The cold seeped into my bones, but it was a fraction of the ice freezing my heart. I sat on the damp stone floor of the dungeon, my knees pulled to my chest. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. Seven years of loyalty, of shared secrets and stolen kisses in the dark, had been slaughtered in a single night. Reid's betrayal was a living, bleeding wound in my soul.

The heavy iron door groaned open, shattering the silence. Sharp, rhythmic clicks of expensive heels echoed down the corridor. The cloying scent of vanilla and roses hit my nose before she even stepped into the dim light.

Maren Sanders.

She stood outside my cell bars, the picture of Lycan royalty in a pristine white coat. But the fake, trembling victim from the ballroom was gone. Her lips curled into an ugly, vicious sneer.

"Look at you," Maren mocked, her voice dripping with poison. "Exactly where a filthy rogue belongs."

I didn't answer. I just stared at her, letting my dead, flat gaze meet hers. My silence seemed to infuriate her. She gripped the iron bars, her knuckles turning white.

"You think you're so special, don't you?" she hissed, dropping her voice to a venomous whisper. "I saw the way people looked at you tonight. I saw the way Reid looked at you, even while he was planning to destroy you. You walk around with this sickening confidence, this natural grace that I am supposed to have! I'm the Princess, Juliet. Not you."

She laughed, but it sounded brittle and frantic. "I need you gone. As long as you're breathing, Reid will always compare us. I won't allow it. Your 'merciful exile' tomorrow? It won't be a peaceful walk in the woods, rogue."

She turned on her heel and vanished into the shadows, leaving me with the suffocating smell of her perfume and a chilling promise of death.

Hours later, brutal hands dragged me from the cell. They clamped heavy silver cuffs around my wrists. The metal seared my skin instantly, sending waves of nauseating weakness through my veins. The guards shoved me into the back of an armored transport truck. I hit the metal floor hard, too drained by the burning silver to catch myself.

The drive felt like an eternity. When the truck finally lurched to a halt, the heavy doors swung open to reveal the dark, towering pines of the territory border. A frigid morning wind whipped through my torn dress.

The guards hauled me out and threw me into the dirt. But they didn't unlock the cuffs.

Tires crunched on the gravel behind us. A sleek, black SUV rolled to a stop. The door opened, and Maren stepped out into the freezing air. She didn't look like a princess right now. She looked like a predator.

"Stand down," Maren ordered the guards, not taking her eyes off me. "Return to the pack house. I will handle the rogue's crossing personally."

The guards hesitated, looking at my bound hands, but they didn't dare disobey the future Luna. They climbed into the truck and drove away, leaving me completely alone with her.

The moment the taillights disappeared, Maren's bones began to crack. She dropped to all fours, her body expanding and twisting until a large, sandy-blonde wolf stood in her place. Her yellow eyes locked onto me, burning with lethal intent.

I forced myself to my feet. The silver cuffs burned so hot I could smell my own scorching flesh. I turned and ran into the treeline, my legs trembling.

I didn't make it ten yards.

A massive weight slammed into my back. I hit the forest floor, the breath knocked from my lungs. Maren's claws tore through the fabric of my dress, slicing deep into the flesh of my back. I screamed, thrashing wildly.

She pinned me down, her jaws snapping inches from my face. She wanted to maul me. She wanted to rip my throat out and leave me unrecognizable, just another tragic rogue attack at the border.

Maren lunged for my neck.

Pure, primal survival instinct exploded inside me. I twisted my body, bringing my silver-bound wrists up. As her jaws clamped down toward my jugular, I drove my hands upward. I hooked my fingers like claws and raked my nails violently across her snout and right eye.

Maren shrieked—a high, piercing yelp of agony. She recoiled, blood instantly welling from the deep gashes across her face.

I scrambled backward, gasping for air, blood pouring from my own shredded shoulders. I was at the very edge of a steep, rocky ravine. There was nowhere left to go.

Maren shook her massive head, blood splattering the dead leaves. She looked at my fatal wounds, her yellow eyes gleaming with cruel satisfaction. She didn't need to bite my throat. Instead, she stepped forward and slammed her heavy paw into my chest.

I tipped backward into the empty air.

The wind roared in my ears. I crashed through thick branches, the wood tearing at my skin and snapping my bones. I hit the rocky bottom with a sickening crunch. Agony exploded through my entire body, so intense it instantly turned into a cold, heavy numbness.

Deep inside my mind, my wolf let out a weak, fading whimper. The trauma was too severe. She curled into a tight ball and slipped into a dark, coma-like state just to keep my heart beating.

I lay broken at the bottom of the ravine, staring up at the tiny patch of gray sky. My blood soaked into the frozen earth. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. But as the darkness finally pulled me under, one thought burned brighter than the pain.

I will survive this. And I will kill them both.

The darkness was heavy and cold. I floated in it, tethered to the waking world only by the agonizing throb of my shattered bones. My inner wolf was completely silent, buried deep in a trauma-induced coma just to keep my organs functioning and my heart beating. I was dying at the bottom of a ravine, bleeding out into the frozen dirt.

Crunching footsteps broke the silence.

I couldn't open my eyes. Was Maren back to finish the job?

A large, warm hand pressed against my neck, checking for a pulse. "Goddess," a deep, gruff voice whispered.

It wasn't Reid. It wasn't a guard. It was Beta Marcus, the Lycan King's right hand.

He shifted my head gently, his fingers brushing the skin behind my left ear. I felt his body go completely rigid. "The crescent mark," he breathed, his voice trembling.

My blood soaked the earth, and with it, something else spilled into the air. The harsh, bitter scent of a rogue was washing away with my fading life force, replaced by something underneath. Something rich, ancient, and undeniably royal. I heard the tear of plastic as he quickly swabbed my blood. Then, strong arms scooped me up, and the dark pulled me under again.

I woke up to the sharp smell of antiseptic and blinding, white-hot pain.

I gasped, my eyes flying open. I was lying in a sterile bed in a dimly lit, unfamiliar room. Thick bandages wrapped tightly around my chest and shoulders.

"Don't move," Beta Marcus said gently. He sat in a chair beside the bed, holding a manila folder. The look in his eyes made my stomach twist. It wasn't pity. It was reverence. And crushing guilt.

"Where am I?" I croaked, my throat raw.

"A private safe house," Marcus replied. "I tracked Maren's scent after she returned from the border. She was too smug. I knew something was wrong." He leaned forward, holding out the folder. "I ran your blood, Juliet. Against the royal registry."

I stared at him, my heart hammering against my broken ribs. "Why would you do that?"

"Because of the birthmark behind your ear. Because of the scent your blood released when your rogue glamor broke." He opened the folder, revealing a stark white lab report. "You aren't a rogue, Juliet. You are the biological daughter of King Aldric. You are the true Lycan Princess."

A bitter, jagged laugh tore from my throat, ending in a cough of agony. "A princess? Are you insane? I've eaten out of garbage cans, Marcus. I've been beaten for crossing borders. I spent seven years lying and stealing just to sleep with a roof over my head!"

"You were stolen," Marcus insisted, his voice thick with emotion. He pointed to the black text on the paper. "Look at the markers. A 99.9 percent match to the King. Maren is an imposter. You are the rightful heir."

I stared at the numbers. The genetic markers. My breath hitched. It couldn't be real. But the unwavering truth in the Beta's eyes paralyzed me. Maren hadn't just stolen my mate. She had stolen my entire life.

"I need to secure the perimeter," Marcus said softly, standing up. "Rest. We will figure out our next move."

The heavy metal door clicked shut behind him. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, my mind a violent storm. I was royalty. I was the Princess.

Click.

The lock tumbled. The door swung open again.

"Forget something?" I whispered.

"Just tying up loose ends."

My blood turned to ice. That smooth, arrogant voice. The scent of pine and deceit.

Reid.

He stepped into the dim light of the safe house, dressed in a tailored charcoal suit that screamed Lycan elite. He didn't look surprised to see me alive. He looked annoyed.

"You always were too stubborn to just die," Reid sneered, walking to the edge of my bed. "Did you really think I couldn't track you? Seven years, Juliet. I know every trick you have. I figured you were hiding out, plotting some pathetic revenge."

I tried to push myself up, but a sharp agony radiated through my chest. "Get out."

Reid ignored me. He reached into his designer jacket and tossed a thick stack of papers onto my lap, followed by a sleek black pen.

I looked down. It was the strategic alliance plans. My masterpiece. The work I had poured my soul into for months to secure our fake identities.

"Sign them," Reid commanded, a forced alpha tone bleeding into his voice. "Sign over the copyrights."

I glared up at the man I had loved. The man who had broken me. "Why?"

"Because Maren needs a diplomatic victory to solidify her position," Reid said coldly, crossing his arms. "And I need the King to see me as the brilliant Future Alpha who helped her draft it. You're going to sign the release, Juliet. You're going to hand over your life's work to my new mate."

Tears of absolute fury burned my eyes. He wasn't just discarding me. He was stripping my bones bare to build his throne, stealing my genius to crown the very woman who had stolen my birthright.

"And if I don't?" I spat.

Reid leaned down, his face inches from mine, his eyes entirely empty of the boy I once knew. "Then I'll let Maren finish what she started in the woods."

"Go to hell, Reid," I spat, the metallic taste of blood coating my teeth. "I'm not signing anything."

Reid's jaw tightened. The charm he wore like a second skin vanished, leaving behind the cold, calculating stranger he truly was. "I figured you'd be difficult. But I can't leave loose ends, Juliet. Not when Maren's crown is almost mine."

He stepped back. The air in the small room seemed to drop ten degrees. My inner wolf, buried deep in her trauma-induced coma, stirred blindly in the dark, sensing the executioner's blade.

"I, Reid Wallace," his voice boomed, laced with a cruel, forced alpha command, "reject you, Juliet Morales, as my mate."

The words didn't just hurt. They tore through my flesh. It felt as if a jagged, rusted hook had been driven into my chest, latching onto my soul, and was violently ripped out. I screamed. My back arched off the sterile mattress, my freshly bandaged ribs screaming in protest. The invisible, sacred tether connecting my spirit to his snapped, leaving a gaping, bleeding void in my chest.

I writhed on the bed, gasping for air that wouldn't fill my lungs. Through my blurred, tear-filled vision, I saw Reid casually reach past my thrashing body. He grabbed my leather-bound notebook—the alliance plans, my life's work—from the bedside table.

"Goodbye, Juliet," he murmured.

But he wasn't done. His hands clamped down on my bruised arms, and he hauled me off the bed. My legs gave out instantly, but he didn't care. He dragged my half-conscious, agonizingly broken body out of the safe house and into the freezing night air.

A rusted, windowless van idled in the dirt driveway. The stench of decay, cheap alcohol, and feral wolf hit me like a physical blow.

A massive man stepped out of the shadows. Viktor Blackwood. His face was a roadmap of jagged scars, and his yellow eyes locked onto me with sickening hunger. He was the leader of the most ruthless feral rogue gang on the continent.

Reid shoved me forward. I collapsed into the frozen mud at Viktor's heavy combat boots.

"She knows the royal pack house layouts," Reid said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "Every security blind spot. She's yours."

Viktor tossed a thick envelope of cash onto Reid's chest. Reid caught it, thumbing through the bills to ensure his payment for my life was exact. "Keep her quiet," Reid added.

"She won't see the sun again," Viktor grunted. He grabbed me by the hair, hauling me off the ground. I cried out as my scalp burned, but Reid had already turned his back. He walked away, slipping the cash into his tailored suit, not even flinching as Viktor's men threw me into the back of the van. The heavy metal doors slammed shut, swallowing me in pitch black.

Hours later, the abandoned warehouse smelled of motor oil and old blood. I was strapped to a rusted metal chair, my chin resting on my chest. Every breath was a battle.

"The codes, Juliet," Viktor growled, pacing in front of me. His knuckles were bruised from the last hour of using my face as a punching bag. "Give me the royal patrol routes, and I'll let you sleep."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. My jaw was swollen shut, my body a canvas of black and purple.

Frustrated, Viktor delivered a brutal kick to my stomach.

The chair tipped backward, crashing onto the concrete floor. My head slammed against the stone, but the impact was nothing compared to the sudden, violent tearing in my lower abdomen.

It was a deep, agonizing cramp. A warm, heavy rush of fluid soaked through my torn clothes, pooling beneath me on the freezing floor.

My wolf let out a faint, dying whimper in my mind.

Even through the stench of the warehouse, my heightened senses caught the scent. It was faint. Metallic blood mixed with the soft, sweet smell of milk and Reid's signature pine.

A pup.

I was pregnant. I hadn't even known. And now... it was gone.

Reid's child. My child. Washed away on a filthy warehouse floor because the man who helped create it had sold us to monsters to buy a fake princess.

Viktor laughed above me, a cruel, grating sound. "Look at that. Didn't know you were carrying a mutt. Guess I did you a favor."

For a moment, the sorrow threatened to drown me. A suffocating wave of grief washed over my broken body, threatening to pull me under for good. But as I lay there in my own blood, staring at the rusted ceiling, the paralyzing despair began to change.

The tears stopped falling. The trembling in my limbs ceased.

The sorrow died, freezing over into something entirely new. Something cold, hard, and terrifyingly calm. The scared, heartbroken rogue who just wanted to be loved vanished. In her place, the Lycan Princess awoke, baptized in blood and absolute rage.

I wasn't just going to survive this. I was going to burn their entire world to ash.