Mireya

I didn’t think we’d make it out of Ivyclaw alive.

The flight was short, but my hands were clenched the entire way. Every breath I took felt borrowed, like death was sitting in the seat beside me, waiting to strike when I finally relaxed. My mother, Emma, sat beside me, clutching her coat tight around her even though the cabin was warm. Her eyes stayed on the aisle. She was watching. Always watching.

We both were.

Every passenger could’ve been one of Dominic’s men. Or worse, a spy from Alpha Voren’s side. I’d seen enough brutality in Ivyclaw Pack to know that silence didn’t mean safety, it only meant danger was waiting for a better time.

We landed far from any capital I knew. The runway was crude, and the airport small, almost deserted. As soon as the plane door opened, I smelled them, wolves.

But not from Ivyclaw. Not from any pack I recognized. Their scents were… foreign. Old. Heavy with earth and something unfamiliar. They didn’t bear the arrogance of highborn wolves, but there was a stillness in the way they stood that made my wolf stir uneasily in my chest.

“They’re not from the Packs we know,” my mother whispered, her fingers twitching at her sides, ready to shift at any moment.

They didn’t speak right away. Just watched us. Their silence was unsettling, but it wasn’t cruel. It was measured.

Finally, an older man stepped forward. His hair was silver, long, tied neatly at the nape of his neck. He looked like he belonged in a war council from an era long forgotten. His presence was strong, too strong for someone who claimed no known pack.

“You’ll come with us,” he said.

“Who are you? What do you need from us? And where exactly are we going?” I asked, squaring my shoulders despite the tremor in my voice.

He gave a slight smile. “To the Moonlight Pack.”

I blinked. “Don’t fool me. That doesn’t exist.”

“It does,” he replied calmly. “Just not for those who shouldn’t know about it.”

We had no choice.

The wolves surrounded us like a loose ring, never too close, never too far. Protective, maybe. Or a warning. We were ushered into a black, heavily tinted van that smelled faintly of pine and metal. There were no windows to track the direction. Just the soft humming of tires over unfamiliar roads.

I sat there, the silence pressing against my skull, trying not to let the panic in my chest show. We’d barely escaped one prison. Now we were being driven into another, and I didn’t even know its name.

The old man sat across from us in the van, his posture stiff but not unfriendly. “Name’s Cassius,” he offered suddenly. “I was told to fetch you. The Alpha was expecting you.”

“Expecting us?” my mother echoed, eyes narrowing. “How? We didn’t even know where we were going until we boarded.”

“Not all things are known through words,” Cassius replied, cryptic and maddening. “The Moonlight Pack has its ways.”

I frowned. “Why would a secret pack want anything to do with us?”

He tilted his head, amusement glinting in his eyes. “Because not all secrets are meant to stay hidden. Don’t worry, we are not fugitives or criminals.”

We drove for what felt like hours. The air grew cooler, the roads narrower. Then I saw it through the one small slit of a window near the roof, a glimpse of something sprawling and green.

The Forbidden City.

That’s what they called it, according to Cassius. A hidden region, shielded by magic and land both. Not governed by any of the known Alphas or their territories. No records. No bloodlines traced.

“The Moonlight Pack is the oldest pack,” Cassius said as we neared the edge. “We do not exist in your books because we choose not to. History favors the loud. We prefer to survive.”

I stared out the sliver of glass, catching sights of towering trees, deep winding roads, and buildings too old to belong to this century, but maintained with care. Almost sacred. It didn’t look like a prison.

But I couldn’t shake the dread coiling in my gut. Freedom shouldn’t feel this much like being swallowed.

We didn’t reach their main territory, though. Instead, the van turned into a long gravel path lined with blackthorn trees and stopped in front of an old, grand manor.

“Why aren’t we going to your main packhouse?” I asked as we stepped out.

Cassius adjusted his coat. “Because the Alpha prefers introductions in neutral spaces. And because what’s waiting for you… is better handled in private.”

That didn’t help the anxiety clawing up my spine.

The manor smelled like cedarwood, old parchment, and faint traces of magic. Wolves walked its halls, tall, silent, disciplined. Every one of them had the quiet strength of those who’d seen centuries pass.

They bowed slightly as we passed. Not out of deference. But acknowledgment. Like they already knew who I was.

It was unsettling.

The walls inside the manor were lined with portraits, not of people, but of forests. Wolves running. Moons in every phase.

Cassius led us to a set of heavy oak doors at the end of a long corridor. He stopped in front of them. His tone softened. “You’ll want to hold on to your mother.”

“What?” I asked, frowning.

But the moment I placed my hand on the door handle, something inside me snapped.

My knees buckled.

Pain. Burning. A strange heat spread from my chest down to my fingertips. I gasped, reaching out blindly, and my mother caught me, pulling me against her.

“Mireya?” she whispered, panic rising. “Is it—?”

The sensation was unmistakable. The same overwhelming pull I’d felt at the ball. The moment Marianne leaked the video and the crowd turned into vultures—I felt this very same thing.

A bond. A soul-level call.

A mate.

“No,” I breathed, eyes wide. But it was already too late.

The doors creaked open slowly, and I felt the weight of the world shift. And there he was.

Standing at the far end of the office, behind a large obsidian desk, backlit by the soft glow of moonlight pouring in through a stained-glass window.

He turned to us, and the breath caught in my throat.

He was young. Strikingly so. Tall and built like the forest carved him itself. His hair was white as snow, falling past his shoulders in soft waves. But it was his eyes that held me still, silver, piercing, ancient.

I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know what role he played here.

But I knew this: he was mine.

My mate.

And nothing in the world had prepared me for the storm that was coming next.

Mireya

My chest had clenched the moment our eyes met inside the manor’s grand study. And now, seated across from him in a room carved from quiet power and solemn shadows, I still didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or run.

Everything was too much.

My twin sister was dead. Ysabel, who used to hold my hand under the covers when our nightmares were louder than the wind outside the packhouse windows, was now ashes inside the ceramic urn that sat quietly in my mother’s trembling hands.

Dominic… Dominic had left me hollow. Used me, then discarded me. A man who once swore to defy the Moon Goddess herself for me had instead dragged me to the edge of ruin. Had I not escaped, I would’ve been bartered like livestock to some decrepit Alpha looking for a pretty new mate to breed.

But now… this man before me. He is my fated.

No. No, I wasn’t ready. Not for this. Not for anything like this again.

“I felt it the moment you did,” Ross said, his voice deep and controlled, like a storm just barely held back by a dam. “That day. I felt it… soul-crashing and deep. But it stopped when the commotion of the leaked video happened. I was about to look for you, but my presence was called by the Alpha King.”

I didn’t respond right away. My jaw clenched. I was tired. Bone-deep tired.

“You were gone when I came back,” he continued, eyes on mine. “I searched for you. My wolf was half-crazed. I used every contact I had, every damn wolf and crow in the underground, to find out who you were. And when I did… I investigated everything about you.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch as if to acknowledge the weight of my past.

“I know what they did to your sister. I know how your pack treated you. I know about Dominic, and the trial, and Marianne…” His jaw flexed. “The things I read, I wanted to tear someone apart.”

My breath hitched. He leaned forward slightly. “You don’t have to believe me. I just wanted to find you. To offer you something… even if it’s just safety.”

I swallowed thickly. The fated mate bond was humming under my skin, pulling at me, begging me to trust him. To lean in. To feel.

But I couldn’t. Not yet.

“I don’t know if I can love anyone again,” I said finally, my voice low, raw. “I don’t think I want to.”

He nodded, not offended. Not wounded. Just… understanding.

“That’s fair,” he said. “Then let me start as something else.”

I raised a brow. “Something else?”

“A client,” he said with a slight smile. “If you still want to practice law. There are… things that require your kind of mind. Wolves who need a sharp tongue, a steady hand, and someone who knows what justice is supposed to look like.”

I blinked. “You want me to work for you?”

“Work with me,” he corrected, leaning back into his seat. “The Moonlight Pack operates in the shadows, yes. But we have our own codes. Our own wars. And we could use someone like you.”

My lips parted, unsure how to answer.

“I’ll think about it,” I murmured, looking away.

He didn’t press. “That’s all I ask.”

That night, after dinner, I stood by the wide window of the guest room I now shared with my mother. The room was warm, clean, and filled with the gentle scent of lavender and cedar.

It felt nothing like home.

My mother sat curled on the edge of the bed, holding Ysabel’s urn close to her chest. Her eyes were swollen from crying, though she tried to hide it behind the calm expressions she always wore for my sake.

“Are you okay?” I asked softly, walking over and sitting beside her.

She nodded slowly. “He seems kind. Alpha Ross.”

I didn’t answer.

“He told me we could stay here as long as we needed,” she continued. “That this could be our new home. That no one would harm us here.”

I looked down at the floor. After everything, it was strange how kindness now felt more suspicious than cruelty.

My hands curled into fists. “I don’t know if I can believe in safety anymore.”

My mother’s hand found mine. “We survived, Mireya. That counts for something.”

I looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t want to just survive.”

She stayed silent, waiting.

“I want revenge.”

Her grip tightened, but she didn’t scold me.

I turned to look at the urn in her lap. “Dominic. Marianne. Alpha Voren. The pack members who turned their backs. I want to see them fall. I want to tear their empire down. Bit by bit. Brick by brick. Until it all burns.”

There was a storm building in my chest. My mother just nodded, as if she understood the darkness growing in me. Because it had grown in her, too.

Later that night, I found myself outside Alpha Ross’s study again.

I wasn’t sure if it was the bond pulling me in or the fury inside me, begging for an outlet. But my feet carried me to him, heart hammering so loud I could barely hear my own thoughts.

The manor was quiet, the hallways dimly lit with old sconces. As I approached his door, it opened before I could knock.

He stood there in a dark robe, embroidered with silver thread at the collar. His silver-white hair looked nearly luminous under the hallway light. And his eyes, sharp, piercing, locked onto mine as if he had been waiting.

The scent of pine and frost swept over me, intoxicating and dangerous.

He tilted his head. “Couldn’t sleep?”

I didn’t answer. I stepped inside. He closed the door behind me.

We stood there for a few heartbeats, the bond sparking faintly between us. I ignored it.

“I don’t care about the bond,” I said. “Not now.”

His expression didn’t change.

I walked closer, slow and steady. “I don’t care what I have to do. Who I have to become. I want revenge. I want every last wolf who destroyed my family to bleed.”

Something shifted in his eyes, approval, perhaps. Or understanding.

“I’ll do anything,” I whispered. “Anything you ask. If it means I get to rip them apart myself.”

There was silence. Then he stepped forward, a faint smirk curling at the edges of his lips.

“Very well,” he said, voice like steel wrapped in velvet.

Mireya

The fire crackled softly in the hearth, casting golden light across the deep mahogany walls of Alpha Ross’s private study. The curtains were drawn, the room quiet except for the occasional rustle of flames and the slow, rhythmic ticking of the antique clock behind him.

He looked nothing like the Alphas I was used to.

His long white hair framed a face too sharp to be soft, too beautiful to be cruel, but something told me he could be both, if the situation called for it. He wore a black robe trimmed in silver thread, his chest partially exposed beneath the fabric. He sat reclined in a leather armchair across from me like a king who’d grown bored of his throne.

And yet… his eyes, those pale silver eyes, never left me.

“You still haven’t asked what I want in return,” he said finally, voice smooth like melted ice, curling around the silence between us.

I sat up straighter, back tense, fingers clasped in my lap. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Ross’s lips curved slightly, almost like he appreciated the way I carried myself, wary, but not weak.

“I want to make something very clear between us, Mireya,” he began, shifting forward, elbows resting on his knees. “I meant what I said about helping you. If it’s strength you want, influence, vengeance… I can give it to you.”

I stayed still, listening.

“But nothing in this world comes without a price,” he continued, “especially not in Moonlight.”

“What kind of price?” I asked carefully, already sensing it wasn’t going to be simple.

He met my eyes without hesitation. “The mateship.”

A pause. Then he said, “I cannot mark you. Nor marry you.”

I blinked, caught off guard. The bond between us was undeniable, tense, magnetic, maddening. And yet he’d spoken the words like a blade slicing clean through possibility.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

He leaned back in his chair, shoulders relaxing, as if he had prepared for this moment long before it ever came. “There is a tradition in Moonlight Pack. A blood oath carved into the very roots of our existence. Every Alpha of Moonlight, every ruler who leads our hidden city, is bound to marry a daughter of the royal family. A wolf princess.”

My stomach twisted.

“A hundred-year-old pact,” he continued, voice low and edged in steel. “Forged between our ancestors and the royal line of the Alpha Kings. Our pack, the Moonlight Pack, is the last lineage of pureblood Lycans. We were the first. We are the oldest. And because of what we are… we are hidden.”

My mouth was dry. “Hidden?”

He nodded. “We live apart from the world. In the Forbidden City, where outsiders cannot find us unless we want them to. We’ve removed ourselves from politics, from wars. We exist in silence, and in exchange, we stay protected.”

“But why the blood oath?”

“Because Lycan blood is potent. It enhances the wolves it bonds with. The Alpha Kings knew this. To preserve the strength of their throne, they demanded our loyalty, and a promise. That every Alpha of Moonlight would marry their daughters, so the royal bloodline would never weaken.”

I stared at him, stunned.

“So you’re saying… you can’t marry me,” I said slowly, “because you’re bound to someone else. A royal.”

Ross didn’t flinch. “I will be marrying the wolf princess. It’s not a choice. If I break the oath, the consequences will be far worse than war.”

Something in my chest pulled tight. It wasn’t heartbreak, not exactly. I’d stopped dreaming of love the moment Dominic tore my world apart. But this… this still hurt in some distant, cruel way.

“And the mark?” I asked.

“I cannot mark anyone except the royal daughter,” he said simply. “The magic of the pact forbids it. If I do, I’ll die.”

I turned my face away for a moment, swallowing down the bitter twist in my gut.

“So what do you want from me?” I asked, voice hoarse.

He stood then, slow and graceful, like a predator stalking a boundary he couldn’t cross. “You’re my fated mate, Mireya. I felt it the moment I laid eyes on you. And if I lose you completely… I’ll go mad.”

I turned toward him again, stunned by the honesty in his tone.

“I can’t mark you. I can’t bind you to me in the eyes of the world. But I need you here. I need you on my side,” he said. “You calm the madness in me.”

I crossed my arms, holding myself together. “So… what? You want me to be your secret?”

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “I want you to be my equal. My ally. Even if the world won’t see us as mates… I will never treat you as anything less.”

My wolf stirred. There was something brutal about how he spoke. Not tender. Not romantic.

“And what would I get in return?” I asked.

He tilted his head. “Everything.”

“Be specific,” I said.

“You want war with the Ivyclaw Pack?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You want Dominic brought to his knees? You want Marianne’s name shattered in the courts she once manipulated? You want Alpha Voren stripped of every ounce of power and made to beg for mercy before you destroy him?” His eyes gleamed. “Done.”

My heart slammed in my chest.

“You want wealth? You want to rewrite laws? You want your name feared and respected in every territory?” he said. “I’ll give it to you. But in return… you stay.”

The room spun a little. Not from fear. From possibility.

“I don’t care about the mark,” I whispered. “I don’t care about marriage. I don’t even care about fate anymore.”

He said nothing. Let me speak.

“I just want revenge. I want it so badly I can taste it. I want to be powerful enough to tear their empire apart with my own hands. If you’re truly offering that… then I’ll stay.”

Ross smiled, slow and dangerous. “Then we have a deal.”

That night, I finally lay down in my bed beside my mother. The silence of the manor cradled me like the arms of a beast I no longer feared.

I stared up at the ceiling, fingers curled gently on the sheets. No mark. No wedding. No fairy tale.

But power. Influence. Revenge.

And for the first time since Ysabel died… I felt like I could finally breathe. I could finally sleep knowing the ones who broke me would one day bow before me.

Marianne. Dominic. Alpha Voren. They wouldn’t just suffer. They would kneel.

And I would be the one to make them.