The day Kaelen arrived, the air in the Vampire Sanctuary grew heavy and suffocating.

I felt his presence even before he appeared.

The vampires, usually so arrogant and aloof, hissed and retreated into the shadows, terrified by the overwhelming aura of a Supreme Alpha.

Kaelen strode through the obsidian doors of the Sanctuary like a conquering god.

He was taller, broader, and far more lethal than the rogue wolf I had saved centuries ago.

He didn't come alone. A hundred elite werewolf enforcers trailed behind him.

But Kaelen wasn't here to wage war; he was here to claim my Scarlet Core.

"Elara!" Kaelen's voice boomed, shaking the dust from the cavern ceiling. "I sent twelve messengers, and you ignored every single one. Must I personally drag you out of your den?"

I floated behind Lucian as my son stood in the center of the crypt's grand antechamber. Compared to the towering werewolf at the door, he looked impossibly small.

"Who are you?" Lucian asked, his voice eerily calm, though I could see his tiny fists trembling slightly. "What do you want with my mother?"

At the word "mother," Kaelen stopped in his tracks.

He narrowed his glowing eyes and looked down at the child.

He took in the boy's frail body and the jagged silver scar trailing from Lucian's forehead down his neck—the cruel reminder of the day he was born, when Kaelen had tried to cleave him in half.

A look of sheer disgust twisted the Alpha's features.

"A mutt is a mutt. The lowly bloodline of a feral cur," Kaelen spat, the venom in his tone making my phantom heart ache.

"Five centuries have passed, and you're still a weak, stunted little runt. I'll never understand why she wasted her royal blood to keep you alive."

Lucian clenched his jaw. "State your business, Alpha, or leave."

Kaelen scoffed and stepped into the room. His suffocating pheromones grew heavier, seemingly crushing the air itself.

"Tell her to stop playing these ridiculous games. I stripped her of her Luna title and banished her here to heal. Five hundred years later, and she's still throwing a tantrum?"

Kaelen crossed his arms over his chest, his dark leather jacket pulling tight against his massive biceps.

"Tell Elara to stop being so selfish. Selene is carrying my true heir."

"But because Selene is an Omega, her body cannot handle the strain of bearing an Alpha pup. The pack healers say she needs the magic of a pureblood's Scarlet Core for a safe delivery."

Kaelen's eyes turned icy.

"Tell Elara that if she gives up her core's magic to help Selene deliver my pup, I will spare her."

"I will allow her to return to the Blood Moon Pack. Not as my Luna, of course, but as a mistress. That is far more mercy than a traitor deserves."

Fury, searing and sharp, surged through my intangible form.

A mistress?

Give my heart to the woman who killed me?

If I had breath, I would have shrieked. If I had claws, I would have ripped his throat out.

"Where is she?" Kaelen demanded impatiently, taking another step forward. "Tell her to get her ass out here!"

Lucian didn't flinch. He lifted his chin. "My mother is dead. She cannot help you. Leave."

Kaelen's amber eyes darkened to molten gold. "Dead? Elara? She's a vain, spoiled vampire royal. She would never let herself die."

"She just knows Selene needs her magic, so she's using these underhanded tricks to make me beg. She wants me on my knees so she can crawl back into my bed."

He brushed past Lucian, heading straight for the inner sanctum of the crypt.

"You can't go in there!" Lucian threw his arms wide, using his frail body to block the way.

Without breaking his stride, Kaelen backhanded him.

The strike wasn't meant to kill, but the casual force of an Alpha werewolf was devastating. It sent my son flying.

Lucian slammed hard against the stone wall, a sickening thud echoing through the room.

"Lucian!" I screamed, lunging toward him. I tried to cradle his head, but my hands grasped at nothing.

"Elara, I know you're here!" Kaelen roared, striding into the inner chamber.

He froze.

In the center of the room, illuminated by a flickering torch, stood a monument of black marble.

Engraved upon it were the words: Elara, the Last Princess of the Night. Beneath the monument sat a simple clay urn, surrounded by withered, dying roses.

Lucian stumbled into the room, leaning heavily against the doorframe. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, staining his pale chin.

"Alpha Kaelen," Lucian rasped, clutching his bruised ribs. "My mother is truly gone. Her core shattered."

"I beg of you, for the sake of the crown she once helped you win, do not desecrate her resting place. Let her be."

A heavy silence hung in the frigid air. Kaelen stared at the urn.

For a split second, I thought I saw a flicker of hesitation in his eyes—perhaps.

But then he ground his teeth together. "Lies."

He reached for the urn.

"Don't touch her!"

Lucian lunged, his small hands glowing with silver magic as he tried to shove the massive Alpha away from my monument.

Kaelen's patience completely snapped. He unleashed the full force of his Alpha aura.

Under the crushing weight of the invisible magic, Lucian's bones groaned and popped. He curled up on the stone floor, his mouth open in a silent scream, veins bulging in his neck as his internal organs were slowly compressed.

"Stop!" I threw myself at Kaelen, pounding my ghostly fists against his chest. "You're killing him! Kaelen, you bastard, he's your son! Stop!"

But I was nothing. My fists passed right through him, kicking up nothing but dust.

Fortunately, Kaelen didn't actually want to kill the boy. Just before Lucian's bones snapped, he reined in his magic.

Lucian lay on the ground, twitching and coughing up thick, dark clots of blood.

Kaelen slammed a heavy steel-toed boot down on my son's chest, pinning him to the floor. He glared down at him without a shred of pity.

"A pathetic stray dares to bare his fangs at me?" Kaelen sneered. "Know your place, mutt."

He looked back at the urn.

"Did you really think I'd be fooled so easily? Elara gave up her daywalking ability to save you, yes."

"But she's a pureblood. She has nine drops of Ancient Blood in her veins. Losing a fraction of her magic wouldn't kill her. Even if she lost her core, the vampire in her blood would survive. This is nothing but a charade."

Lucian glared up at him, his small hands gripping Kaelen's massive boot, trying in vain to push it off. He had the exact same murderous look in his eyes that I did. But he was too weak. Kaelen didn't even register the boy's resistance.

Kaelen stepped over him and picked up my urn. He held it up to the light, inspecting it casually.

"I give her three days," Kaelen announced to the empty room. "If Elara doesn't step out of the shadows and hand over the Scarlet Core, I will finish what I started five hundred years ago. Tell her, if she disobeys, I'll slaughter you like a dog."

With a flick of his wrist, Kaelen hurled the urn at the stone wall.

It shattered into a thousand pieces. Gray ash—just ordinary ash Lucian had gathered to fake a monument and hide my real body—scattered across the floor.

Kaelen turned and walked out, his boots crunching over the ceramic shards.

The heavy doors finally slammed shut, leaving us in the dark with Lucian lying motionless.

It took him a long time to gather the strength to roll over. Weeping silently, he crawled across the floor on his hands and knees, meticulously picking up every broken piece of clay, cutting his fingers in a desperate attempt to piece my monument back together.

Watching him, my soul shattered all over again.

Seeing my son's blood spill across the flagstones, memories I had tried to bury came flooding back, sharp and unforgiving.

When I first met Kaelen, he was nothing but a rogue, a lone wolf lying at death's door outside the Sanctuary.

His pack had cast him out because the wolf inside him was deformed, chained by a dark curse.

The Supreme Alpha of the time—Kaelen's own father—refused to acknowledge him as his son, leaving him to rot.

I found him. I was captivated by his untamed, unbroken spirit.

When he looked at me, there was no fear in his eyes, only a burning defiance.

I fell in love with a dying dog.

To save him, I broke the sacred laws of my kind.

I fed him my royal blood. The magic of a pureblood vampire healed his deformed wolf, transforming him into a creature of terrifying power.

But that wasn't enough for him. He wanted revenge. He wanted his father's throne.

Because I loved him, I gave him the world.

I used the vast wealth and secret armies of the Night Clan to fund his rebellion.

I fought by his side, using my shadows to block silver arrows for him on blood-soaked battlefields. Step by step, bathed in blood, I helped him conquer the packs and reclaim his rightful title as the Alpha King.

On the day of his coronation, he carried me into the luxurious penthouse suite of the Blood Moon Packhouse. He fell to his knees, buried his face in my stomach, and wept.

"I swear to the Moon Goddess," he whispered, his tears soaking through my dress. "I will cherish you forever, Elara. I will never betray you. You are my life."

We were happy. For a fleeting, beautiful moment in time, we were incredibly happy. Even when I discovered I was pregnant—an unprecedented miracle between a vampire and a werewolf—his joy was boundless.

He treated me like fragile glass.

Until he brought her home.

Selene.

He found her during a border skirmish—a stray, beautiful, and fragile Omega with clear, doe-like eyes.

She was shivering, claiming her entire pack had been slaughtered. Kaelen took pity on her and brought her back to the pack lands.

Because she was a wolf, and because my pregnancy left me bedridden and weak, I welcomed Selene with open arms.

I treated her like a little sister.

She was so gentle, always sitting by my bed, reading to me, and brewing special herbal teas to ease the agonizing pains of my pregnancy.

Whenever I asked about her future and offered to find her a strong, high-ranking mate within the pack, she would blush, look down at her hands, and softly say that her heart already belonged to someone out of reach.

I was so blind. Utterly blind.

The tea she fed me every day wasn't some miracle cure; it was a slow-acting dark voodoo brewed by a swamp witch.

It suppressed the werewolf genes in my womb, mutated the baby, and slowly drained my own magic.

When I went into premature labor, the pain was apocalyptic. I screamed until my vocal cords tore.

When the child was finally born, the midwives gasped in horror and backed away.

I didn't give birth to a majestic, powerful wolf pup. I birthed a scrawny, scentless, hairless creature that looked like a sickly feral mutt.

Kaelen, the proud new Alpha King, stood by the bed. I will never forget the look of absolute revulsion on his face. The love in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, murderous fury.

He accused me of whoring myself out to a rogue dog. He refused to believe the child was his, entirely ignoring the biological fact that vampire loyalty is absolute.

Fueled by wounded pride and the whispers of the pack, Kaelen flew into a blind rage and drew his massive silver broadsword.

Before I could even reach for my baby, Kaelen brought the blade down, cleanly cleaving the newborn infant in two.

I screamed.

He stripped me of my Luna title right there, while I lay in a bed soaked in my own blood. He announced to the pack that I was a whore, banished me to the Sanctuary, and that very night, he took Selene as his new mate.

Only then did I realize who Selene's "out of reach" lover was. She had played the long game, and she had won.

To stitch my child back together, I performed a forbidden blood sacrifice.

Kaelen was right about one thing: purebloods possess nine drops of Ancient Blood, the source of our immortality and magic. Every time we suffer a fatal wound, we burn a drop to resurrect ourselves.

To regenerate my son's severed limbs and broken body, I sacrificed my Ancient Blood, pouring my life force into his tiny, shattered form.

But what Kaelen didn't know was that I didn't have nine drops to spare. I only had two left.

During his ruthless rise to power, I had secretly used seven drops of Ancient Blood to save him from assassinations.

I took the silver bullets and poisoned blades meant for him, dying and coming back to life in the shadows, never letting him know the price I paid.

In his final battle with the old Alpha King, when the magical core of his wolf was shattered, he was inches from death.

While he lay in a coma, I tore open my own chest, ripped out my crystallized Scarlet Core, and placed it into his heart to sustain his wolf's life.

I gave him my heart. Literally.

With only two drops of Ancient Blood left, saving my son consumed one. I was left with a single drop, hovering on the brink of death, entirely stripped of my magic, my core, and my strength.

As I lay exhausted on the blood-soaked sheets, holding the miraculously revived and breathing infant, my bedroom door locked with a heavy click.

Selene walked in.

The sweet, clear-eyed Omega was gone. Her eyes were manic, gleaming with dark, triumphant malice. She held a silver dagger.

"Don't blame me, Elara," she whispered, her voice dripping with venom. "Blame yourself for trusting a wolf. Blame yourself for standing in my way."

She bound me in silver chains, burning my weakened flesh. She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me out of the Packhouse and into the blinding sunlight.

She sliced open my chest with the dagger and plunged her hands into the cavity, searching for the Scarlet Core that would grant her supreme power and immortality.

When she found the cavity empty—because the core was already beating inside Kaelen's chest—she shrieked in frustration.

She crushed my remaining cardiovascular system and dragged my broken body to the edge of the Daylight Rift, a bottomless chasm eternally bathed in lethal sunlight.

"Goodbye, Princess," she sneered, kicking me off the cliff.

As I fell, turning to ash, I looked up.

At the edge of the cliff, a tiny, determined figure hurled itself into the abyss, plunging after me. It was my son. The baby I had just saved.

Through the searing, blinding light, the curse placed upon my womb broke. Just before the darkness swallowed me, I saw his true form for the very first time.

He wasn't a mutt.

Kaelen didn't wait three days. He returned early the next morning.

Wolves are creatures of potent, volatile magic. A human or low-ranking Omega mate can rarely survive carrying a Supreme Alpha's pup without magical intervention. The fetus is simply too powerful and drains the mother's life force.

That was why Kaelen was so desperate. Selene's body was failing, and he needed pureblood vampire magic to stabilize her.

This time, the sky above the Sanctuary was overcast and grim. Kaelen hadn't just brought a hundred men; he brought an entire army. The mountainside was swarming with werewolves.

He descended from the sky, cradling Princess Selene in his arms, and landed gracefully in the courtyard outside my crypt.

When he saw Lucian standing alone on the steps, blocking the entrance to the tomb, Kaelen's lips curled back to bare his fangs.

"Stubborn as your bitch of a mother," Kaelen growled. "I'll give you one last chance, boy. Tell me where Elara is hiding."

"If you tell me, I'll take you back to the pack. I'll adopt you. You'll live like an Alpha's son. You'll never go hungry or cold again. How about it?"

The gathered enforcers muttered among themselves. To be an officially recognized member of the Blood Moon Pack was a privilege lower wolves killed for.

They mocked Lucian, assuming the "mutt" would eagerly accept.

To my surprise, Lucian slowly lowered his head. He nodded. "I will tell you, but on one condition."

A cold smirk played on Kaelen's lips, a look of arrogant triumph. Everyone breaks eventually. "Name your price."

"I want to hug the Luna."

Lucian's voice was small and trembling, perfectly mimicking a terrified child desperate for a mother's touch.

The pack members burst into laughter.

Of course the rogue wanted to suck up to his new stepmother to secure a comfortable life.

But I knew my son. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Selene offered a sickeningly sweet smile. She stepped forward and opened her arms like a benevolent goddess. "Of course, little one. Come to your Luna."

Keeping his head down, Lucian descended the stone steps. The moment he stepped into her embrace, the moment his tiny arms wrapped around her waist, a flash of pure silver glinted from his sleeve.

It was a stake carved from pure silver and coated in wolfsbane.

With lightning speed, Lucian drove the blade upward, aiming right beneath Selene's jaw—a killing blow meant to pierce her brain.

But Kaelen's reflexes were inhuman. He was a Supreme Alpha. Before the blade even grazed Selene's skin, Kaelen moved.

His heavy boot slammed into Lucian's chest.

The sound of shattering ribs was deafening. Lucian was launched into the air, crashing into a stone pillar. He crumpled to the ground, vomiting a massive mouthful of blood.

"You dare attempt to assassinate the Luna?!" Kaelen roared, his aura exploding outward.

The pack enforcers rushed forward, grabbing Lucian by the hair, smashing his face hard against the cobblestones, and twisting his arms behind his back.

Kaelen strode forward and snatched the fallen silver stake from the ground. Unbridled fury contorted his face. "I should have known a mutt's blood is tainted with treachery!"

Without a second thought, Kaelen drove the silver stake straight into Lucian's right shoulder.

Lucian let out a piercing scream—the shrill, agonizing shriek of silver burning through his half-breed flesh.

Kaelen ripped the stake out and drove it into the boy's left thigh, then into his calf.

One strike. Two. Three. Four.

Dark blood rapidly pooled across the cobblestones, mixing with the freezing morning rain.

"Stop! Goddess, please stop!" I shrieked, throwing myself over my son's mutilated body.

I tried to cover his wounds with my ghostly hands, tried to take the blows for him, but the silver stake passed right through me, plunging into my child's flesh again and again.

An unbearable phantom pain ripped through my chest.

Watching this, I felt as though I was dying a thousand deaths.

Selene stepped forward and placed her manicured hand gently on Kaelen's arm. "Enough, Kaelen. I'm unharmed. The poor thing is just confused."

Kaelen yanked the stake out one last time, his chest heaving. He tossed the blood-soaked silver aside. "I never should have trusted the bastard."

"Perhaps my sister hasn't forgiven me," Selene said, her voice trembling, accompanied by perfectly staged tears.

She rested her head on Kaelen's shoulder. "I've taken her place by your side... It's only human nature that she hates me and refuses to give me her core. Let's go, Kaelen. It's my fault. I'm too weak to bear your child. I don't want to see any more bloodshed."

Her words were like oil poured on a raging fire.

He roared and slammed a fist into the crypt's iron gates, bending the thick metal out of shape.

"Elara! You have five minutes to show your face!" Kaelen marched back to Lucian, grabbed him by his blood-matted hair, and violently jerked his head back.

He pressed a silver dagger against Lucian's throat. "Or I'll chop his head off and mount it on your crypt!"

Five minutes passed.

There was nothing but the patter of rain and Lucian's heavy, wet breathing.

Kaelen paced like a caged beast, his amber eyes scanning the shadows.

Lucian coughed and spat a mouthful of blood and rain onto Kaelen's boot.

"I told you," the boy rasped, a bloody smile creeping across his pale face. "My mother is dead. Just kill me and get it over with, you coward."

Kaelen's jaw twitched, the muscles in his neck pulling taut. "You think I won't?" He pressed the blade deeper into the boy's windpipe, drawing a thin line of blood.

Then, he suddenly stopped. A cold, cruel realization dawned on his face. He lowered the blade.

"No. If I kill you, Elara will just sacrifice more of her power to resurrect you like last time. Let's see if she can heal you from this."

He turned to his Beta. "Bring the Sacred Fire."

My phantom heart plummeted into the abyss.

Vampires are creatures of ice and shadow; there is nothing we fear more than fire.

But Sacred Fire was a different nightmare entirely.

It didn't just burn flesh; it incinerated the soul, completely erasing a being's existence.

As the guards scrambled to retrieve the braziers from the armored vehicles, Kaelen ordered the rest of his men to tear the crypt apart.

"Search every inch! Tear down the walls if you have to!"

Lucian's pale face went entirely white. He struggled weakly against the enforcers holding him down, his eyes darting toward the tomb's entrance.

Minutes later, a shout came from deep within the catacombs: "Alpha! We found a hidden chamber!"

Kaelen let out a manic laugh, the sound of vicious triumph. "I knew the bitch was faking!"

"Alpha... we found this corpse on a slab of ice. It looks... like a mummified vampire."

Two burly werewolf goons dragged my withered, gray body out into the sunlight and dumped it unceremoniously on the wet cobblestones at Kaelen's feet.

Kaelen's smile vanished. He stared down at the hideous, rotting corpse. The skin peeled back from the skull, fangs jutted grotesquely from shriveled lips, and the chest cavity was a gaping black hole.

"Elara was a peerless beauty," Kaelen sneered, nudging my lifeless arm with the toe of his boot. With a sickening crack, my brittle wrist snapped. "This is just some dead hag. Toss it in the trash. Burn it."

"No!"

Lucian thrashed wildly, trying to break free from the goons holding him.

For the first time in five hundred years, the boy's mask of cold apathy shattered. Absolute terror destroyed his composure.

"Don't burn her! Don't touch her!" Lucian screamed, dislocating his shoulder as he fought desperately against their grip. "Kaelen, I swear to God, if you burn her, I'll kill you! I'll tear you to pieces!"

Kaelen tilted his head, genuinely taken aback by the boy's sudden panic.

"Must be someone important to you. A surrogate mother? A friend? Tell me where Elara is, mutt, or I'll burn this little corpse of yours."

"She's dead!" Lucian shrieked, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the blood. "I've told you a thousand times! She's dead, and she's right in front of you! That's her! Don't touch her!"

A flicker of genuine hesitation crossed Kaelen's eyes.

He looked down at the corpse, studying it closely. The shape of the brow, the length of the silver-white hair clinging to the scalp...

But he quickly shook his head, dismissing the thought.

"Nice try. Pureblood vampires only die when their core is destroyed. And I can still feel her core. It's beating. It's close by."

Right then, Selene let out a harrowing gasp. She stumbled, clutching her stomach, and collapsed to her knees in the mud.

"Luna!" the guards shouted, rushing forward.

Kaelen abandoned the corpse and dropped to his knees beside her. "Selene? Is it the pain again?"

The pack healer, who had been hovering nearby, checked her pulse, his face grim.

"Alpha, her vitals are dropping rapidly. Without a Scarlet Core to stabilize the pup's magic, the Luna won't survive the hour."

"Kaelen," Selene whimpered, clutching his shirt, her eyes rolling back. "I don't want to die. The baby... save our baby."

Kaelen held her tight, his face twisted in agony. "I won't let you die. Even if I have to drag Elara out of hell myself."

He stood up, his aura radiating lethal intent. He gestured to the goons holding Lucian. "Tie him to the stake."

They dragged my son to the center of the courtyard and chained his wrists and ankles to a thick iron post. They piled silver-soaked wood at the boy's feet and doused it in alchemical accelerant.

"I've been too soft on you!" Kaelen roared, his voice echoing through the mountains. "Elara, this is your last chance! If you don't come out, I'm going to burn this mutt alive and use his ashes to brew a potion for my mate!"

He snatched a torch from a guard and tossed it onto the pyre.

The Sacred Fire erupted in a blinding flash of silver-blue flames.

Lucian threw his head back and screamed.

It was a sound of absolute agony. It wasn't just his flesh burning; his soul was being ripped apart by the holy silver. I knew that pain. It was the feeling of your very existence being unraveled thread by thread.

I fell to my knees before Kaelen, weeping uncontrollably, begging a man who couldn't hear me.

"Kaelen, please! Stop the fire! He's just a child, he's too weak! He's your son! I beg you, take my body, take my ashes, but let him go!"

My wails echoed only in the spirit realm, but suddenly, Kaelen froze.

His body went rigid, and his head snapped toward me, his amber eyes wide.

"Stop!" Kaelen ordered his men, his voice trembling as he raised a hand. "Halt the fire! I... I hear her voice. I can hear Elara."

I froze.

Could the wolf inside him sense my soul? Was the Scarlet Core in his chest—my heart—reacting to my presence?

He took a slow step forward.

He reached out, his fingers brushing the empty air mere inches from my tear-stained, intangible face.

"Elara? Are you right here? Are you invisible?"

Before his hand could find mine, Selene let out an exaggerated, blood-curdling scream. "Kaelen! It hurts so much! My heart is breaking! The baby is dying!"

The trance was broken.

The connection shattered instantly.

Kaelen spun around and pulled Selene into his arms.

"Don't worry, baby," Kaelen kissed her forehead frantically, completely stepping away from where I knelt. "I'm right here. I'll get it for you."

Watching this, watching him hold the woman who killed me while my son burned alive on the pyre, the last thread of my soul finally snapped.

The final lingering trace of love I had clung to for five centuries turned to ash.

Once, he had held me like that. When I was pregnant, he had looked at me with that same concerned gaze.

Promises truly are the most useless things in the world.

Kaelen stood up, his face hardening like stone.

He walked over to my body lying in the mud and hoisted it up by the neck. Stripped of the glacier's protection, the dry, cracking skin flaked off like dead leaves under his brutal grip.

The flames roared around Lucian. My son's skin was charred black, his clothes burned away, but his eyes... his eyes burned with a hatred that not even death could extinguish.

He stopped screaming and just stared blankly at his father.

"Last chance, boy," Kaelen growled. "Tell me where she is, and I'll put out the fire. I'll forgive everything you've done to me."

For a Supreme Alpha like Kaelen, forgiving someone who assaulted his mate was an enormous concession. For Selene's life, he was forcing himself to swallow his immense pride.

He thought he was being generous.

Lucian laughed. Through the scorching flames, his laughter sounded dark and hollow, chilling every werewolf present to the bone.

"You want her back?" Lucian sneered, blood bubbling past his lips. "She doesn't want you anymore. She stopped loving you, Alpha."

The words struck Kaelen like a physical blow, igniting a blind rage. His eyes turned feral, his pupils dilating until they were pitch black. "You're lying! She gave up a throne for me! She would never stop loving me!"

Consumed by fury, desperate to force my hand, Kaelen swung his arm and hurled my shriveled corpse straight into the Sacred Fire.

"No!"

Lucian's scream tore through the heavens.

He lunged forward, thrashing against the silver chains until his flesh tore down to the bone, desperately trying to reach my burning body. But he was too late. The Sacred Fire instantly engulfed my dry, brittle corpse, turning it into a pillar of blinding white flame.

I stood on the outside, watching my own cremation, feeling a numb sense of peace wash over me.

For five hundred years, I had watched my son suffer alone. He was bullied, starved, and treated like an abomination. He never fought back because he spent all his energy trying to keep me tethered to this world.

Perhaps this was for the best.

With my physical anchor destroyed, my soul could finally pass on. Lucian's burden would be lifted.

We could both be free. We could reunite in the afterlife.

Kaelen stared at the roaring flames, his chest heaving. He muttered to himself, "No... she's not dead. She'll show up. She has to show up."

Selene walked up behind him, shivering, and rested her head against his broad back. "Kaelen, let's go home. She's not coming. It's too cold here, it's bad for the baby."

Kaelen nodded numbly. He wrapped an arm around her and turned his back on the burning pyre where my son and my remains were turning to ash.

They took three steps.

Then, the earth cracked open.

A wolf!

A White Wolf!

The most revered bloodline in werewolf history manifested right there.