning. The light pouring through the windows means safety, right? NO! I screech in shock because standing right there, at the edge of the bed, is a multi-dimensional Spartan figure that fills the room like death. Alpha Roan. I push myself up and press into the pillows as if they could protect me. How long has he been watching me? Shoulders like a double-barrelled shotgun. Veined hands are folded in front of him. Knuckles like brass. Fingers as thick as cigars, each one tattooed with ink so dark it looks like he dipped them in liquid sin. These tattoos crawl down his arms and even wrap around his fingers. His hair…since when did he grow it so long? It falls in waves past his jaw, half-tied back with a leather cord. The morning light paints silver streaks through it and catches on the sharp angles of his face: a nose that’s been broken more than once, l**s set in a permanent snarl, and those eyes— Gold. Onyx of bursting mercury. All of a sudden, his claws snipe out! I scramble until my legs tangle in the sheets. Is this it? Instead of making me suffer a thousand times, he’ll end it with one click! He is going to kill me now!? I follow the movement of his eyes and realize that he’s looking at my t***h. The robe I threw on after the shower is loose, barely tied, and with how quickly I scrambled, the hem has snagged just below my h**s, exposing the topography of my t****s. That’s what Roan is staring at. Or…is he looking at the faint red scars there? I got them fighting for my life against another Alpha who scratched me with his claws. I was malnourished back then so I couldn’t heal cleanly which made the scars stay. At once, his nostrils flare and his claws retract with a soft snick. "h*****s from your many worthless lovers?” Roan’s voice is velvet. Deep and cultured and by all means, he does not break eye contact. He thinks— He thinks these scars are from some passionate tryst. He thinks the scars are love bites. Instead of answering Roan’s question, I do the only thing I can. I pull the robe down over my t****s to shield me from anymore of his accusations. But I should know better. Movement from me, even something that small is a sin around him. Roan closes the distance between us, his large hand hooks into the robe fabric and pushes it back to look at again. His jaw locks at the sight, but it isn’t sympathy I see in his eyes. It’s disgust. "What do you think you are? Some innocent bottom virgin? Do not play that modesty card in front of me. Your looks may fool others, but they’ll never fool me again.” Again? Like I ever tried to. “I’ve heard it from every corner of the state how you gave your slothful body to the Alpha of the Twin Pack, how you spent all night with one brother and all day with the other. Really, two brothers?” I shake my head because it’s not true. That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened. He seems done looking at me for the robe falls back into place when he lets go. His jaw ticks again. “You disgust me. Your face. This bond. Everything about you…it makes my blood boil! Who do I blame for bringing a thing like you into this world? Your parents? All they did was raise a criminal who went crawling around the country, spreading her legs for my rivals—” “That’s not true!” I yell and Roan goes deathly still. I press a hand to my mouth but I know it’s already too late. Slithered in Roan’s eyes, is fury as if my voice is a privilege I shouldn’t even have.

Alpha Roan. She had no words when I demanded the truth about my mother…no answers for the blood, the knife, the coma but when I so much as mention her filthy reputation, she finds her voice? “Say what you said again!” I snarl. “Please…” I snap her chin up and lock her face in place. “Defend yourself again, you fking slvt.” Her barely covered body bubble brests rises and falls. I force my gaze lower just to punish her with it. Not because I want her. god no. I don’t feel anything for the woman who butchered my mother. If I looked at her and felt even a flicker of desire, I’d carve out my own fking heart. She gasps at her own nakedness. “Half the Dam state’s seen you barely covered body. Touched you. fked you. My mother is trapped between life and death just because you didn’t want to be mated to me? So, you could go off and bimbo yourself out to other males? You let them mark you so that when I finally found you, I’d see their reminders.” She shakes her head in battered tears. I step back and let her go only to drag my eyes over her. To her n**k which still bears my mark of two years ago. To the structure of her body and you know, if she weren’t a bloody murderer, what man would not find himself helpless staring at those voluptuous brests, they are as white as fresh cream, tipped with that same blushing pink as her bitten l**s. They rise with every panicked breath in treacherous weight. A lesser man would have already fallen to his knees, worshipping at the altar of her flesh. A weaker man would’ve begged to taste her. But I? I scoff. Her w***t is a fking joke. Narrow enough to snap between my hands, yet flaring into round h**s. That scrap of u*******r does nothing to hide her yet all I feel is revulsion. “How many hands have been on you, Meluna? How many mouths on your bosom? Are the numbers so ugly you’ve lost count?” Her eyes dart everywhere but mine. “Answer me!” “I didn’t. I didn’t…it’s not true, please. I didn’t sleep with the Alpha of the Twin Pack. I swear—I didn’t.” “You didn’t f'k- the Twin Alphas?” I scoff. “Then you didn’t sleep with Alpha Caden either? You think I’d believe a girl like you with no formal training in fighting—just ‘survived’ as a rogue for two fking years?" “I survived by running—” “Stravus!” I bellow, cutting off her pathetic excuse. My Beta walks in, and I don’t even blink at the fact that she’s still b**e before him. Let him look. What’s left to hide? A slvt doesn’t get privacy. A traitor doesn’t get respect. “Would you believe this wench didn’t sell herself to survive?” I ask Stravus in mockery. His expression fails when his eyes land on her. He’s not used to seeing his Alpha’s mate like this. “You can go ahead and take a look at her. The only reason I haven’t rejected her is because I want this bond to be her living nightmare. So go on. Look at every filthy inch of her.” Stravus clears his throat. “If she didn’t sell her body then she had to fight to survive. But if she didn’t fight… then she had nothing else to offer but her body.” “Alright then…” I announce. “We’ll test her survival skills. Get some Gammas from the Delta academy on the training gym. Let’s see just how this helpless Beach managed to outlast death for two years.” I glance at her one last time. “Put on some fking clothes. You’ve got ten seconds.” I walk out of the room and I see Landon, my second Beta. Not that I owe anyone an explanation, but being a Pureblood Dusthound places me far above Lycans on the chain. So, of course, it’s only natural that I command and have multiple Betas especially with a pack this size. “There was no one else running with her.” Landon stops in front of me to deliver his report. It’s about last night’s hunt—the one where I joined. I hadn’t realized my wolf still remembered her scent that clearly, that bitter mix of snow, salt, and betrayal. I ordered Landon back out into the woods for one reason: I want to know if her father helped her during those two years. I need a reason to lock him behind bars and reduce his family to nothing. I’ve already stripped him of his position as Head of Discipline in Delta. That was only the beginning. I want treason and if I can’t find evidence, I’ll manufacture it. My goal isn’t just to ruin Meluna...it is to annihilate her family a thousand times over until nothing remained I have the mind and the cruelty to see it through. “Is that her?” Landon nods past my shoulder. I turn. “In the flesh.” I mutter and start walking. She better follow if she values what's left of her pathetic pride. On the training floor, four gammas are in uniform, waiting. They are likely her old peers from the academy. Since she never graduated, this would be her first real encounter with them since her disgrace. They stiffen when they see me and salute in unison. “Morning, Alpha!” Stravus hands me a long wooden staff. My preferred tool for training gammas when I’m not in the mood to use my fists. It’s impersonal, sharp, and just cruel enough to make a point without killing. “I’m sure some of you recognize her.” I pace slowly. “This is the criminal you’ve all been searching for the past two years.” “Of course, Alpha. Meluna was in level five with us at school.” Helen, the only female in the group replies. “Good, we’re going to find out how she survived those two years because surely—surely—she didn’t just run and hide. Helen. Fight her.” She nods with sharp pride. The others fall back in a circle and give space but I stay close. I want to see it myself. I want to watch every lie unravel right in front of me, exposed like her pathetic little secrets. Helena starts circling her on the concrete and Meluna looks at me. “I can…can’t.” “Can’t what!?” I dare her to finish that sentence. “I survived by remembering my father’s—” “Your father?” I cut in, folding my arms slowly across my chest. “You mean your father secretly helped you?” Landon chuckles behind me. It’s the sound of shared amusement. The one where I twist her words so I can implicate her. “No! That’s not what I meant. I mean he taught me how to hide!” she shakes her head violently. “Good. Then hide from Helena’s moves.” I toss the training stick toward Helena who catches it without so much as a blink. I trained her myself, one of the best Gamma candidates to apply for pack house position from the Delta Academy. Meluna starts backing away and it only confirms everything I’ve always known. She’s weak. A liar. And soon, she’ll be crawling. I want this. I want Helen to beat her into fking submission. I watch her legs. Those don’t belong to someone who’s survived off grit or strength. Her hands shake, breaths come in uneven spurts, and when Helena begins circling, Meluna stumbles. Then the first strike lands into the side of her n**k. Meluna drops to the floor like a broken wing. “Wooo…” the Gammas jeer. Meluna lifts her head—barely—and one stray curl falls over her face. Her l**s part as if she wants to speak, wants to plead. Don’t. Don’t even think of asking for mercy. “Hit her if she gets up too slow.” I add. Helena obeys instantly and brings the stick down across her spine. It wrenches a scream from her throat, a kind of music I didn’t know I liked until now. Meluna g****s, tries to rise—wrong move again. Helena hits her again. And again. A blur of movements. Wood meeting skin. “Get up and fight me!” Helena barks like a seasoned predator and stomps on Meluna’s wrist which forces her to look up. “Fight before I crush your wrist…the same wrist you used to harm the Alpha’s mother!” “Ah!” Meluna cries, flailing under her grip, trying to shove her off but there’s no strength in her arms, no discipline in her stance. No sign of survival instincts. She’s not a warrior. She’s not even prey worth chasing. Just a trembling, lying bimbo. The only thing she’s ever fought for is a chance to spread her legs. Helen looks at me, awaiting a sign. I nod. No mercy. She brings her heel down and stomps onto Meluna’s hand. On the dirt, her fingers are red, already swelling, and I watch her scuttle backward on the ground like a kicked dog. Perfect. She’s learning. She’s realizing that whatever god she faced outside the Dusthound Pack is nothing compared to the one waiting here. Out there, she could run. Out there, she could sell her body and buy silence. Here, she’ll remain a rogue, even if she was born into this pack and no amount of messing will buy her freedom now. “Helen—” she sobs. “Get up and fight me!” Helen grabs her by the collar of her sweat shirt and drives her elbow into her jaw, sending Meluna flat. Helen hauls her up by the hair and slams her face-first into the dirt. “Get up and fight me!” Her boot presses down between Meluna’s shoulder blades, grinding her deeper into the dust. “I can’t fight!” Meluna wails, scratching at the ground. “I can’t—I can’t fight!” “You can’t? Is fking the only thing you can do?” She fists her hand into Meluna’s hair, yanking her up by the roots until that tear-streaked face is forced to look at me. I stare at her. And give her nothing. “Fine.” Helena hiss. “Those who can’t fight get beaten.” She twists Meluna’s arm back for another move but I raise a hand to stop her. Because this next lesson? I want to teach it myself. I take the training stick from Helen and curl my fingers around it. Oh, but I’m not about to use it myself. If I hit her, even once, with half of strength, I’ll shatter every bone in her body. And I can’t have her dying…not when I’ve barely begun her suffering. Meluna sees the way I twist the stick and the sound that comes from her chest isn’t even normal. “Alpha, please…don’t hurt my sister!” A voice shouts suddenly and I shift my glare to the side. A male rushes between us and throws himself in front of her. “He’s her brother.” Stravus murmurs. “Did you forget? You allowed him to join gamma delta just so the day you caught her; you could use him as a tool to punish her.” Ah. Yes. I remember now. How touching. “Kaden?” Meluna breathes. I see horror in her eyes. The helpless, pathetic pleading she starts to mouth to him when she notices my smile. That’s right, little witch. I wasn’t even going to beat your brother. But now that he’s come charging in like some noble mutt on a leash? That’s exactly what I’m going to do. “You know better than to stand in the Alpha’s way!” Stravus snaps at him. Kaden doesn’t flinch. He just stands there in that pressed Delta uniform, shoulders taut like he’s ready to break himself for her. And he’s looking right at me. “Please, my sister won’t survive this. She’ll die if you do this, Alpha.” I take note of his structure. He looks like he trains. He could take a beating. Wouldn’t that ruin her more than anything else? Watching the last person, she loves get torn apart—because of her. “So, you’ll take it for her or shall I beat her to death right here while you watch?” “Ka—Kaden, no—” Meluna stammers in sobs. “I will take it, Alpha.” he sinks to his knees. Right there. In the dirt. In front of me. “Roan, please! It’s me you hate! Don’t hurt my brother. Please, I’ll do anything!” My gaze slams into hers. Did she just— “Did you just call me by my name?” I step toward her but her brother grabs my boot. “Alpha, please!” He grips my leg so that’s when it hits. That heat of irritation she’s caused me in two years of chasing shadows, two years of filth dragged across my name, two years of my mother barely alive is now multiplied by ten and handed to me on a silver fking platter. I bring the first strike down to her brother and it dents inward into his shoulder blade. It splits his skin, an unnatural hollow of where bone should be, and for one beautiful second, his entire arm hangs wrong, limp as a gutted fish. This is what she made me into and now she gets to watch it in full.

Meluna Lockwood. “Kaden!” I scream with every last thread left in my lungs, but Helen yanks me back, arms tight around mine like she’s restraining a prisoner. I thrash, helpless, useless as I watch my brother crumple beneath the Roan’s wrath. It’s just one blow at first but that’s all it takes to drain the warmth from Kaden’s face. He turns pale right in front of me, like life is leaking from him. Like the light in him has already begun to die. Then, it gets worse. Roan doesn’t stop. He beats my brother where his skin isn’t already bruised, where his bones haven’t yet broken until Kaden can’t even lift his head. Until he’s twitching on the ground like something dying, like something discarded. I’ve cried before—moons, I’ve cried but never like this. Never with this choking silence. Never while watching the last person I love bleed in front of me. It’s just soundless gasping. My whole body heaves in grief that no noise can carry. Something in me is ripping apart and Roan? Roan l***s his l**s. He l***s his l**s like he’s just finished a meal. He’s not a person. He’s not even a wolf. He’s something hollow. He is bloodlust dressed in black. He is madness that walks on two legs. “Take him to the med.” he says like he didn’t just break my brother’s body. The gammas move to collect what’s left of Kaden. They’re careful, trying not to hurt him more when Roan turns back to me and when our eyes lock. I was wrong. Could it be that he has always been a monster before what happened to his mother? And everyone that called him a mad wolf were not wrong. He is feral thing in the skin of a leader. The rumors weren’t wrong and now I know why people whisper behind his back. Why they don’t meet his eyes. Why everyone is afraid. “She looks scared out of her mind, Alpha.” someone mutters. “She does?” Roan jokes. “I hope she knows it could have easily been her. But of course…I don’t want to kill her yet.” I can’t hold it in anymore. “Just kill me!” I choke. “Why won’t you just kill me—” I am in the middle of my sentence when he stalks towards me and clamps around my throat. "You stuck a wolfsbane glass knife into my mother! Not just any knife—" I gasp at the knowledge of this. I didn’t know I did that. I stabbed her with poison? "Do you know what that does to one of us? The wound didn’t just bleed, it rotted from the inside out. Your choice of wolfsbane knife ate through her tissue and muscle like fire through parchment. You buried it all the way to the hilt. The tip came out her back after puncturing her lungs.” His free hand traces a cruel line between my shoulder blades, mimicking the exit wound. "The surgeons had to cut her open just to remove the shards. Ten days, they worked, ten days of her screaming as they peeled back her ribs to scrape the poison from her heart. You didn't just want her dead. You wanted her to feel it. And now?" His fingers flex around my throat. “And when I ask why, you give me silence. You flinch. You defend yourself over some stubid rumour about your slvt life, like I even care who you slept with!” Tears pour down my face. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I shake my head, desperate to say no, to say I didn’t, but I can’t get the words out. “Yes.” I whisper. “Yes. I did it because I didn’t want to be mated to a mad wolf like you. So just kill me. Just kill me!” I say it not because it’s true but because I want it to end. I want him to stop. I’m don’t care about proving my innocence anymore. I just want to protect the people who keep getting hurt because of me. If my death is what he needs to stop his pain, then so be it. He reacts in an instant. Roan’s hand picks me up with my n**k, so fast the air in my lungs rushes out like it’s been punched out of my chest. One moment my feet are planted on the ground - the next, I'm dangling like a hunted rabbit in a snare. All with one arm. Tears slip from my eyes as my body starts to shake. I gasp, mouth opening and closing, but nothing comes. Just strangled, ugly sounds. My vision blurs. I don’t bother fight him. I want him to end me. Suddenly, someone grabs my feet. I don’t know who for I can’t see through the haze of suffocation but the pressure makes Roan release me. His hand falls away from my throat, and I drop as air painfully comes back into my lungs. I cough. I wheeze as my throat feels like it’s been crushed inwards. Then, I see Splinter. He’s the one who grabbed me. “Is it in your plan to kill her where everyone working in the pack house can see?” “I can kill her wherever I want. She has a blood debt on her head, and it’s mine to collect!” Roan replies. “Aurora.” Splinter turns away from Roan. “Take her to the medics.” As Aurora helps me up, I hear Roan’s voice one last time. “Make sure it’s not the same room as her brother. I ban her from seeing that fool.” By the time we reach the med wing, I’m trembling so badly I can’t even sit up straight. Two years of running, hiding and somehow, nothing I went through out there prepared me for this. Not for the humiliation of having Roan rip the robe from my body in front of his Beta. Not for the disgust in his eyes as he looked at me like I was filth and not the sound of Kaden's bones breaking under his Alpha's wrath. The cot creaks as my trembling worsens in helpless jrk. I don’t even notice the nurse next to me until something stings the side of my l*p—disinfectant. I turn to look at Aurora. “Please, is Kaden… is he going to survive it? Was he even breathing?” Aurora hesitates. “You should get treated first.” “Treated?” I swipe at the endless tears rolling down my cheeks. “Treated just so he can come back and break me again.” “I know you don’t know me, Aurora… but please. My brother. I just have to know.” Aurora looks at me and her eyes soften. “Roan has banned you from knowing that.” The nurse moves toward me again but I pull back. “Stop. Please—stop, I don’t—” I don’t get to finish when a clawed hand slaps me across the face. The pain is like hot wires tearing through my skin. I don’t know if it’s in my jaw, or in my head, or in the way my world spins but I hit the floor hard. Blood. I feel it running hot down my n**k. And when I look up, I see Aurora struggling to hold someone back—someone with claws already out and red staining her fingers. “Cynthia!” The girl thrashing in her hold looks just like Roan. “This Beach stabbed my mother and you’re stopping me!?” she screams. She’s the Alpha’s sister. I don’t move. I don’t stand. I don’t even try to crawl away. If Roan doesn’t kill me, maybe it’s better that she does. “Roan is already being punished—” “Punishing her? He hasn’t even rejected her! The Elders and the whole pack are talking like she’s some kind of saviour, like she’s the one who’ll give him heirs! After two years of fking every Alpha who’d look at her!” Cynthia throws Aurora off like she’s nothing and then she’s in front of me. Her claws dig into my shoulders with such force I scream. “Why did you do that to my mother!? You could’ve just rejected Roan if you didn’t want to marry him! I lost my dad and now I’m losing my mom every single day because of you!?” “I don’t remember doing it!” I yell and the room goes utterly still. “What did you just say?” “I don’t remember doing it. I don’t even remember holding the knife. I was just there when it happened, and I looked down, and she was on the ground and there was so much blood. I don’t remember hurting her, I don’t know why I did it. Please believe me… please—” Cynthia lunges at me again, and this time, her hand grips into my hair so hard that when Stravus yanks her back, she rips a thick strand straight from my scalp in her shaking fist. I scream in pain but all I can do is cradle my head. “She thinks it’s a joke!” Cynthia is screeching as Stravus hauls her out of the room. “ Her voice disappears into the hallway but the pain doesn’t. I curl in tighter on the floor and press my knees into my chest. My breath is all I have. “What did you just say? You don’t remember hurting Sarah?” I look up at Aurora but I don’t answer. I’m done talking. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. No one will believe me. And if I keep saying it—if I keep trying…they’ll just think I’m making excuses. Worse. They’ll find new ways to punish me. “I want to go to my room.” My voice comes out like a dry gust, scattered and breaking into pieces. Aurora doesn’t say anything. So I stand. Every movement is agony. My back screams. My shoulders are raw. My n**k is still throbbing where Roan’s fingers choked the breath from me. My scalp feels torn. My heart… I don’t ask Aurora how to find my way in the Dunefang pack house. I don’t want her help. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just remember how I came in. I find stairs and I start climbing them, one aching step at a time. On the way, I pass people who whisper. "...that's her..." "...wolfsbane killer..." "...Alpha's cursed mate..." Some hold up phones and I hear clicks. I forgot how massive the Dunefang pack house is. Delegation buildings for Roan’s council. Training divisions. Quarters for the gammas and omegas delta staff. Hundreds of staff. Hundreds of eyes. Finally, finally…I make it outside. I hold my arm as I hurry down the walkway that leads back to the training ground. If I follow it far enough, I’ll find my room again. When I’m a minute in, I stop because right in the middle of the field, Roan is still there. And next to him is Lisa, whose body is angled toward him like she belongs there. Her fingers rest possessively on his bicep and her l**s move in some private joke. That is supposed to be my best friend. We went to school together. We were supposed to go to prom together the day after Roan’s coronation. Just the day before, we’d gone from mall to mall, giggling and trying on heels we couldn’t walk in. I even begged my mom to let her come with me to the Dunefang pack house for the coronation. How can my own best friend be attracted to Roan? To replace me…. As if Roan can hear my thoughts, his eyes find mine even from across the massive training ground. He holds me in place with nothing more than a look. I tighten my arm around myself and see him reach for her w***t. He pulls Lisa into him, so easy, so familiar and slides down until he squeezes. Her h*p. Her bottom. All while staring straight at me. My wolf howls and our bond sears like a white-hot brand. I feel the wrongness of him touching another female in public. Of him doing it to hurt me. Roan tilts Lisa’s chin up and kisses her. I take my eyes away but I accept it even if it’s painful to witness. Even if my wolf hates it.

Alpha Roan. I let go of Lisa the second the murderer is out of sight. She lets go of me, too. I only had her t***h my bicep for one reason and that reason just ran past us like a kicked dog. The reason I made Lisa my stand-in Luna wasn’t romance, it was spite. The elders kept whining about the empty Luna seat last year, saying the Dusthound Pack needed one. So I made up something called ‘a replacement Luna.’ Lisa comes from a family of bottom-feeders who’d sell their daughter for scraps. While the other parents in the state feared their daughters ending up with the “mad Alpha,” grieving his mother, her parents agreed immediately. I haven’t made her Luna. Not until I reject Meluna. Yet I can’t reject Meluna until I’ve made her suffer. I need her to feel pain through our bond just as she has done to me all through the last two years. My wolf and I felt her rejection through her blatant promiscuousness and now, I am going to take it to god. When I turn back to Lisa, her cheeks are flushed—full of love that she carries for me. “She must’ve really pissed you off, Roan.” she says. I don’t answer. She already knows that since the day my mother fell into that endless sleep, I’ve been a ruin on fire. That first year? I wasn’t even here. I traveled across the entire Dam world searching for someone—anyone—who could fix what Meluna broke. I met doctors, surgeons, ancient healers halfway around the globe and then, word got out: Alpha Roan of the Dusthound Pack had left his territory and therefore, the Dusthound throne was up for grabs for anyone who could kill me. Every ambitious bаst3rd in the globe came for me. I was hunted by mercenaries in Prague. Chimera wolves kidnapped me through the Siberian wilds. A coven of rogues in Istanbul took me after my short-lived escape. Lycan wolves who wore the skin of dead alphas stitched over their own came along. I was bled dry in dungeons, shackled in silver thorns. I fought in pit arenas where the floor was made of bones. I was crucified on a cross of wolfsbane and dragged behind a moving truck across a salt flat. Another time, a black-blooded chimera chewed on my legs for hours and the burn scars on my back? I came back with half a spine and more scars than skin. I’ve been slashed open with weapons that were never meant to t***h a pureblood. And still, I lived but this isn’t even half of what I went through in that year. In all of it, I have become stronger, an apex predator in the way I fight and all I do is speak from pain. “I wish to make her suffer more!” I growl in the memory of it. “Tell me, what else is there that I don’t know about her? You were her best friend. You know every crevice of her pathetic little life. Surely, there are more things I can break.” Lisa perks up. “Of course, Roan. Um, Meluna…had a crush on a freshman in school. His name was Justin. He transferred in late that semester and they really liked each other. She was hoping he’d be her mate… before she ever stepped foot in the Dunefang pack house.” “Really?” My finger twitches with wicked anticipation. “Yes. He’s working in the pack house medic now. I saw him just now when Kylan was dragged into the bay.” Perfect. A neat little thread from her past, still breathing in my house and if he meant something to her back then, I’ll make him mean something now. That’s when Stravus comes over. “I just spent the last-minute tearing Cynthia off your mate in the medic.” he says, then holds out a fistful of hair. I raise a brow. “Your wife did that?” I chuckle. “You tell me. What do I do with it?” I take the hair between two fingers. Dark. Curled. Still warm. “I’ll keep it as the first debt collected. By the end of this, I won’t let even a drop of Meluna’s blood go to waste.” I walk away, thinking of the meetings I’ve missed with Splinter and the sixty elders that form the Pack Bench. They spend their freewill whining about my rule and how I’ve turned the Dusthound Pack into a regime. That I’ve gutted traditions, cancelled festivals and in conclusion, that I’m nothing like my father. Their biggest complaint is the fact that I am without a Luna. Without an heir. As if any of that matters when my enemies are clawing at our borders from the east to the west. I push the door of my office and drop the lock of Meluna’s hair onto the table. “Never stop me from punishing the bimbo again!” My growl is aimed at Splinter, who sits opposite me, legs crossed like this is a casual tea hour and not a confrontation with the so-called mad wolf of Dusthound. If there’s one person in this pack who doesn’t fear me, it’s him. My father’s brother. Middle aged and far too used to power. “I will stop you if you keep doing it in the open. Don’t you have enough rumors swirling around you already? There’s already a picture circulating of Meluna after what you did to her brother. Just as you make her suffer, your reputation suffers the same." I sit. “Everyone already knows I’m the mad wolf. I don’t feel like changing that anytime soon.” Splinter snorts, looks to Landon. “For the moon’s sake, will your betas ever grow a spine and advise you properly?” Landon drops his gaze at that request. “The entire pack sees you as a dictator. An Alpha who’s taken a different path from what your parents sacrificed their lives to build—” “Do not shift me, uncle!” I slam the drawer open and take out my Italian pipe. I light, then inhale deeply until smoke curls like incense from my nostrils. “Let me refresh your memory. You are the Alpha who banned the Mate Festival. You shut down the Full Moon Celebrations. You revoked the seats of those who didn’t agree with you. You banished three Beta bloodlines who voiced opposition.” He leans in. “You do not have a Luna. You have not rejected your fated mate, and yet you have not crowned the girl you parade around as a replacement either. You are ruling in a contradiction, and worse, you don’t even try to explain yourself. No one has ever seen your kind of Alpha before.” I blow another stream of thick, fragrant smoke like Bakhoor from desert packs. “The elders are tired of watching you spiral.” “I am not spiralling.” “I know you have suffered, Roan. We all know but banning the Mate Festivals because of what happened between you and Meluna…? That’s personal vengeance, not pack law.” “Am I Alpha or not?” The question isn’t to be answered. It’s a reminder that no rogue, nor outlaw, nor outcast has managed to step near Dusthound territory. Not to even think of harming one of my pack members. Wherever anyone hears Dusthound, they stay away from my people. Not since word spread of all I survived in that cursed year while I was scouring the world for doctors who could treat my mother. By the time I found a master specialist in wolfsbane treatment, my mother had already been in a coma too long. Still, I pleaded the specialist to stay in the pack…waiting for the day my mother opens her eyes. I glance at Landon. “What else do you need to tell me today? Apart from more Dam petitions to unban those idiotic festivals, what else is new?” Landon swipes his tablet. “That would be the message from the High Circle of Claw and Moon about an unrest. A rogue faction from Russia has attacked eight packs across three states. The damage has been…um” He glances at Splinter as if he forgot the rest of his words. “The high circle has brought in a team of Russian counterforce into the state to eliminate the rogue problem.” Splinter picks up. “And since our pack sits at the capital of the State, the Circle is asking if we can house them.” “Of course.” I stamp the document. The High circle is basically the governing body of werewolf packs all around the country and they respect us greatly. Splinter rises and collects the paper. “Are we going to entertain them?” Landon asks. “I hear Russian wolves love a drink in one hand and a woman in another—” “We just need to house them for the night. After that, they’ll leave to do what they came to the country for.” “No.” I lean back and cross one leg over the other. “Landon’s right. Russian wolves love women and as a reputable pack, it only makes sense that I fill their cups too.” Splinter narrows his eyes. “What are you thinking, Roan?” “Uncle… when did you become so slow?” I laugh. “We have an entertainer, don’t we? Meluna Lockwood. I hear she likes /cok and she takes it well.” “I swear that is not what I was—” Landon looks helplessly at Splinter. “It may not be what you were thinking but it’s what I’m thinking now.” “Roan—” “Please, shut it, Uncle.” My voice hardens. “You make it sound like I’m asking her to do something she doesn’t already enjoy. Two years. Two entire years, and all she did was f'k- her way around the state. I’m giving her what she likes.” Splinter glares at me. “You’re going too far.” “I don’t understand why you keep coming between me and what I do with her! What is it, Uncle? Because you were friends with her father? Or you want a taste of her too? Don’t worry, she’s up for grabs. Any of you can have her.” “Boy, don’t ever disrespect me like that again!” He growls and silence is exchanged between the both of us. He’s the only one in the entire pack who dares to speak to me like that. He’s an authoritarian. I’m stubborn. I don’t see lines when I’m angry. I don’t apologize. I say what I want. “Her father was head of pack discipline for fifteen years. Of course, I know him!” “So what has the man been asking?” I stretch back into my chair. “I told him, the day I caught his daughter, I’d f'k- her up so bad he wouldn’t recognize her the next time he saw her.” Splinter exhales. “He has no choice but to pray for a miracle. We both know that won’t happen but did you really have to hurt their son too? You already have Meluna. William’s wife has been slipping in and out of hospital from the stress. Depression. Roan—2 I slam my palm on the table. “The boy wanted his sister’s punishment. He offered himself up to protect her. What was I supposed to do—fking…hug him?” I shake my head. “You have no idea the joy it brings me to hear that their little family is crumbling. Now, why don’t you be a good uncle and tell him what I plan to do to her tonight?” “Roan—” “Then again. It’s not me doing anything. I’m just giving Meluna the lifestyle she clearly wants. I’m supporting her choices. Generous of me, don’t you think?” “You must be mad if you think I’ll carry that message.” Splinter storms out and I watch the door shut behind him. Good riddance. “Landon, be a good beta and let William know. Make it seem like you are doing him a favor and while you’re at it, tell Lisa and Aurora to get Meluna dressed up tonight.” I release smoke through my nose as a god who doesn’t answer prayers. “When the guests are done eating…Meluna will serve him next.”

Meluna Lockwood. I’m curled up in bed, knees tucked to my chest like I’m trying to disappear. Thirty minutes ago, I was a mess of bruises and bone-deep aches. I stretch one leg out cautiously but the pain is gone. The deep ringing on my scalp from where my hair was pulled is also gone. That’s the cruellest part of being bonded to a wolf like Roan is that his power thrums through me whether I want it or not, stitching my wounds shut before I’ve even finished bleeding. He hurts me. I heal. Then he hurts me again. A cycle with no end. “Meluna?” I push the pillow off my face when I hear my name. Lisa stands by the door. Her blonde hair is golden and pretty. For a heartbeat, I can almost pretend the last two years never happened. That we’re still eighteen, whispering about boys under the covers at sleepovers, painting each other’s nails and dreaming of prom. But I just saw Roan with her. I saw his hands on her. His l**s. And still, she smiles like none of that happened. “It’s me. Lisa.” She walks in. I sit up. The grey sweats is loose on my body as I slowly plant my feet on the floor. She glances down at my clothes and her nose twitches like she disapproves. “So... you recognize me?” I ask. “Of course I do. Aurora will be here soon. Roan asked us to pass you a message—” I don’t mean to lunge at her. But suddenly, my arms are crushing her to my chest in a hug. She smells different, like an expensive perfume instead of the strawberry shampoo she used to steal from my bathroom “Lisa!” I breathe, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry you have to go through this because of me.” She stiffens in my arms. “What are you—” I pull back just enough to hold her face in my hands. “Roan… what he’s doing to you. He’s hurting you, isn’t he? I didn’t know until I saw it today. Lisa, I’m sorry. I didn’t think he’d drag you into this.” Her eyes dart. “I’m his replacement Luna. He has every right to t***h me.” I step back. “But he must have forced you, Lisa. There’s no way you’d be with him willingly. Did he…did he use you to hunt me down? Is that why you’re here?” Lisa’s l**s press together. “Stop, Meluna. Please… you sound so silly right now. Roan didn’t force me to do anything. I agreed to replace you and when he finally rejects you, I will be his Luna—” “You’re my best friend!” I scream. “In what world is that even close to normal? You and Roan? Lisa, he’s a monster—” “And you’re what?! You killed his mother!” “I didn’t!” My hand lands hа'rd-on my own face as I spin away from her. I can’t breathe, can’t think. My chest aches. When I turn back, Aurora walks in, pushing a small gold cart stacked with folded clothes. She doesn’t look at either of us. “You didn’t?” Lisa spits. “Then who stabbed her with a wolfsbane knife, huh? Was it your fking twin?” “You don’t understand. It happened, but… I don’t remember doing it. I know it sounds stubid. Trust me, it’s been two years and I still can’t explain it. But that’s the truth. Lisa, you know me. You know I wouldn’t hurt a fly.” “Apparently, I don’t know you at all. You stabbed the Alpha’s mother with a wolfsbane knife. That means it wasn’t an accident, Meluna. It means you meant to kill her. For what? Just because you didn’t want to be with Roan?” “No. No, that’s not—” “Roan spent the first year after that incident traveling the world for a doctor that could help his mother. In that year, he was hunted, burnt alive by Lycans in the Eastern wilds all because he was searching for a way to undo what you did!" “…What?” “Oh, you didn’t know?” Lisa shoves me by the shoulder until I fall back onto the edge of the bed, staring up at her as she leans in. “Roan has more than a thousand scars on his body. The skin on his back is charred like the bark of a tree. Do you know why he always wears long sleeves? It’s because his arms are covered in acid damage. Do you know he can’t sleep for more than an hour at a time without nightmares—” “That’s enough, Lisa.” Aurora says. “I haven’t even told her half of it yet!” “But I think she’s heard enough.” I’m already crying. My cheeks are soaked but I wipe at my face, struggling to breathe through the truth that’s slamming into me from all sides. “No.” I whisper. “Tell me. I want to know everything.” But Lisa just steps back and folds her arms. “The only thing you need to know right now is that we’re expecting guests and Roan wants you to entertain them.” “What? Entertain? I don’t understand.” “It is no secret that you’ve been wayward and licentious throughout the entire country. So, Roan simply wants you to entertain the Russian guest and you know what they say about wolves from there.” “Roan is asking me to sleep with the guest!?” My voice croaks. “I’m not a dog. I’m not some bimbo—” “But it’s what you’ve been doing. How is this any different?” “For moon’s sake, Lisa!” My vision blurs with angry tears. “I’m a virgin! I didn’t sleep with any Alpha. I didn’t bimbo myself across the states! Why are you believing the same garbage everyone else does? You’re supposed to be my best friend! You knew I was saving myself for my mate. I didn’t even date anyone in school—” “Stop with the lies! You still sound like a pampered little Beach. First, you stab the Alpha’s mother but ‘didn’t mean to,’ and now you’re suddenly a virgin after two years of sleeping around? What’s next—miraculously innocent, too?” The insult hits me like ice water to the spine. I stumble a little, stunned by how much it hurts coming from her. Before I can explain myself again, Lisa storms out of the room. My hands hang limply at my sides, and my lungs feel too tight to breathe. I turn to Aurora, the only one left now and she sighs. “Your brother, Kaden is fine. He’s been transferred home to your parents. He’ll heal, probably within a month.” My head snaps up. Roan banned anyone from telling me about Kaden and yet, she is doing so. “Thank you for telling me.” I croak. “You’re to wear the yellow tube top and the skirt in the cart. You can choose any accessory you want. I’ll come back to get you when it’s time to meet the guest.” Aurora starts to walk away but I can’t stop myself from asking. “Do I… really look like a murderer?” Aurora crosses her arms and starts to inspects my face. She comes forward, takes my chin between her fingers and tilts my head up. The way she studies me makes my heart twist. “No, Meluna.” she says quietly. “I not only think you don’t look like a murderer... I also think you’re innocent.” Air rushes out of my lungs like I’ve been holding it in for years. When she lets go of my chin, something in me shakes loose. “If you survive tonight after Roan’s wrath and whatever he has planned, I’ll help you. And for your own good, stop trying with Lisa. She is not your best friend anymore. She is simply someone who wants to become luna. Hours later, I adjust the stubid yellow tube top for the hundredth time. It keeps slipping, and I don’t know if it’s the fabric or my trembling hands. The skirt sits low on my h**s but flows willowy to my feet. It’s pretty, in another life. In this one, it feels like a costume for my own disgrace. My belly is showing because the top is so small. Aurora said if I survive tonight, she’ll help me. That means I have to protect myself. I go to the cart she brought earlier and start searching. Among the folded clothes and hair clips, I find a hairpin. My fingers tremble as I take it, twist my hair into a bun, and tuck the pin deep inside where no one will see it. “Come on.” she says. One hallway folds into another. We take an elevator, then cross into another level of the pack house where I hear deep, rich laughters. As we get to the door, I slow my steps and low my eyes. The laughter ends the moment I walk into the room. I have not seen him Roan yet but, Eluna prowls, letting me know that he is at the end of the room. I take a dare to see if she’s right and there he is, like a bulldozer. With the weight of ten men packed into one body. He’s broad enough to block out the fireplace behind him, his silhouette eats up the light. Roan’s eyes glint like royal gemstones but he’s the devil’s incarnation. One I created with my own hands. Lisa’s words about the scars. The burns. The sleepless nights. The blood. All of it my fault. All of it…and yet, we’ll never make it to the part where he forgives me. That part of the story doesn’t exist. “There she is John.” Roan rises on his feet. John, I assume…looks at me but I don’t meet his eyes. I focus only on Roan. The enemy I know is safer than the one I don’t. I look at my hand just as Roan goes behind me. “Her name is Meluna and she’s very good at pleasing a man. Though, if you’d been in the country, you’d already know how accommodating and talented she can be.” His hand lands on my w***t, and I gasp. Not just from the shock of t***h, but from the coldness of his fingers against my b**e skin. For one foolish second, I think maybe this moment will not be bad but he pushes me. And suddenly, I’m bent over the table with my cheek pressed against the wood in panic. My body bends under him like I’ve been here before. This is how Roan chooses to remind me that I am his to break. This is the part where I begin to cry. I thought I came here brave. Ready to fight and survive whatever Roan had planned for me. But it’s different when I see him. Because when it comes to Roan, I realize just how powerless I am. It’s not just his strength. it’s what he does with it. The way one flick of his hand could break a rib. I am barely holding myself together when he hasn’t even touched me yet. “I told them to put her in a skirt that makes it easy for you to tear. The men who’ve had her say she’s delicious. So, I hope you like my gift.” “She does look beautiful, Roan.” the visitor says with a thick accent. “I’m surprised you’d give a girl like this to me, when you could easily keep her for yourself.” Roan’s laugh is nothing like laughter. “Her beauty means nothing to me.” “Even as she is your mate?” the guest asks. “No.” Roan doesn’t hesitate. Suddenly, he grabs my hair and pulls. I’m yanked backward against his chest from the table, trembling so violently I know he can hear the air stuttering in my lungs. I’m shaking. I don’t want to look at the guest, but I do. He looks like death with a close stature to Roan! I turn to Roan to plead. “Roan, please—” I whisper. The moment his name leaves my l**s, I know I’ve made a mistake. A slap comes faster than thought yet before I can crawl away, his hand finds me again and throws me onto the table. My legs splay, my skirt rides up. “EVERYONE, OUT!” Roan roars. Glass shatters somewhere behind me and the room empties in a blink for what he will do to me next.