SERA'S POV
"My Queen, we need to move you immediately."
Lyra's voice cuts through the chaos in the hallway. Dead assassins litter the floor around us. Blood stains the stone. And three alpha princes stand between me and escape, staring at me like I'm their salvation.
I want to scream.
"Clear a path," I order my guards. "Now."
They move to obey, but Kael steps forward, blocking my way. Damon materializes on my left. Asher on my right.
Trapped.
"Move," I say coldly. "Or I'll move you myself."
"We need to talk." Kael's voice is rough, desperate. Nothing like the controlled alpha king I remember.
"No. We don't."
"Sera, please—"
"Address me as Queen Ashwood." Each word is ice. "You three lost the right to my name when you threw it away."
Kael flinches like I've struck him. Good. Let him feel a fraction of the pain he caused.
He steps closer anyway, his usual iron control completely shattered. "You're alive. How did you survive—"
"Did you think I'd die conveniently in the Outlands?" My smile could cut glass. "Sorry to disappoint."
Damon moves into my line of sight, and I'm shocked to see his famous charm has cracked. The smooth, seductive mask he always wears shows raw desperation underneath.
"Queen Ashwood," he says, and even my title sounds wrong in his mouth. "We need to talk. Please. Just five minutes."
"No." The word is flat, final. "You rejected me. You exiled me. You left me to die in the dirt like I was nothing." I let each accusation land like a physical blow. "The girl you destroyed is dead. I'm what crawled out of her grave."
Asher's face crumbles. Of the three, he always wore his emotions closest to the surface. Now tears actually shine in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, his voice breaking. "I've regretted it every single day for five years. I was wrong. I was a coward. I—"
"STOP."
My Alpha Prime power explodes outward like a shockwave. All three princes stumble backward, forced into submission by a power that shouldn't exist in an omega. Their alpha wolves fight against it, straining to resist, desperate to reach me.
They manage to stay on their feet. Barely.
"Your regret means nothing," I snarl. "Your apologies are dust. You made your choice five years ago when you decided I wasn't worth keeping. Live with it."
I let my power press harder, watching them struggle. Part of me—the part that still remembers being that broken girl on the ballroom floor—wants to crush them. Wants to make them feel what I felt.
But another part, the part my wolf Lunara controls, is screaming at me to stop. To forgive. To accept them.
I ignore her. I've gotten very good at that.
"Stay away from me," I warn, my voice deadly soft. "Or I will make you regret the day you ever learned my name."
I release my power and walk past them. My boots click on blood-stained stone as I force myself not to look back.
Lyra falls into step beside me, along with my Shadowfang guards. As we move through the corridor, she leans close.
"My Queen, those princes just killed six assassins to protect you."
"They got lucky."
"They also look like they'd rip apart anyone who threatened you."
"I don't care what they look like." But even as I say it, I feel the mate bond scars on my chest burning. The broken bonds are trying to heal, reaching for the three men behind me.
I touch my chest, willing the pain to stop.
That's when I hear Lyra's sharp intake of breath. "Don't look back," she mutters. "But they're following us."
Of course they are.
I keep walking, leading my guards toward the chambers Morgana assigned me. The whispers follow us through the halls.
"That's the rejected omega..."
"She's the Queen of Wolves now..."
"Did you see how powerful she is?"
"The three princes look devastated..."
Let them whisper. Let the whole Summit know what those three did to me. Let everyone see what I became despite them.
We reach my chambers. My guards do a sweep—checking for more assassins, more traps. When they give the all-clear, I dismiss everyone except Lyra.
The door closes. I finally let myself breathe.
"That was close," Lyra says. "Six assassins in one night. Morgana's not playing—"
A sound from the balcony makes us both spin around, weapons drawn.
The balcony doors are closed. Locked. Empty.
"Probably just wind," Lyra mutters, but she doesn't lower her blade.
Neither do I.
We do another sweep of the rooms. Nothing. But my instincts are screaming that something's wrong.
"Get some rest, my Queen," Lyra finally says. "Tomorrow you face Viktor. You'll need your strength."
"I'm not tired."
"You're exhausted. I can see it." Her voice softens. "Please. A few hours of sleep. I'll post guards outside and stay in the next room. You're safe here."
I want to argue, but she's right. I'm running on rage and adrenaline, and tomorrow I have to fight the man who left me to die.
"Fine. Three hours. Then we train."
Lyra nods and leaves through the connecting door to her chamber.
I'm finally alone.
I walk to the mirror and stare at my reflection. Silver hair, grey-gold eyes, a face that's been hardened by five years of survival. I barely recognize the girl I used to be.
Inside my mind, Lunara paces restlessly. "Our mates are here. I can feel them."
"They're not our mates," I say aloud to the empty room. "They rejected us."
"The bonds are trying to heal. We could accept them. We could—"
"Never." I touch my chest where three faded scars mark the broken bonds. Each one a reminder of what they did. "I'll never forgive them."
But even as I say it, the memories I've kept locked away start to surface. No matter how hard I fight them, they come flooding back.
The Moonrise Ball.
Five years ago.
The night that destroyed everything.
I close my eyes, and suddenly I'm not in this chamber anymore.
I'm twenty years old, standing at the edge of a ballroom, wearing a borrowed dress that doesn't fit, wishing I could disappear.
The memories take hold, dragging me back against my will.
Back to the night I died for the first time.
A sharp knock on my door jerks me back to the present.
I grab my dagger, heart pounding. "Who is it?"
Silence.
Then: "It's Asher. I know you said stay away, but—" His voice is quiet, almost pleading. "I need you to know something. Before tomorrow. Please."
My hand tightens on the blade. Every instinct screams not to open that door.
But Lunara is howling inside me. "MATE. Let him in. Hear him out."
Against my better judgment, I cross to the door.
"You have thirty seconds," I say through the wood. "Then I'm calling my guards."
"I've thought about that night every day for five years," Asher says, his voice raw with emotion. "The Moonrise Ball. Your face when I rejected you. The way you collapsed. I was wrong. I was a coward. And I'll spend the rest of my life proving I'm worthy of a second chance."
His honesty catches me off guard.
Before I can respond, a familiar drawl comes from inside my room.
"Breaking and entering, Asher? I taught you better than that."
I spin around.
Damon Nightshade lounges in the chair by my fireplace like he owns it, somehow having entered my supposedly secure chambers without anyone noticing.
My power flares. "How did you—"
"Your window locks are terrible," he says with that infuriating smirk. "We really need to discuss your security, Queen Ashwood."
I'm about to blast him through the wall when the main door swings open.
Kael walks through like he has every right to be here. In the hallway behind him, three of my guards lie unconscious.
He closes the door calmly. Locks it.
"We need to talk," he says.
I'm trapped in my own chambers with all three of my former mates.
The air crackles with mate bond tension so thick I can barely breathe. My wolf is going absolutely insane, howling for me to accept them, to let the bonds heal, to forgive everything.
My heart is screaming at me to run.
My mind is ice-cold and furious.
"Get. Out." I pour every ounce of Alpha Prime command into the words.
All three princes strain against it. Their alpha wolves fight my power—stronger than any normal wolves should be. They manage to resist for several long seconds, muscles shaking with effort, before Kael speaks through gritted teeth.
"Not until you listen."
"Fine." My power flares hotter, pressing down on them until sweat beads on their foreheads. "You have five minutes. Then I'm calling my Legion to remove you. Violently."
Kael's eyes lock with mine, and what I see there makes my stomach drop.
Fear. Real, genuine fear.
"Morgana put a bounty on your head," he says. "One million gold for whoever kills you before the Bloodmoon Trial. Half the wolves at this Summit will try to assassinate you tonight."
The room goes silent.
Damon steps forward, his usual playfulness completely gone. "And Viktor isn't just going to fight you fairly tomorrow. He's been bragging to his allies that he'll finish what he started five years ago. He's planning to kill you in that arena."
My blood runs cold, but I keep my face blank. "And you care because?"
"Because you're still our mate," Asher says desperately, stepping closer despite my power pushing against him. "The bonds are damaged, but they're not dead. If you die, we die too."
I laugh, bitter and sharp. "So this is about self-preservation. How noble."
"No." Kael's voice cuts through my mockery. "This is about the fact that we failed you once, and we won't do it again. This is about the fact that you're the strongest, most magnificent wolf we've ever seen, and we were fools to let you go."
Damon adds softly, "This is about the fact that we've been dying slowly for five years without you, and seeing you alive is the only thing that's made us feel human since that night."
Asher's voice breaks. "Let us protect you. Not because you need it—we know you don't. But because we need to. Because maybe if we can keep you alive, we can prove we're not the cowards we were five years ago."
The honesty in their voices shakes something loose inside me.
I open my mouth to respond—
An explosion rocks the building.
My window shatters inward. Three assassins in black masks crash through, weapons drawn, moving with lethal speed.
"There's the bounty," one hisses, raising a crossbow aimed straight at my heart.
Before I can react, Kael, Damon, and Asher move as one fluid unit.
Putting themselves between me and death.