The war between vampires and werewolves has raged for centuries. But Dorian, the most revered vampire prince, shattered every rule and bound himself to me—a werewolf.

The Elders punished him for it.

For this, he was chained in sacred silver for days on end. Forced to drink the blood of beasts. He nearly died in a baptism of holy water. The pain was absolute.

But when he saw me again, his eyes were bloodshot as he kissed my tears away. "The moment we bonded, I made a vow," he whispered. "You are my eternal mate. I will never forsake you."

Finally, his family—the Valkyries—agreed. But they had one condition.

He could leave the vampire world with me. But first, he had to sleep with Liliana, the pureblood noblewoman. He had to give his family a new, powerful heir.

Dorian held me, his voice tight with desperation. "Please, Freya. Just wait a little longer. A few more years, and we can go to the human world. We can have our eternity."

I waited. Night after night, he went to her bed. A hundred nights of betrayal passed before she finally conceived.

But their daughter, Aria, was born without the proper bloodline mark. She couldn't be the heir. They had to have another.

I endured another two hundred nights of their betrayal. Liliana was pregnant again.

But on Aria's first birthday, sunlight somehow flooded her room. She was dying.

Everyone thought I did it.

I was locked in a cellar lined with silver. Dorian's face was a mask of pain and exhaustion as he confronted me.

"I told you we could leave after the next child was born. You're the only one here immune to the sun. Why would you hurt my daughter?!"

Tears streamed down my swollen face as I tried to deny it, but the silver poison burning in my bones had already stolen my voice.

By the time the cellar door opened again, the wolf inside me was fading.

I forced myself to my feet and walked toward the Valkyrie Elders. This eternal bond he promised? I was done.

The war between vampires and werewolves has raged for centuries. But Dorian, the most revered vampire prince, shattered every rule and bound himself to me—a werewolf.

The Elders punished him for it.

For this, he was chained in sacred silver for days on end. Forced to drink the blood of beasts. He nearly died in a baptism of holy water. The pain was absolute.

But when he saw me again, his eyes were bloodshot as he kissed my tears away. "The moment we bonded, I made a vow," he whispered. "You are my eternal mate. I will never forsake you."

Finally, his family—the Valkyries—agreed. But they had one condition.

He could leave the vampire world with me. But first, he had to sleep with Liliana, the pureblood noblewoman. He had to give his family a new, powerful heir.

Dorian held me, his voice tight with desperation. "Please, Freya. Just wait a little longer. A few more years, and we can go to the human world. We can have our eternity."

I waited. Night after night, he went to her bed. A hundred nights of betrayal passed before she finally conceived.

But their daughter, Aria, was born without the proper bloodline mark. She couldn't be the heir. They had to have another.

I endured another two hundred nights of their betrayal. Liliana was pregnant again.

But on Aria's first birthday, sunlight somehow flooded her room. She was dying.

Everyone thought I did it.

I was locked in a cellar lined with silver. Dorian's face was a mask of pain and exhaustion as he confronted me.

"I told you we could leave after the next child was born. You're the only one here immune to the sun. Why would you hurt my daughter?!"

Tears streamed down my swollen face as I tried to deny it, but the silver poison burning in my bones had already stolen my voice.

By the time the cellar door opened again, the wolf inside me was fading.

I forced myself to my feet and walked toward the Valkyrie Elders. This eternal bond he promised? I was done.

...

A full day and a night. That’s how long I burned in silver before the cellar door finally creaked open.

The poison had seeped into my marrow. Every breath was like swallowing shattered glass. The wolf inside me whimpered, too weak to fight back.

"Elder Viktor." I pushed myself up against the wall, my silver-burned skin still weeping blood.

The head of the Vampire Council stood in the doorway, a satisfied smile on his pale face.

He had waited a long time for this moment.

"So, you've finally come to your senses?"

"I have." I met his cold, red eyes. "I'll leave Dorian."

Viktor’s eyes narrowed. "Your terms?"

"Send me somewhere he can never, ever find me."

"Ha!" He let out a scornful laugh. "You she-wolf. If you had given up sooner, you wouldn't have had to suffer in here. The Blood Moon is in ten days. I'll arrange everything."

I nodded and walked out of that hell, the stench of corroding silver clinging to me.

A soft cooing sound drifted from the grand hall.

I stopped. My heart seized.

Dorian was holding his nine-month-old daughter, Aria, softly humming an ancient vampire lullaby.

Liliana snuggled against his side, one hand resting on her newly swollen belly.

She was carrying their second child. The heir who was supposed to grant Dorian his freedom.

What a perfect family. My eyes burned with unshed tears. I refused to let them fall.

A bond between our kinds was never meant to be. Especially not between a werewolf and a vampire, whose war had raged for centuries.

And I was the fool who thought I could change that.

The wolf inside me howled, curling up in pain.

"Freya?" Liliana spotted me first, her body instantly pressing closer to Dorian in a protective gesture.

Dorian looked up. Those deep blue eyes that once burned for me were now cold with suspicion.

He instinctively shifted, shielding the baby from my gaze.

After all this time, he still didn't trust me.

"You're out," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm.

I didn't answer, turning to escape the suffocating scene.

"Wait." He handed Aria to a nearby thrall and walked toward me. "Let me see your wounds."

"Don't bother."

"Freya." His tone became firm. "Come here."

When he reached for my blood-stained sleeve, I flinched away.

The silver burns were still raw, the skin blackened and festering.

But the hole in my heart hurt more than any physical wound.

"Don't touch me."

His hand froze in mid-air. A flash of hurt crossed his eyes, quickly replaced by weariness.

"I couldn't stop them," he explained, his voice ragged with exhaustion. "It would have only made them angrier. If I had stepped in, they would have found a crueler way to execute you. If you hadn't tried to harm an innocent child—"

"I didn't do it!" I cut him off, the tears finally breaking free.

He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes filled with a disappointment and pain that told me he didn't believe me.

Just then, Liliana walked over, holding the baby, her face a mask of false concern.

"Freya, I want to apologize for yesterday. Perhaps I misunderstood something."

I gave a numb nod, but my eyes were suddenly glued to something around her neck.

An exquisite moonstone necklace, glowing with a soft blue light in the dim castle halls.

It was the last relic of my slaughtered pack.

The day Dorian and I became blood-bound mates, I told him how much that necklace meant to me.

It held the last memories of the Crescent Moon pack. It was my only tie to the world I had lost.

"Where did you get that?" I stared at the necklace, my voice shaking.

Liliana touched it instinctively, then glanced at Dorian.

"I gave it to her," Dorian said, taking a deep breath, his voice artificially calm. "Liliana's been emotional with the pregnancy. She needed a gift to soothe her."

A gift to soothe her.

Using my pack’s sacred relic. My life’s anchor.

"That's mine!" I lunged forward, trying to snatch it back.

Liliana let out a sharp cry, stumbling back as if I'd struck her.

"Oh!" she gasped, one hand flying to her stomach. "The baby… I’m cramping…"

"Are you insane?!" Dorian's voice was a low growl of terror and suppressed rage.

He looked from Liliana’s pale face to her hand protecting her belly, and a bottomless exhaustion filled his eyes.

The next second, he shoved me. Hard.

The force of his shove slammed me against the stone wall. The wound on my back tore open, drenching my clothes in fresh blood. The agony was so intense, I couldn't breathe.

But Dorian didn’t even look at me.

He caught Liliana as she pretended to faint, and they vanished in a cloud of black mist.

The only thing left in the hall was the echo of his last gentle words to her. "Don't worry. Our heir will be fine."

The silver poison had crippled my healing. I sat frozen on the cold stone floor, a pool of my own blood spreading around me.

Alone. Utterly abandoned.

I closed my eyes, and the memories came flooding back, unbidden.

Three years ago. Veridian City, the dangerous neutral zone on the edge of the Eternal Night.

I'd lost my pack and was working as a lone healer, desperately gathering rare herbs to join the Healer's Guild. It was my only way out.

That night, I found him in a back alley.

Dorian was lying in a pool of his own blood, three silver bullets in his chest. The poison was eating him alive. The work of the Silver Fangs, a clan that hated vampires more than anyone.

As a werewolf, I should have left him there to die.

But in the moonlight, his deep blue eyes were filled with the same desperation I once knew.

It took me all night to purge the silver from his body.

He was as weak as a human then, clinging to my hand.

"Thank you," he'd rasped. "I'm Dorian Valkyrie."

My heart stopped.

I knew that name. The Prince of the Valkyrie coven.

I should have run.

But there was no darkness in his eyes, only a startling purity. I couldn't leave him.

For the next three months, his pursuit was relentless.

He bought out every rare herb from every merchant in Veridian City, just for a chance to talk to me.

"You need these, right?" he'd say, his eyes full of hope. "Can we talk for a minute?"

He was a creature of the night, yet he paid a fortune for a sun-warding amulet, risking his life to help me gather herbs in the daylight forests.

The sun scorched his skin, but he never complained.

"I just want to watch you work," he'd say with a smile.

The craziest time was when another vampire, jealous of me, set a trap of silver wires on my path.

Dorian threw himself in front of me without a second thought. The wires sliced across his back, leaving scars that would never fully heal.

"Are you crazy?" I cried, tending to his wounds.

"For you, going a little mad is worth it," he murmured, stroking my face.

After we got together, his devotion bordered on obsession.

I cut my finger on a crystal vial while mixing a potion, and he summoned his family's best blood-healer that same night.

"Her hands are more precious than my own life," he’d told the healer.

I once sprained my ankle picking moonpetal on a cliff—a minor injury that would heal in minutes—and his eyes would flash crimson with worry.

"I don't want you to feel an ounce of pain," he'd insist, using his own blood to heal me.

Back then, he only had eyes for me.

But now...

Now I was poisoned with silver, my clothes soaked in blood, and he had walked away without a backward glance.

Tears blurred my vision as I struggled to my feet.

The underground clinic was in the mountains behind the castle. I knew the way.

The healers there didn't ask too many questions.

I dragged myself out of the castle, every step on the silver-laced path a fresh agony.

Two hours later, I left the clinic, my back wrapped in thick gauze.

As I stepped out of the alley, a dark shape materialized in front of me.

It was Dorian.

His face was dark, his eyes burning with fury.

"What are you doing here?" he snarled, his voice pure ice. "You followed me. You terrified Liliana—she's a wreck because of you!"

I stared at him, stunned. "I wasn't following you—"

"Enough!" he snapped. "You think I don't know? She told me someone was lurking outside. She's scared!"

I looked at his furious face, and my heart sank into a frozen pit.

"So that's what you think of me."

"You—" He started to argue, then stopped.

The thick scent of blood hit him.

Then his gaze dropped to the gauze on my back. It was already soaked through with fresh blood. The anger on his face instantly vanished, replaced by pale shock and regret.

"Is that..." His hand reached out, then hesitated, his voice trembling. "Freya, I..."

I took a step back, avoiding his touch. "I was just getting my wound treated. It has nothing to do with you."

He was silent for a long time, his eyes swirling with a pain I couldn't decipher.

Then, he suddenly pulled me into his arms, holding me so tight I thought he'd crush my bones.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, burying his face in my neck. "I'm at my breaking point, Freya," he whispered, his voice rough. "Liliana is carrying my heir. The Elders are watching my every move. I have to protect her... It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just... scared. Once the baby is born, I'll take you away from here. We'll go to the human world. I won't break my promise to you."

More promises. More waiting. I stood stiffly in his arms, feeling no warmth at all.

He called for his thrall. "Alfred. Escort her back. See that she's safe."

He pressed a light kiss to my forehead. "I'll go get you some moonshadow flowers. Your favorite."

Then he turned and walked toward the hospital's exclusive wing.

Toward Liliana.

I watched him disappear down the hall toward her, and a broken, hollow laugh escaped my lips.

Tears fell onto my chest.

"Dorian," I whispered to my shattered heart, "I will never trust another one of your promises."

Dorian vanished for three days. It was like he'd dropped off the face of the earth.

But messages from Liliana never stopped coming.

Day one: a video. Dorian sat by her hospital bed, gently feeding her medicine. His hands were so careful, as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

Day two: another video. Dorian held Aria, his face full of a father's love. The little girl giggled in his arms, his eyes soft and warm.

Day three was the one that shattered me. A family portrait in the garden. Dorian pushed the stroller while Liliana clung to his arm.

The perfect family.

The wolf inside me howled in agony.

I’d seen it a thousand times before, but seeing it now, while I was injured, felt like a blade twisting in my heart.

Just as I was about to block her for good, a new message appeared.

"Want your necklace back? Meet me at the clinic."

My fingers trembled as I clutched the device.

My necklace. The last mark of the Crescent Moon pack.

I had to get it back.

At the clinic, Liliana was lounging on a sofa, toying with the moonstone necklace.

"You came," she said, a smug smile on her face.

"Give me back my necklace."

"Of course." She rose slowly. "But there's a small condition."

My internal alarms screamed. "What condition?"

"Shift for me," she purred. "Show me that primitive, feral form. Submit to your future queen."

Humiliation washed over me.

She wanted me to bow to her in my most vulnerable form.

But it was the last thing my pack had left me.

Gritting my teeth, I slowly sank to my knees.

My bones began to crack and shift. Silver fur sprouted from my skin.

Seconds later, a giant silver wolf stood in the room.

I lowered my head in a gesture of submission.

"Good," Liliana clapped, her eyes filled with vicious glee. "Werewolves truly are a lesser species. So easily broken."

She walked toward me, dangling the necklace just in front of my face.

"Come on. Take it with your mouth."

I moved closer, opening my jaws.

Just as my teeth were about to close around it, Liliana squeezed her fist.

CRACK.

The sound of the moonstone shattering echoed in the room. Blue fragments scattered across the floor.

"Oops," Liliana said, faking surprise. "It broke so easily. I guess werewolf things really are just trash."

My sanity snapped. All thought vanished. I launched myself at her, a beast of pure rage.

"Ahhh!" Liliana screamed, falling backward. "Help! She's attacking my child!"

But I hadn't even touched her when Aria, in her arms, began to wail.

Red marks, like claw scratches, appeared on the baby's face.

"What's going on?"

Dorian's voice came from behind me.

I whipped my head around to see him, Viktor, and several other elders materializing in the room.

"Dorian!" Liliana sobbed, throwing herself at him. "She shifted and attacked Aria!"

Dorian took the child, and his eyes fell on the scratches on his daughter's face. Fury ignited in his gaze.

"Freya, what is the meaning of this?"

"It wasn't me!" I explained desperately. "She did it her—"

"Enough!" Viktor roared, raising his staff and slamming it into my chest.

I flew backward, hitting the wall and coughing up blood.

"A beast is still a beast!" Viktor's voice thundered. "How dare you harm the Valkyrie bloodline!"

"Take her to the Punishment Chamber!" he commanded. "Thirty-three lashes. With the silver-dipped whip!"

Two thralls grabbed me, dragging me out.

"Dorian!" I cried out to him, my last hope. "You believe me, don't you?"

Dorian clutched his crying daughter, his gaze fixed on her scratched face. His eyes were filled with nothing but pain and disappointment.

He turned his head, refusing to meet my eyes. He’d made his choice.

A broken laugh escaped my lips, tears streaming down my face.

Why did I ever believe in an eternity between species? Why did I ever believe his vows?

It's okay. Just six more days, and I can leave.

In the Punishment Chamber, the silver whip cut a blinding arc through the air.

The first lash tore my skin open.

The second. The third...

My consciousness began to fade in the searing pain.

In the haze, I remembered Dorian's vows.

"I will protect you, always."

"You are the only one I will ever love."

"We will have an eternal future together."

I remembered the first time he'd made love to me, kissing every inch of my skin like I was something sacred.

I remembered the time I had a high fever from searching for a rare herb, and he'd cared for me so gently, feeding me medicine with his own mouth.

"Freya, you are more important to me than my own life."

All lies.

My consciousness blurred. At first, my wolf howled in agony, but soon it fell silent, retreating deep within me.

I couldn't feel the pain anymore. Only numbness.

As the thirty-third lash was about to fall, I heard a heart-shattering roar.

"STOP!"

In the last second before the world went black, I saw Dorian. A blur of motion as he threw his body over mine, shielding me from the blow.