Five years. That is exactly one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days of suffocating in a bond that felt more like a shackle than a blessing.

Today marked the fifth anniversary of my mating ceremony to Alpha Vincenzo Snyder. In any other pack, the air would be thick with the scent of jasmine and roasted meats, a celebration of the Moon Goddess’s union between the Alpha and his Luna. But here, in the Silver Moon Pack, the air only smelled of damp earth and my own humiliation.

We stood at the edge of the Whispering Woods for the ceremonial Pack Run. Tradition dictated that the Alpha and Luna lead the hunt, running flank to flank, a symbol of their united strength. The wind bit at my exposed arms, raising gooseflesh, but the cold was nothing compared to the icy stare Vincenzo cast in my direction.

He stood tall, stripping off his shirt to reveal the broad, muscular chest that had once made my heart stutter—not because it was his, but because it was a cruel, mirror image of the man I had lost. Keith. My fated mate. The Moon Goddess had a twisted sense of humor, gifting me a second chance with a male who wore my dead lover’s face but carried a monster’s soul.

"Nora," Vincenzo’s voice was a low growl, devoid of any warmth. "Step back."

I froze, my bare feet digging into the dirt. "Vincenzo, it’s the anniversary run. The pack expects the Luna to—"

"The pack expects strength," he cut me off, his eyes flashing with a dominance that forced my wolf to whimper in submission. "Look at you. You’re frail. You reek of misery. You’ll only slow us down."

Before I could protest, a sleek, dark shape emerged from the crowd of shifting wolves. Selene Hunt. The Beta female. She didn’t even bother to hide the smirk on her lips as she dropped her robe, her body toned and ready for the shift.

"Don't worry, Luna," she purred, the title dripping with sarcasm. "I’ll keep the Alpha warm tonight."

Vincenzo didn't reprimand her. Instead, he shifted. His massive grey wolf—so like Keith’s, yet lacking the silver sheen—shook out his fur. He nudged Selene affectionately with his snout, a gesture of intimacy that stole the breath from my lungs. With a howl that signaled the start of the run, they took off into the trees. The rest of the pack followed, leaving me standing alone in the settling dust, the whispers of "The Barren Luna" floating back to me on the wind.

***

The banquet hall was alive with the roar of laughter and the clatter of silverware, but silence fell like a guillotine the moment I walked in. I kept my chin high, forcing a mask of indifference onto my face as I approached the head table.

My seat—the Luna’s seat—was empty. But Vincenzo had pulled another chair intimately close to his own. Selene sat there, still flushed from the run, wearing a dress that left little to the imagination.

I sat down. No one served me. My plate remained empty while Vincenzo used his fork to feed Selene a piece of rare steak, the red juice staining her lips. The sight made my stomach turn.

"Alpha," I said, my voice trembling slightly before I steadied it. I had to be the Luna, even if they didn't treat me like one. "Regarding the border patrols for the upcoming winter solstice..."

Vincenzo slammed his goblet down, wine sloshing over the rim. The entire hall went deathly quiet.

"Do not speak," he commanded, his voice laced with the Alpha Tone—a psychic weight that slammed into my mind, forcing my head to bow against my will. "You sit there with that sullen, pathetic face and ruin the appetite of my warriors. If you cannot provide me with an heir, and you cannot lead a run, the least you can do is stay silent."

Laughter rippled through the room. It started with Selene and spread to the Deltas and Omegas. They weren't laughing with me; they were laughing at the hollow shell of the woman who was supposed to be their queen.

I couldn't breathe. The walls of the pack house, usually a symbol of safety, felt like they were closing in to crush me. I stood up, the legs of my chair screeching against the floor, and fled. I didn't run to our bedroom—it hadn't been ‘ours’ in years. I ran up the narrow, creaking stairs to the only place Vincenzo never bothered to look.

The attic was dusty, filled with the scent of old paper and dry wood. I locked the door and collapsed against it, letting the tears finally fall. Moonlight streamed through the single round window, illuminating a battered black case in the corner.

My trembling hands undid the latches. Inside lay the vintage acoustic guitar. It was the only thing of Keith’s that Vincenzo hadn't burned or thrown away, mostly because he didn't know it existed.

I sat by the window, cradling the instrument like a child. My fingers, calloused from years of playing in secret, found the familiar chords. I didn't sing—Vincenzo would hear me—but I played the melody of "Moonlit Rain." It was the song Keith had written for me a week before the accident. Before he drowned.

*I will find you in the silver light, Nora. Always.*

As the soft notes filled the dusty room, I closed my eyes and pretended, just for a moment, that the man downstairs didn't exist. That the face I saw in my nightmares wasn't Vincenzo’s, but the gentle, loving face of the boy who had promised me forever, only to leave me in hell.

The attic door didn’t open; it exploded inward.

Splinters of wood rained down on the dusty floorboards as the lock gave way under a furious kick. I scrambled back, clutching the neck of the guitar so tightly my knuckles turned white. Vincenzo stood in the doorway, his silhouette blocking out the hallway light. The stench of sour wine and unwashed wolf hit me before he even took a step.

He wasn’t just drunk on alcohol; he was drunk on a toxic cocktail of rage and insecurity. His eyes, usually a dull brown, were bleeding into the glowing amber of his wolf, fixing on the instrument in my arms with a hatred that chilled my blood.

"I knew it," he snarled, his voice slurring. He stumbled into the room, the heavy thud of his boots vibrating through the floor. "I could hear it. That infernal whining melody. You’re up here serenading a corpse."

I tried to stand, to hide the guitar behind my back, but there was nowhere to go. "Vincenzo, please. It’s just music. It calms my wolf."

"Liar!" The word was a whip crack. He crossed the distance between us in two strides, grabbing my arm. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging into my flesh like talons. "You think I don't know? You look at me, but you see him. You lie in my bed, but you’re sleeping with a ghost!"

"That's not true—"

"It is true!" he roared, shaking me. "Five years, Nora! Five years I have been your Alpha, yet you mourn him like he died yesterday. You disrespect me. You disrespect your pack!"

He released me only to snatch at the guitar.

"No!" The scream tore from my throat. I lunged for it, my fingers brushing the polished wood, but he was faster. He was an Alpha, and I was a malnourished, broken Luna. He held the guitar aloft by its neck, dangling it like a caught rabbit.

"This is what stands between us," he muttered, his chest heaving. "This rotting piece of wood."

"Vincenzo, don't! Please! It’s all I have left!" I fell to my knees, abandoning all dignity. I grabbed the hem of his jeans, sobbing. "I’ll be better. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please, give it back."

He looked down at me, a cruel sneer twisting his lips—lips that looked so much like Keith’s, making the cruelty sting ten times worse.

"Keith is dead," he spat, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. "And he is never coming back."

With a primal grunt, he swung the guitar like an axe.

The sound was sickening. It wasn't just a crack; it was a shriek of dying wood and snapping metal. He smashed the body of the guitar against the stone fireplace. The vintage spruce top, which had vibrated with Keith’s love songs for years, shattered into a thousand splinters. The strings twanged in a discordant death knell before snapping, whipping through the air.

I screamed as if he had struck me. I crawled toward the hearth, my hands shaking as I reached for the debris. The neck was severed. The body was decimated.

Vincenzo dropped the remains of the neck onto the pile of wreckage. He didn't look at me again. He just turned and walked out, leaving the door hanging off its hinges, leaving me weeping over a pile of wood that felt like the corpse of my true mate.

***

I didn't sleep. I lay on the floorboards all night, gathering every splinter, every tuning peg, every scrap of the shattered wood into a pile in the center of the room. I was trying to figure out how to fix it, how to glue the soul of my past back together, when the morning sun harsh and unforgiving, cut through the round window.

Footsteps echoed on the stairs. Brisk. Purposeful. Not Vincenzo.

Selene walked in, flanked by two burly Omegas carrying trash bags. She looked impeccable in a white pantsuit, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She took one look at me—huddled on the floor, eyes swollen, clutching a piece of broken wood—and wrinkled her nose.

"Pathetic," she murmured.

"Get out," I rasped, my voice wrecked from crying.

Selene signaled the Omegas. "The Alpha has ordered a purge. He says the Luna’s quarters are filled with... clutter that is affecting her mental health."

"No," I whispered, shielding the debris with my body. "You can't."

"Grab the trash," she ordered the men.

I snarled, my wolf surfacing in a desperate attempt to protect what was mine. I bared my teeth at the Omega reaching for the guitar neck. But Selene stepped forward, her eyes flashing with Beta dominance.

"**Stand down, Nora.**"

The Command hit me like a physical blow. Because I was weak, because my wolf had been starved of love and power for so long, I couldn't resist a direct order from a high-ranking Beta. My muscles locked. My jaw clamped shut. I was a prisoner in my own body.

Tears streamed silently down my face as I was forced to stand and watch. The Omegas scooped up the wood—the pieces of Keith’s soul—and shoved them into a black plastic bag. Then, Selene walked over to the loose floorboard where I hid the sheet music.

She knew. She had been watching.

She pulled out the yellowed pages of "Moonlit Rain," Keith’s handwriting fading but still legible. She held them up, smiling cruelly.

"Such a sad little tune," she said. She flicked a lighter open.

I screamed internally, fighting the Command, but I couldn't move a muscle. I watched the flame catch the corner of the paper. I watched the fire eat Keith’s words, his notes, his promise to find me in the silver light. She dropped the burning pages into the fireplace, then gestured for the Omegas to dump the wood on top.

The dry, varnished wood caught instantly. The fire roared, consuming the last physical evidence that Keith Mason had ever existed. The smell of burning lacquer and old paper filled the room, choking me.

"There," Selene said, dusting off her hands as the flames danced in her eyes. "Now you can focus on the living, Luna. Or at least, try not to embarrass us further."

She turned on her heel and left, the Command fading with her exit. I collapsed toward the fire, the heat searing my skin, but it was too late. It was all ash. I was empty.

**[Theodore]**

Air. I needed air.

My lungs seized, forcing a ragged gasp past my lips as my body arched off the mattress. It wasn’t a gentle waking. It was a collision. Two souls, separated by death and a decade of silence, slammed into one another with the force of a freight train.

Machines around me beeped frantically, a chaotic symphony to match the pounding in my skull. I wasn't just Theodore Allen, the Lycan King who had slept for years. I was Keith Mason. I was the boy who drowned. I was the man who had been murdered by his own blood.

My hands clawed at the silk sheets, tearing through the fabric. The strength in these fingers was terrifying, alien, and absolute. I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the vertigo, but when I snapped them open, the room was bathed in a strange, dual light.

"Your Majesty!" A voice cried out from the corner. "He's awake! Get the Council!"

I ignored the flurry of healers rushing toward me. I clutched my chest, my claws digging into the skin over my heart. The pain wasn't physical. It was a hollow, aching void that screamed one name.

*Nora.*

I could feel her. Not as a memory, but as a living, breathing wound. She was in pain. She was breaking.

A low growl vibrated in my chest, shaking the very foundation of the room. My reflection in the glass partition across the room caught my eye—irises of molten gold, rimmed with a sharp, piercing silver.

"I am coming," I rasped, the voice deep and thunderous, carrying the weight of a King and the rage of a lover scorned. "Hold on, Nora. I am coming."

***

**[Nora]**

I sat on the edge of my narrow bed, staring at my hands. They were scrubbed raw, pink and stinging, but I could still smell it. The ash. The varnish. The scent of Keith’s soul burning in the fireplace upstairs.

My room, a small guest quarters on the first floor usually reserved for visiting Deltas, felt like a prison cell. The walls were grey, the furniture sparse. It was fitting, I supposed. I was the Luna in title, but a prisoner in reality.

The door creaked open without a knock. I didn't flinch. I was too empty to be startled.

Selene breezed in, her heels clicking sharply against the hardwood. She held a stack of fresh linens, though we both knew the Omegas usually handled the laundry.

"Just checking in, Luna," she said, her voice dripping with that fake, sugary concern that made my wolf bristle. "Vincenzo wants the house spotless for the meeting tonight. No more... clutter."

She walked past me to the bed. I shifted away, pressing my back against the cold wall. I didn't want her touching me. I didn't want her scent—cloying roses and deception—anywhere near my safe space.

"I can change my own sheets," I whispered, my voice hoarse.

"Nonsense," she chirped. With a swift, practiced motion, she lifted the corner of my mattress. Her hand lingered there for a fraction of a second too long, a quick shuffle of paper against fabric, before she smoothed the new sheet down. "There. All fresh."

She straightened up, smoothing her skirt. Her eyes landed on me, cold and predatory. "You should get ready, Nora. The Alpha hates it when you're late."

She left as quickly as she had arrived, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than before. I frowned, looking at the corner of the bed she had touched. My wolf whined, a low sound of unease, but before I could investigate, the front door of the pack house slammed shut with a force that shook the floorboards.

"NORA!"

The roar was deafening. It wasn't just a shout; it was an Alpha command fueled by fury.

My heart slammed into my throat. Before I could even stand, my bedroom door flew open, hitting the wall with a crack that splintered the wood. Vincenzo stood there, his chest heaving, his face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated hate.

"You traitorous bitch!" he screamed.

He crossed the room in two strides. I didn't have time to beg. I didn't have time to speak. His hand tangled in my hair, yanking my head back so hard I saw stars.

"Vincenzo, please!" I shrieked, clutching at his wrist as he dragged me off the bed. I hit the floor hard, my knees scraping against the wood, but he didn't stop. He dragged me like a sack of garbage, out of the room and into the hallway.

"Get off me! What did I do?" I cried, scrambling to get my footing, but he was too fast, too strong.

"You know exactly what you did!" he roared, hauling me toward the main meeting hall.

The double doors were already open. The entire pack was there—Betas, Gammas, Elders, even the Omegas. Hundreds of eyes turned to watch as their Alpha threw their Luna onto the center rug like a broken doll.

I gasped for air, pushing myself up on trembling arms. My scalp burned, and tears blurred my vision. I looked up to see Vincenzo standing over me, holding a sheaf of papers.

"I tolerated your weakness," Vincenzo bellowed, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "I tolerated your barren womb. I even tolerated your disrespect for my mate!"

He threw the papers at me. They fluttered down like white feathers, landing all around me. I grabbed one, my hands shaking. It was a map. A detailed map of the pack’s northern patrol routes, with handwritten notes in the margins. Notes that looked terrifyingly like my handwriting.

"But I will not tolerate treason!" Vincenzo pointed a shaking finger at me. "I found these under her mattress! She has been communicating with rogues! She plans to sell our patrol routes to the Southern rebels in exchange for my head!"

A collective gasp ripped through the hall. Growls erupted from the warriors, low and threatening.

"No," I whispered, staring at the map in horror. "No, I didn't... I would never..."

"Liar!" Selene stepped forward from the crowd, her face a mask of shock and disappointment. "I saw you hiding them, Nora. I tried to cover for you, hoping I was wrong, but... how could you?"

"I didn't!" I screamed, looking around at the faces of the people I had grown up with. "She planted them! Selene planted them!"

"Enough!" Vincenzo’s Alpha aura slammed down on me, forcing my face into the carpet. The pressure was immense, crushing my lungs. "You have betrayed this pack. You have betrayed me. And you will pay."