The copper tang of blood was the last thing Nyx tasted before the world went white.
It shouldn't have ended this way. As the eldest daughter of the Silver-Crest Pack, Nyx had spent twenty-four years being the perfect wolf. She was the diplomat, the healer, the one who stayed up until dawn balancing the pack's ledgers while her younger sister, Sienna, danced at galas. She was the one who had spent three years patiently waiting for her fated mate, Alpha Julian, to finish his territorial wars so they could finally claim their bond.
But as she knelt on the jagged limestone of the Silver Cliffs, her hands bound in heavy, skin-searing silver chains, she realized that "perfect" was just another word for "expendable."
"Do you have any last words, traitor?"
The voice belonged to her father, Alpha Silas. He stood tall, his grey-streaked fur coat billowing in the mountain wind. There was no grief in his eyes—only a cold, calculating resolve. Beside him stood Sienna, her eyes wide and brimming with fake, shimmering tears.
"Father, please," Sienna sobbed, the sound like grating metal to Nyx's ears. "Maybe she didn't mean to poison the High Alpha. Maybe the hunters forced her!"
"The evidence is irrefutable, Sienna," Silas barked. "The vial was found in her chambers. The silver-tipped dagger used in the assassination attempt bore her scent. She has brought shame upon our blood."
Nyx tried to speak, but the silver collar around her throat hummed with a low-frequency vibration that suppressed her vocal cords. She looked past her father to Julian. Her mate. Her fated half.
Julian's golden eyes were dark with a hatred so primal it felt like a physical weight pressing on her chest. He didn't look like the man who had whispered promises of a shared future in the moonlit gardens. He looked like a judge delivering a sentence.
"I, Julian of the Black-Thorn Pack, hereby reject you, Nyx of Silver-Crest," he snarled, the words ripping through the invisible thread that connected their souls.
The agony was instantaneous. It felt as though her heart was being pulled through a keyhole. Nyx gasped, her body arching as the mate-bond snapped, leaving a jagged, bleeding hole in her spiritual core. The rejection of a fated mate was often fatal, but her father wasn't leaving it to chance.
"For the crime of high treason," Silas announced, stepping forward, "the penalty is death by the abyss."
He placed a heavy hand on Nyx's shoulder. For a fleeting second, she saw a flicker of something in his gaze—not love, but triumph. He leaned down, his lips brushing her ear so only she could hear.
"Sienna is the Luna this pack needs, Nyx. She is malleable. You... you were becoming too respected. Too powerful. Goodbye, my disappointment."
With a brutal shove, he pushed her.
Nyx fell. The wind screamed past her ears, tearing the breath from her lungs. She watched the silhouette of her family and her mate grow smaller against the backdrop of the blood-red moon. Below her, the churning, ice-cold waters of the Midnight Gorge waited like an open grave.
As her body hit the surface, the impact felt like slamming into solid stone. Her bones shattered, and the silver chains dragged her deep into the crushing dark.
I hate you, she thought, the last spark of her consciousness flickering in the cold. If there is a moon above or a devil below, let me go back. I will burn it all. I will burn every single one of them.
Then, the darkness claimed her.
Gasp.
Nyx lunged upward, her lungs burning as if she had just swallowed a gallon of seawater. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She expected the cold. She expected the crushing weight of the gorge. Instead, she felt... silk?
She blinked rapidly, her vision blurred by tears. She was sitting in a bed—a four-poster bed with cream-colored hangings. The air didn't smell like pine and wet stone; it smelled of vanilla and expensive lavender polish.
"No," she whispered, her voice raspy but clear. She touched her throat. The silver collar was gone. Her skin was smooth, unscarred.
She scrambled out of the bed, her legs tangling in the sheets. She stumbled toward the full-length vanity mirror in the corner of the room. When she saw the reflection, she let out a strangled cry.
She looked young. Too young. The deep lines of exhaustion around her eyes were gone. The scar on her collarbone from a rogue attack three years ago was missing. She looked exactly as she had at eighteen.
With trembling hands, she grabbed the heavy brass calendar sitting on her desk.
March 30th.
It was one year before the Blood Moon. One year before her execution.
A sharp, rhythmic knocking sounded at her door.
"Nyx? Are you awake? Mother says you're being lazy again. We have the guest list for the Spring Equinox to finalize, and you know how I hate doing the boring parts!"
The voice was sweet, melodic, and utterly poisonous.
Sienna.
Nyx's fingers gripped the edge of the desk so hard the wood groaned. A cold, crystalline calm began to spread from the center of her chest, replacing the panic. She wasn't dead. She didn't know how, and she didn't care why. The Goddess had given her a second chance, or perhaps her rage had simply been too heavy for the afterlife to carry.
She walked to the door, her movements fluid and predatory. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror one last time. Her eyes, once soft and pleading, were now chips of flint.
She opened the door.
Sienna stood there, radiant in a pale pink sundress, her blonde hair perfectly curled. She looked like an angel. To anyone else, she was the "darling of the pack." To Nyx, she was a corpse that hadn't realized it was dead yet.
"Oh! There you are," Sienna chirped, reaching out to grab Nyx's hand. "You look... pale. Did you have a nightmare?"
Nyx didn't flinch when Sienna touched her, though her skin crawled. She looked down at her sister's hand—the same hand that would later plant poison in her room—and smiled. It wasn't the warm, sisterly smile Nyx had given for two decades. It was the smile of a wolf watching a rabbit hop into a snare.
"A nightmare? No, Sienna," Nyx said, her voice dropping an octave. "I had a vision. A very long, very detailed vision of exactly how this year is going to go."
Sienna tilted her head, her fake pout forming. "A vision? Like a prophecy? Is it about me? Am I going to find my mate at the Equinox?"
"You're going to get exactly what you deserve, little sister," Nyx replied. "Every single thing."
Sienna laughed, oblivious. "You're being so weird today! Anyway, Father wants to see us in the study. He says he has news about the border patrols near the Nightshade territory. Apparently, those monsters are getting restless again."
The Nightshade Pack.
In her first life, Nyx had feared them. Her father had told horror stories of the three Alphas who ruled the northern wastes—men who supposedly ate the hearts of their enemies and lived in a fortress made of bone.
In this life, Nyx knew better. The "monsters" weren't the ones in the north. They were the ones standing in this hallway, wearing silk and smiling.
"Tell Father I'll be down in a moment," Nyx said, stepping back into her room. "I just need to... change my attire."
As she closed the door, Nyx went to her wardrobe. She pushed aside the soft, floral dresses her mother insisted she wear. Hidden at the very back was a set of dark, leather riding leathers she had bought in secret years ago but never had the courage to wear.
She pulled them out.
She had 365 days. 365 days to bankrupt her father, disgrace her sister, and break Julian's heart into a thousand pieces before he ever got the chance to touch hers.
But she couldn't do it alone. To kill a pack of vipers, she needed bigger monsters. She needed the men her father feared most.
Nyx pulled her hair back into a tight, severe braid. She didn't look like a lady of the Silver-Crest anymore. She looked like a ghost.
"I'm coming for you," she whispered to the empty room. "And this time, I'm not bringing mercy. I'm bringing the abyss."