My fated mate, Riven, was the Alpha of a pathetic pack on the brink of collapse.

For five years, I was his shadow, his strategist. I built his pack from nothing until the Alliance finally recognized us, and we were set to move to the fertile lands.

Riven promised we'd have our mating ceremony once we settled in the new territory.

But at the celebration feast, the night before the move, he threw me in a cell.

He publicly announced that Jenna—the she-wolf carrying his pup—would be the pack's Luna.

I couldn't believe it. I screamed at him, but he just sneered and pointed to a crystal pulsing with dark magic.

"Jenna already has proof of your betrayal! Sleeping with Alphas for their support. You make me sick!"

I begged him. But he just sliced my cheek with the silver-edged rejection letter, formally casting me aside.

But he didn't know who I really was.

I am the Alpha King's daughter.

The strategies, the power, the alliances—they weren't his. They were mine.

So I took it all back.

Alpha Riven was my fated mate. I had forged his failing pack into a powerhouse. Our victory was supposed to be a new beginning. Instead, at the celebration feast, he rejected me for another she-wolf—one carrying his pup.

"Tonight, we celebrate the glory of the Blackmoon Pack!"

The bonfire roared. Riven stood on a high platform, raising his silver goblet.

His handsome face glowed in the firelight, his deep eyes sweeping over every pack member.

"Tomorrow, we leave this barren, snowy wasteland and move to the rich lands at the heart of the Alliance!"

A thunderous cheer erupted.

Pack members raised their goblets, a primal energy crackled through the camp.

I stood in the shadows, watching my creation. The Alpha I had built from nothing.

Five years. I’d taken a pathetic pack of a dozen wolves and forged them into a force worthy of the Alliance’s heartlands.

I had made this happen.

But my father’s warnings about the treachery of power always echoed in my mind.

With every alliance I forged, with every strategy I devised, I created a shadow copy, a hidden ledger of proof.

I called it my “dowry insurance,” praying to the Goddess I would never need it.

But yes, I still held one secret close to my heart.

Once we were in the Alliance, I would reveal my true self.

And I would offer him a throne.

"Mark, give the moonstones to our warriors," Riven's voice called out.

I looked eagerly at the Beta, Mark.

My heart hammered. Moonstones. The highest honor in the pack, reserved for its greatest heroes.

Mark held a silver platter loaded with the glowing stones and began to hand them out.

"Erik, for your bravery at Ice Bear Valley."

"Lisa, for your work during the food crisis."

"Tom, for your brilliant negotiations."

One by one, pack members received their honor.

Mark walked up to me… and then walked right past me, handing a moonstone to the wolf behind me.

I froze.

"What?" I reached out and stopped him. "Mark, where's my moonstone?"

Mark met my gaze, his eyes cold. Filled with a disgust that shocked me to my core. "What moonstone? What gives you the right?"

"What gives me the right?" I couldn't believe my ears. "For the last five years—"

"For the last five years, what?" A sharp female voice cut me off.

Jenna sauntered over, a cruel smirk twisting her pretty face.

"Just how have you been 'contributing' to the pack?" she sneered, drawing out the word.

The pack members around us started whispering.

I felt their stares turn strange.

"Jenna, what are you talking about?" I frowned.

"What am I talking about?" Jenna laughed. "Get out of the way, you filthy she-wolf!"

She pulled a document from her dress and slapped it against my face.

"What is this?" I grabbed it.

Scrawled in blood-red ink across the silver parchment were two words that shattered my world: MATE REJECTION.

At the bottom was Riven's clear signature.

"Impossible!" My head snapped up to Riven on the platform.

He was watching me, his eyes empty and cold.

"Riven!" I ran for the platform. "What is going on?!"

"Stop!" Mark blocked my path. "You're not worthy of approaching the Alpha!"

"Not worthy? I'm his fated mate!"

"Mate?" Jenna let out a piercing laugh. "You?"

She clapped her hands.

The magic crystal in the center of the camp lit up, projecting a massive vision.

The crystal projected scenes of me. Laughing with other Alphas. Letting them hold my waist, caress my cheek, even press a kiss to my forehead.

"What is this?" I stared at the images, horrified.

"This," Jenna said viciously, "is your 'hard work' for the past five years! You sold your body for their support!"

The pack erupted. Gasps of fury. Roars of outrage.

"So that's how!"

"No wonder we got so much help from other packs!"

"Filthy she-wolf!"

"She's disgraced our pack!"

Riven slowly walked down from the platform and stood before me.

"Renata," his voice was ice. "Do you have anything to say?"

"Riven, you have to believe me!" I grabbed his arm. "These visions are fake! Otherwise, why didn't you sense it?"

"Fake?" He shoved my hand away. “Jenna said that you have a drug that can temporarily block the connection between us. You hang out with these people every day. It's not hard to get it, right?”

"Then explain it. Why did the Shadow Pack help us? Why did the Storm Pack lend us warriors? Why did the Bloodfang Pack share their hunting grounds?"

"Because of my strategies! My diplomacy!" I cried out in desperation.

"Strategies? Diplomacy?" Riven spat. "Or was it just a warm bed you offered?"

He held up the rejection letter, its silver edge glinting in the firelight.

"I, Riven, Alpha of the Blackmoon Pack, hereby reject Renata as my mate!"

The edge of the letter sliced across my cheek. The silver burned like fire.

Blood dripped down my face.

A searing agony ripped through my soul. The mate bond was shattering. I couldn't breathe.

"From this moment on, you are nothing to me!"

I clutched my cheek, enduring the pain as I stared at the visions.

Suddenly, I froze.

In one of the images, the man holding me, the one who'd saved me from a pack of rogues… he had golden hair and eyes as dark and deep as a starless night.

I knew that face.

Damien.

My brother. Crown Prince Damien.

In an instant, everything clicked into place.

Riven's coldness, Jenna's smirks, Mark's hostility, the pack's distance.

It was all a setup.

They waited for this moment, right before we moved to the central territories, to completely erase me.

So Riven could take all the glory for himself.

I stared at the vision, and a hollow laugh escaped my lips.

"You want to know the truth?"

I wiped the blood from my cheek, my voice chillingly calm.

"The truth?" Riven scoffed. "What lies are you going to spin now?"

"That man with the golden hair," I pointed at Damien in the vision. "He's my brother..."

"Making up more stories?" Jenna cut me off, her eyes shining with triumph. "Is that what you call them all? Every Alpha you crawl into bed with is your 'brother'?"

The pack burst into jeering laughter.

I closed my eyes. The memory hit me like a physical blow. My father, the Alpha King, on his throne. His voice like ice. "You will be a political pawn."

"I won't be a political pawn!" I had shouted. "I'll prove my own worth!"

"Enough! You are a princess. You don't have a choice!"

That night, I ran away from the capital.

I came to this barren wasteland and hid my identity.

I just wanted to prove I could build something on my own, without the shadow of my royal blood.

Then I met Riven, a desperate, failing Alpha.

When I felt the fated bond snap into place between us, I chose him. I chose to trust the Moon Goddess.

For five years, I used all my knowledge, my resources, and my connections.

Every strategy, every battle, every negotiation—I poured my soul into them.

I thought our bond meant something. I thought he would cherish me.

I was going to give him the world. An introduction to my father. A chance at the throne itself.

And now, the future I had planned for us, the ultimate surprise... he had just burned it all to the ground.

"That man is my brother!" I opened my eyes and screamed, my voice raw. "Crown Prince Damien! "

"Hahaha!" Jenna laughed so hard she cried. "The Crown Prince? Are you saying you're a princess?"

"If you're going to dream, at least make it believable!" Mark mocked.

The pack’s laughter was a tidal wave. It crashed over me, pulling me under. Drowning me.

Riven walked up to me.

For a flicker of a second, I saw something in his eyes beyond the coldness—a flash of insecurity, of resentment.

He hated that I was the reason for his success.

He hated the way other Alphas looked at him, with a respect he knew was meant for me.

He needed to prove, not just to the world but to himself, that this glory was his and his alone.

That flicker vanished, replaced by a sneer as he looked down his nose at me.

“Renata, I thought you were just vain. I didn’t realize you were insane, too.”

He turned and took Jenna’s hand, his grip almost possessive, as if she were a prize he had truly won on his own.

“Tonight, I have another announcement,” his voice boomed across the camp. “Jenna will be my Luna!”

They raised their wrists. Freshly inked Blackmoon tattoos marred their skin—the black crescents that marked them as intended mates.

"Congratulations, Alpha!"

"Congratulations to our future Luna!"

The pack surged forward, offering their blessings.

Jenna leaned against Riven, smirking at me.

"See?" she whispered, her voice a venomous caress in my ear. "This is where a true Luna stands. You? You were just a means to an end. A tool to be discarded."

Riven wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

"From now on, the Blackmoon Pack has only one Luna. And it's Jenna."

I watched it all, and my heart died.

Five years of devotion. Five years of fighting side-by-side. Five years of weathering every storm.

In his eyes, I was just a pawn to be discarded.

I stumbled back, away from the roaring bonfire and the cheerful crowd.

The wind howled across the snow, the biting cold a brutal slap of reality.

Oh, Riven. Was it power you wanted? Status? Glory?

I gave you all of it.

But you were greedy. You had to trample my dignity and steal everything from me.

I looked back at the couple embracing in the firelight.

If you can be this heartless, then don't blame me for what comes next.

I dragged you from the mud and lifted you to the heavens.

Now, I will personally drag you down to hell. And I will bury you myself.

I turned to leave the sickening celebration.

"Stop!" Mark's voice shouted from behind me.

I didn't turn around.

"I said, stop!" He strode forward to block my path. "You think you can just walk away?"

"Move," I said coldly.

"Move?" Mark snarled. "You know too much. You really think we're just going to let you walk away?"

Several large wolves closed in, surrounding me.

"What are you doing?"

"Make a blood oath!" Mark pulled a silver dagger from his belt. "Swear you'll never reveal any of the Blackmoon Pack's strategies or secrets!"

The silver blade gleamed.

"In your dreams," I said, taking a step back.

"Then don't blame us for being rough!" Mark lunged at me.

I dodged, but another wolf grabbed my arm.

"Let her go!"

Everyone froze.

Not because someone was defending me. But because the person who spoke was Riven.

He strode over, his eyes burning with fury.

But the fury wasn't for Mark. It was for me.

"What are you all doing?" Jenna followed him. "Just get rid of her already."

"Wait," Jenna said. Her eyes locked on the faint glow at my chest. "What is that?"

I looked down. A delicate crystal pendant was glowing faintly.

"A communication crystal?" Mark narrowed his eyes. "You've been wearing this the whole time?"

"So what if I have?"

"What's on it?" Jenna shrieked. "Filthy little secrets with all your other Alphas? You're disgusting!"

"Get it!" Riven ordered.

Mark reached for it, but I clutched the crystal to my chest.

"It's private!"

In the struggle, the crystal was ripped from my neck.

Riven took it and tried to activate it.

Nothing happened.

"What's wrong with it?" he scowled.

"It's sealed," I said, my voice ice. "It requires a key. A memory only we should share."

"What memory?"

"You've forgotten?" A hollow, cruel laugh escaped my lips. "The first words you ever spoke to me. The moment our bond snapped into place."

Riven froze.

He struggled to remember, sweat beading on his forehead.

The pack members started whispering.

"What's wrong with the Alpha?"

"He can't remember that?"

"Did he really forget?"

Riven's face flushed a deep, ugly red. He couldn't remember. In front of his entire pack, he couldn't remember his first meeting with his fated mate.

"I remember!" he suddenly shouted. "You said—no, I said—"

The crystal remained dark.

"Wrong," I said flatly.

The whispers grew louder.

"He doesn't even know his own mate?"

"Are they really fated?"

"The Alpha wouldn't..."

"Enough!" Riven roared, snatching the crystal.

He forced his own energy into it.

The crystal finally lit up, projecting a memory.

But it wasn't a vision of me with another Alpha.

It was a vision of me fighting alongside Damien.

The golden-haired Prince wielded the Royal Sword while I unleashed powerful psychic energy beside him.

We moved in perfect sync, like partners who had faced death together countless times.

"What is this?" Riven's eyes went wide.

"That was two years ago," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "My brother and I were hunting rogues."

"Brother? That man really is—"

"The Crown Prince Damien," I snatched the crystal back. "And I really am a princess."

The color drained from Riven's face.

If I was truly a princess, then everything he had just done...

"No!" he suddenly exploded with rage. "Impossible! You're lying!"

He grabbed the crystal again.

"If you were a princess, why would you come here? Why would you suffer through all this?"

"Because I loved you!" The words finally tore out of me. "I wanted to prove myself! I wanted to build something with you!"

Riven froze.

But a second later, an even more insane fury lit his eyes.

"Lies! It's all lies!"

With a guttural roar, Riven snatched the crystal from my hand. He smashed it on the frozen ground. The goddess-blessed artifact shattered into a thousand glittering shards.