Cold snow. Hot blood. I opened my eyes to a sky stained crimson. The Blood Moon hung heavy over Silvermoon Valley, casting a sick red glow over the massacre. Smoke choked my lungs. I pushed myself up from the pile of mutilated bodies. My people. My family.
"Princess..." a choked voice gurgled to my left.
I scrambled toward the sound. My knees scraped against frozen earth and shattered bones. I found Kael, my father's captain, propped against a burning wagon. A deep gash ruined his chest.
"Kael. Hold on," I urged, pressing my hands over his wound.
"He... he knew the hidden path..." Kael coughed, spraying red across my wrists. "The gorge... how..."
"I told him," I confessed. The truth ripped my throat apart. "I gave him the maps."
Kael's eyes widened in sheer horror. "You..."
"I didn't know he would do this! Kael, please, tell me how to help you."
He shoved my hands away with the last of his strength. "Traitor."
Kael's chest stopped moving. His empty eyes stared up at the blood-red sky.
A sharp flutter pulled my attention downward. My hand instinctively pressed against my swollen belly. The baby kicked. His child. The butcher's child.
Three years ago, the Moon Goddess marked me as the fated mate to Darian, heir of the Blackclaw pack. I handed him my heart. I handed him my father's war councils, the hidden mountain passes, the ancient pack wisdom.
"Use this to build our future," I had told him, tracing the maps on our bed.
"I will conquer the world for you, Elvira," he had promised.
Lies. All of it.
Just hours ago, the full moon high, I stood outside our shared tent and heard his voice slice through the night air.
"The Silvermoon Pack," Darian had commanded his generals. "Leave no survivors."
I looked away from Kael's corpse and scanned the ruined courtyard. My gaze locked onto a jagged iron spear driven straight into the frozen ground. My father's body hung suspended from it. His eyes stared blindly ahead, his jaw slack.
"Father," I whispered.
Footsteps crunched over the charred earth. Heavy. Confident.
I didn't turn around. I kept my eyes on my father's lifeless face.
"It's done," Darian's voice echoed behind me.
I slowly rose to my feet. The wind howled through the burning pines, carrying the stench of roasted flesh. I faced my fated mate. He wore his black armor, spotless, untouched by the slaughter he orchestrated.
"You missed one," I said. My voice didn't shake. I offered no tears.
Darian stopped three paces away. His golden eyes swept over my ruined dress. "You are my mate. You belong to the Blackclaw now."
"I am Elvira Silvermoon."
"The Silvermoon Pack is gone," he stated. His tone remained flat, devoid of the warmth that used to whisper against my skin. "Your father resisted the integration. This was the price."
I let out a short, hollow laugh. The sound startled him. His jaw tightened.
"Integration?" I mocked. "Is that what you call a massacre? You used my maps. You used my father's strategies. You used me."
"You murdered my father," I continued, pointing at the spear.
"He refused to kneel," Darian replied, not even glancing at the corpse.
"He was an Alpha! Alphas do not kneel!"
"Then they die. I gave him a choice, Elvira. He chose pride over his people."
"You slaughtered the people too!" I shouted, my composure cracking for a fraction of a second. "Women. Children. You ordered them all dead."
"I ordered a clean slate." He stepped closer, towering over me. "Do not test my patience tonight, Elvira. You carry my heir. You'd best behave."
I tilted my head. "Behave."
"Accept your new reality. The past is ash."
I looked at the spear protruding from my father's chest. Then back to the man I once loved. "You think killing them erases who I am?"
"I think you have nowhere else to go," he countered. He reached out to touch my cheek.
I didn't flinch. I didn't pull away. I let his cold fingers smear my family's blood across my skin. I needed to remember this touch. I needed it to fuel the hatred taking root in my chest.
"Don't push me, Elvira," he warned, dropping his hand. "Return to the camp. The healers will check on the child."
"Of course, Alpha," I replied, the title tasting like poison on my tongue.
A shadow detached itself from the tree line behind him.
"Is she giving you trouble, Darian?" a feminine voice purred.
A woman stepped into the moonlight. Selena Bloodfang. Her reddish-brown hair whipped in the wind. She wore a smirk that matched the cruelty in her eyes.
"Mind your business, Selena," Darian snapped, though he didn't turn to face her.
Selena sauntered forward, stopping just over Darian's shoulder. She looked at me. No, she didn't just look. She tracked my movements like a starving wolf watching a wounded rabbit. Her gaze dropped to my rounded stomach.
"Such a tragedy," Selena crooned, her lips curling into a wicked smile. "Losing your entire family in one night. The stress cannot be good for the baby."
"The baby is fine," Darian barked. "Escort her to the tent, Selena. Make sure she doesn't wander."
"With pleasure." Selena's eyes never left mine.
Darian turned his back on me and walked away into the smoke. He didn't look back at the ruin he had made of my home.
I stood alone with my enemy's ally.
"You look pathetic," Selena whispered, closing the distance between us.
"And you look like a vulture waiting for scraps," I shot back.
Her eyes flashed with anger. She grabbed my chin, her nails digging into my jaw. "Watch your mouth, Silvermoon. You have no pack to protect you anymore. You are just a breeding vessel now. Once that pup is born, you will be nothing."
I ripped my face from her grip. I smoothed my hands over my stomach. The baby kicked again. Stronger this time.
"We will see about that," I said.
Selena laughed, a high, grating sound. "Walk, princess. Before I drag you by your hair."
I turned away from her. I took one last look at my father. I didn't say goodbye. I wouldn't let his spirit rest. Not yet.
I touched my belly one more time. This child was my tether to the living. It was also the weapon I would forge to destroy them all.
"Move," Selena ordered, shoving my shoulder.
I stumbled forward but caught my balance quickly. I stepped into the ashes of my home, following the woman who wanted me dead, toward the tent of the man who had ruined me.
I would play the broken mate. I would smile and nod and let them think they had won.
But as we reached the edge of the burning valley, a low, guttural howl pierced the night—a sound that didn't belong to any Blackclaw wolf.
Selena stopped dead in her tracks, her smirk vanishing.
I looked into the dark woods, a cold smile forming on my lips. Someone else had survived.
