chapter 1

Everly's POV A jackhammer was trying to break out of my skull. That was my first, agonizingly clear thought as consciousness dragged me back, kicking and screaming. A dull, throbbing ache pulsed behind my eyes, syncing with the too-fast, panicked rhythm of my heart. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, trying to catch the fading image, but it disappeared... I was awake. Where…? The question was a silent scream in the haze. I forced my eyes open, only to immediately regret it. Blinding, unforgiving sunlight sliced through a gap in heavy curtains, stabbing directly into my brain. I flinched, a groan tearing from my parched throat. The light painted everything in sharp, surreal relief. An unfamiliar ceiling, textured and white, an abstract painting on a far wall caught my eyes. Panic began to coil in my gut, cutting through the alcohol-induced fog. Okay. Breathe. I’m in a room. A hotel room? The last solid memory was a kaleidoscope of noise and color: the annual Alpha meet-up, a masquerade costume party that was more political maneuvering than fun. My father’s voice, a low, insistent pressure in my ear: “Network, Everly. These are the people you’ll rule alongside. Make connections. Be seen.” My sister Ava’s conspiratorial wink as we slipped away from our parents, melting into the crowd of other pack heirs, all of us playing at being adults in a world our parents controlled. The taste of something sweet and potent stolen from a passing waiter’s tray. Laughter that felt too loud. Then… nothing. A yawning, black void. I tried to roll over, to get my bearings, and that’s when I felt it. A heavy, immovable weight pinning my waist. My breath hitched, freezing in my lungs. Slowly, painfully, I turned my head on the pillow. It was an arm. A man’s arm, tanned and muscular, dusted with dark hair, draped possessively across my bare hip. My own skin, I realized with a jolt of pure, undiluted terror, was also bare. No. No, no, no, no. This wasn’t happening. This was a drunk, horrible dream. Any second now, I’d wake up in my own bed with Ava snoring beside me after a night of stupid, harmless gossip. I followed the line of the arm up, over a powerful shoulder, to the face resting on the pillow next to mine. The world didn’t just tilt; it upended itself and poured me out. Alpha Valen. The Blood Alpha. Leader of the Nightshade Pack, our most powerful rival. A man whose name was spoken in my father’s house with a mixture of grudging respect and visceral loathing. A man who owned half the city and, according to whispers, had a soul as black as the pack he led. And he was in my bed. Naked. Asleep. With me. A silent scream built in my throat, clawing its way up. My father wasn’t just going to murder me; he was going to dismember me, scatter the pieces across the borderlands, and declare it a public. My future, the Alpha title I’d been groomed for since birth, evaporated in that single, sun-drenched moment of horror. “Fuck,” I breathed, the word a shattered whisper. I looked down at myself, at the sheet tangled around my legs, at the unmistakable, tender ache there. My virginity it was gone. Not in a blaze of destined, mate-bond passion, but tossed away in a blackout drunk haze with the one man in the world guaranteed to be my ruin. A hysterical, morbid thought bubbled up into my mind: If I can't even remember this, then his sex skills must be very bad. The sharp buzz of my phone vibrating on the floor , I moved with a speed born of sheer panic, sliding out from under Valen’s arm like a thief, my heart hammering against my ribs. I snatched the phone, my sister Ava’s worried face flashing on the screen. “Hello?” I rasped, pressing the phone to my ear, my back to the sleeping catastrophe in the bed. “Where the hell are you?” Ava’s voice was a frantic hiss. “Dad is doing circuits. I told him you were with me, but he just ordered me home! Now!” I scanned the room again, the generic hotel art, the plush armchair, the discarded fairy wings I’d worn as part of my costume now a sad, sparkly heap in the corner. The view from the window solidified it. “Still at the Banks Hotel,” I whispered. The silence on the other end was deafening. Then, a horrified, hushed, “Everly… Oh my God, please tell me you didn’t fuck Alpha dickwad?.” I look over at the Greek God lying in bed beside me, completely passed out and unaware of me standing gawking at him. I would love to see the horror on his face when he wakes up, but he just might get in line behind my father and kill me, too. Shit, they may even conspire together to make my death exceptionally horrific. “No,” I lied, the word ash in my mouth. “Of course not. I just passed out in an empty room. Alone.” “Bullshit,” Ava shot back, but her tone shifted to crisis management. “Shut up and listen. If Dad asks, you stayed with Amber and me. I’m sending Amber to get you. Be outside in five. Don’t be seen.” The line went dead. The next five minutes were a blur of frantic, silent motion. I scooped my tiny, ridiculous dress off the floor and wrestled myself into it, my fingers fumbling on the clasp. The fairy wings were shoved deep into the bathroom trash. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror—a stranger with smudged, glitter-streaked makeup and the elaborate eye mask Ava had painted on me, now cracked and flaking. A ghost of a memory surfaced: talking to him at the bar, feeling a dangerous, magnetic pull I’d blamed on the alcohol. Had I approached him? Had he…? It didn’t matter. The damage was done. I gave the bed one last look. In the harsh morning light, he seemed younger, almost peaceful. A stark contrast to the ruthless ruler I knew by reputation. A bizarre, inappropriate thought flickered: He’s going to wake up covered in my glitter. Then I was out the door, heels in hand, only to collide solidly with a wall of muscle. “Oof!” I stumbled back, looking up into the amused face of a man I recognized from the previous night’s introductions, Kael, Valen’s Beta. My heart stopped. He seems to have no idea who I am. I'm grateful for the paint on my face because he might have recognized me as my father’s daughter without it, which is the last thing I need. “My Alpha in there?” he asked, a slow smirk spreading across his face as he took in my disheveled, hurried state. I dropped my head, nodding mutely, and tried to sidestep him. “Are you alright, or do you need a ride home?” he asks, making me stop. “What, do you give all your Alpha’s one-night stands a ride home?” I chuckle at him, and he smiles. His smirk widened. “Only the pretty ones.” I didn’t dignify that with a response, just pushed past him and fled down the hall, the sound of his soft chuckle chasing me like a bad omen. ******************************************* Three Weeks Later One night. One stupid, blacked-out, catastrophic night. That was all it took to throw away everything I have ever known. I knew something waswrong when I felt a bit under the weather for more than a few days. The fatigue was bone-deep, unshakable by sleep. Werewolves didn’t get sick like this. A cold, heavy dread had been settling in my stomach for days, a counterpoint to the rolling nausea. I kept comforting myself until my father, Alpha Akturus of the Dark Moon Wolf Pack, finally lost patience and dragged me to see Dr. Darnell. Sitting in the sterile exam room, under the flickering fluorescent light, I felt like a specimen. My father paced, a contained storm of impatience. Mountainview City was our world, a place of four werewolf packs living in a tense, structured harmony. The Shadow Moon Pack was second only to the Nightshades in power, a point of immense pride for my father. And I, his firstborn, his carbon copy with his dark hair and storm-gray eyes, his proudest project—the future Alpha. At least, I was. The door opened, and Doc Darnel came back in, his face a pale, grim mask. He didn’t look at me. He looked at my father, and in that glance, my world ended. “She is pregnant.” The words were simple. They dropped into the room like stones into a still pond, and the ripples were seismic. My heart didn’t break; it simply plummeted, leaving a sucking void in my chest. No. It was once. I don’t even remember it. This isn’t possible. This was a cruel joke, a mistake. I looked at my father. The proud, often stern, but always-loving face I knew was transforming. Disbelief first, then a dawning horror that curdled into something darker—a profound, soul-crushing disappointment. It was a physical blow. “You’re wrong,” my father said, his voice dangerously quiet. “Run it again. She hasn’t found her mate. She can’t be.” The unspoken rule screamed in the silence: She-wolves save themselves for their destined mates. It was sacred, the cornerstone of our society. For an Alpha’s daughter to break it? It wasn’t just a mistake; it was a betrayal of everything. I shrunk in the plastic chair, seventeen years old and feeling like a condemned criminal. Why the male wolves fooled around, it was shrugged off as “sowing wild oats.” But for a female, especially one in line for power? It was a disgrace. “Alpha, I’ve tested it twice,” Doc Darnel said gently, but my father was already shaking his head, a refusal to accept the reality reshaping his legacy. “No. Test it again. My daughter is not a rogue whore.” He spat the label like poison. Rogue whore. The most vile title for a she-wolf besides traitor. A woman pregnant by a man not her mate. In most packs, they were banished, left to go feral in the wilderness. Here in Mountainview, they were merely cast out of pack protection, forced to survive on the fringes of the city, objects of pity and scorn. I’d looked down on those women from the height of my privilege. Now, I was staring into that abyss. The doc hurried out. The room was airless. My father paced, a caged alpha wolf, the power in the room thickening until it was hard to breathe. He stopped, pinning me with a look that stripped me bare. “He has to be wrong. You wouldn’t shame me this way.” It wasn’t a question; it was a plea for the old reality. When Doc Darnel returned, his pitying glance at me was the final verdict. “The results are the same, Alpha.” My father’s growl was sub-vocal, a tremor of pure rage. His eyes flickered, the black of his wolf threatening to overtake the gray. I’d never seen him this close to losing control. Not with me. “How far along?” The question was iced steel. “An ultrasound next week could confirm—” “Do it. Now. We take care of this before word gets out. I won’t have a rogue whore for a daughter.” His words were absolute, leaving no room for argument. “You understand, Doc?” The doc nodded, he was terrified. It took a moment for his meaning to pierce through my shock. Take care of it. A termination. An abortion. It was an abomination in the eyes of the Moon Goddess, a sin far greater than my initial transgression. “Wait!” I say, finally finding my voice. My father looks at me and the Doc moves away from him when he feels my father’s aura rush out. “Wait for what? You aren’t keeping this monstrosity. We can sweep it under the rug, no one has to know, and you can still take the Alpha position; we just need to take care of this poor choice, and then things can go back to normal,” my father says. He makes it sound so simple like this isn’t a sin against the Moon Goddess. “No. I can’t do that, Father. Please, just let me speak with Mom. We can work this out,” I plead with him. “No, you will terminate the pregnancy, then we go home. Doc, get whatever it is you need. I am not leaving this office until this is taken care of,” my father says. I feel tears brimming at his words. Sure, I don’t want to be pregnant, but I am not a murderer; aborting a pregnancy is worse than having a child with someone who is not your mate. “Alpha, I am afraid if your daughter isn’t willing, I can’t perform such a thing unless there is a medical reason.” “She is willing, isn’t that right, Everly?” my father says, trying to force me to agree, but I meet his gaze head-on. My mind is made up; I won’t go through with it. “No!” I tell him, not expecting his following reaction. In all my life, my father has never hit me, never raised a hand to me, and the shock of his action is more painful than the blow itself as his hand connects with the side of my face. I can feel the outline of his fingers etched into my cheek as a burning sensation spreads across it from his palm. “Then you are no longer my daughter,” he says and walks out of the room. He turned and walked out of the room, out of my life, leaving me alone with the pack doctor’s pity, the humming of the lights, and the terrifying new life growing inside me—a life that had just cost me everything.