"Pain broke her.
Power remade her.
And when her eyes turned gold, the Alpha finally understood—she was never meant to obey him."
One moment she was staring into the dead Luna's lifeless eyes…
and the next, she was drifting somewhere between reality and a nightmare.
Because something was wrong with her body.
Deeply, horribly wrong.
The veins in her arms burned.
Not warm—burned, like fire had been poured directly into them.
Her heartbeat stuttered.
The walls whispered things she didn't understand.
Voices that weren't hers.
Voices that didn't sound human.
"Get out," she gasped, clutching her head. "Please—stop—stop—get out of my head—"
The air felt too heavy.
Her vision split in two.
Her wolf—one she had never truly felt—shook beneath her skin like a trapped animal, terrified and clawing for escape.
She didn't know what was happening.
She didn't know if it was the Luna's spirit or Cordelia's magic or the Goddess trying to tear her apart from the inside.
She just knew it wasn't normal.
It wasn't her.
It felt like something was waking up.
Inside her.
Around her.
Through her.
She curled into herself, shaking—breath too fast, too shallow, too desperate—
The door slammed open.
And he appeared.
Damien.
His silhouette filled the frame—the dark armor, the broad shoulders, the cold eyes that could slice through steel.
But when he saw her on the floor, something flickered across his face.
Something that didn't belong to him.
Concern.
Or fear.
Or something dangerously in between.
He didn't say her name.
He didn't bark orders.
He just stood there, frozen.
"What happened to you?" he demanded.
His voice wasn't angry.
It cracked on the last word.
For a second, even he didn't seem to understand why he cared.
But then he blinked, and the softness vanished.
Wiped away.
Buried beneath the merciless Alpha mask he always wore.
He straightened.
His jaw locked.
"Stand up," he said coldly.
Soraya's voice trembled. "I—I can't—"
He didn't wait.
His wolf growled—deep, furious—echoing through the room like thunder inside his skull.
Soraya didn't hear the words, but she felt the tension, the struggle.
Damien muttered, almost to himself:
"Shut up."
And she realized he wasn't talking to her.
He was talking to his wolf.
He grabbed her anyway—fingers biting into her chin as he forced her face upward, toward the Luna's dead eyes.
"You see her?" he said, voice low. "Look at what you did."
Soraya wanted to scream.
To fight him.
To claw him, beg him, hit him—
"She touched me," she whispered.
He froze.
"What?" His voice dropped, sharp, cold.
"The Luna… she touched me."
Silence.
Damien didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
His eyes darkened.
Not with anger.
With fear.
He masked it instantly, too quickly, but she had already seen it.
Then everything snapped.
His fingers closed around her wrist like a shackle, and before she could react, he dragged her from the room.
Her feet scraped the stone.
She stumbled, tripped, clawed at the walls.
"Stop—please—Damien—stop—" she cried.
He didn't stop.
He didn't even slow.
He pulled her through corridor after corridor, her screams bouncing off the palace walls like broken glass.
Her throat burned.
Her eyes blurred.
"Alpha Damien. P—lease."
Damien's pace faltered—just for a heartbeat.
Then he gripped her tighter, like her voice irritated him…
like her fear fueled him.
But inside him, his wolf snapped at him—furious, violent.
"STOP HURTING HER!" his wolf roared.
Damien's breath hitched.
"I WANT her hurt," he growled back.
But the lie sat wrong in his mouth.
He dragged her into the dungeon.
The air shifted—cold, sharp, metallic.
She tasted blood.
And then she saw him.
Zephran.
Her brother.
Her only family.
Chained by silver.
Bleeding.
Barely conscious.
His chest rising in small, fragile breaths.
Soraya's knees hit the ground before she realized she'd fallen.
"ZEPHRAN!" she screamed, grabbing the bars.
He lifted his head weakly. "Sor… Soraya…"
His voice was nothing but a painful whisper.
Tears streamed down her face.
"Please," she begged Damien. "Please—stop this—stop—don't do this to him—please—"
Damien watched her.
She expected satisfaction in his eyes.
Instead she saw pain.
Real pain.
Like her grief stabbed straight into his chest.
He gripped the wall, jaw clenching as he tried to steady himself.
His wolf snarled, unrestrained—
"She's ours. Protect her."
Damien shut his eyes.
"Quiet," he breathed.
But the word was shaky, hollow.
Then he shattered himself again.
"Again," he ordered.
The guards hesitated.
"Alpha—"
"AGAIN."
Silver touched Zephran's skin.
He screamed.
Something inside Soraya broke completely.
She fell against the bars, sobbing so violently she couldn't find air.
"PLEASE! PLEASE STOP! I'M BEGGING YOU—PLEASE!"
Her hands shook uncontrollably.
Magic surged inside her.
Something ancient snapped open—like a lock breaking inside her bones.
Her veins glowed faintly gold.
Her skin tingled.
The ground trembled beneath her.
Soraya grabbed the silver bars—
—and they didn't burn her.
They melted.
Right under her fingers.
Damien inhaled sharply.
He stared at her glowing hands… then her eyes.
They weren't grey anymore.
They were gold.
Fully gold.
"What… are you?" he whispered.
For once, it wasn't a threat.
It was awe.
And fear.
And something darker.
Soraya rose slowly.
"Let my brother go," she said, her voice deeper—echoing with something ancient, something not entirely mortal.
Damien stepped toward her.
Not as Alpha.
As a man who had just realized something devastating:
This girl had been crafted by fate to ruin him.
He tilted her chin gently—far too gently for the monster he tried to be.
"You are not what I thought you were," he murmured.
Tears streaked her cheeks, but her glare didn't waver.
Damien leaned closer, searching her face like he needed to understand her.
"And I will find out why my wolf wants you."
Her breath caught.
His final words were a promise—
dangerous, intimate, terrifying.
"I will break you," he whispered…
"…or you will break me."
And he didn't know which one he feared more.