The first thing I felt was heat.

Not the soft kind that coaxed you from sleep—but a burning warmth that crawled across my skin like wildfire. It started at the base of my neck and pulsed into my shoulders, dull and aching, like something deep inside me had been torn open and stitched together again—wrongly.

My body felt heavy. Foreign.

I tried to move, but my limbs didn’t obey. They ached. My fingers twitched against something soft—sheets. Luxurious ones. Smooth, almost silk-like. Beneath me, the mattress cradled my frame as though I was royalty.

But I wasn't royalty.

And this wasn't my bed.

Panic slithered through me, cold and fast, even as my body burned.

I tried to open my eyes. Light stabbed through the darkness, forcing them shut again. The air around me felt thick, laced with something sharp—earthy, masculine, wild. The scent settled over me like a cloak, unrelenting.

Smoke.

Cedarwood.

Leather.

And something else.

Something... male.

That scent—it coiled around my senses, grounding me, claiming me. I didn’t know how or why, but it felt like it was meant to be there.

No.

Wrong.

It wasn’t supposed to be there. None of this was supposed to be happening.

My throat tightened. I forced my eyes open again, slower this time, letting the blurry world sharpen bit by bit.

The ceiling above me was made of heavy, wooden beams—dark, polished, sturdy. They hung low, casting long shadows from the soft firelight flickering in the far corner of the room. There was a hearth, and it was alive with embers, throwing warmth into the otherwise dim space.

It wasn’t familiar.

Nothing was.

My heart pounded harder now, like it wanted to tear its way out of my chest. I sat up, ignoring the protests of my sore body. Every muscle screamed, but I couldn’t stay still. Not when everything in me shouted that something was wrong.

That’s when I saw it.

The mark.

Just above my collarbone. Raw. Red. Twin crescents pressed into my flesh—wounds still healing, still oozing the dull throb of something unnatural.

Something sacred.

Something irreversible.

My breath caught in my throat. My hand trembled as it hovered over the mark, not daring to touch it. Not yet.

I knew what it was.

Even if I didn’t know who I was.

A mate mark.

Someone had claimed me.

My stomach twisted violently. A cold sweat broke out along my spine as nausea rolled through me.

Who?

Why?

How could someone mark me when I didn’t even remember my own name?

A shiver ran down my back, despite the fire’s warmth. I clutched the blanket to my chest like it could shield me from what was already inside my body—woven into my skin and soul.

The door creaked.

I froze, the sound slicing through the silence like a blade.

Then he entered.

Tall.

Broad-shouldered.

Dressed in black from neck to boots, like he had no need for color—only shadows

And yet, his eyes caught the firelight like gold catching the sun. Golden. Piercing. Not just watching—but seeing.

I couldn't breathe.

His presence filled the room, not with words or movement—but with weight. He didn’t need to growl or bare his teeth. His power was woven into the air itself. It pressed on my lungs, on my bones. My wolf—wherever she hid inside me—stirred.

Not in fear.

In recognition.

But I didn’t know him.

“You’re awake,” he said, voice low and rough like gravel dragged across stone.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came. My lips were dry. My tongue felt foreign.

“Where…” I swallowed hard, forcing the words out. “Where am I?”

He didn’t blink. “Shadowfang territory.”

The name meant nothing to me. Just another word. Another wall of fog I couldn’t see past.

“I don’t—” My hand flew to my neck, to the mark. My voice trembled. “Who… who did this?”

“I did.” The words left his mouth without hesitation. Calm. Blunt. Cold.

My chest tightened.

“You... marked me?”

“Yes.”

One word. One syllable. But it felt like it shattered whatever fragile foundation I had.

“Why?”

A pause stretched between us. He tilted his head slightly, gaze unreadable. But something flickered behind his golden eyes.

“You were dying.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You were shifting too fast,” he said. “Half-wolf, half-human. You were caught between both forms, and your body was rejecting the change. You were bleeding out. Bones breaking. Cells ripping apart. You’d have been dead in minutes.”

My stomach lurched.

“You… saved me?”

“I claimed you,” he corrected, voice hard. “There’s a difference.”

I flinched.

A fresh wave of heat pulsed from the mark, like it was reacting to his voice—to him. I hated how my body responded. Hated how the scent of him dug into my senses, making it harder to think.

Something primal inside me recognized him.

But my mind—my memories—were a blank slate.

A hole.

“I don’t know who I am,” I whispered, barely able to admit it.

His eyes didn’t change. But something in his jaw tensed. “No. You don’t.”

“You know?”

He didn’t nod, but he stepped closer.

“We found something with you. A pendant. Silver. Carved with moonstone. The crest was clear—it belonged to Moonveil.”

Moonveil.

The word hit me like a blow to the chest. Not pain—but pressure. Searing, ancient pressure. My hands trembled.

“I don’t remember that.”

“You will,” he said, too certain.

“I wish you’d let me die,” I whispered, not out of melodrama—but because it was easier than this. Easier than waking up in a stranger’s bed, claimed by someone whose name I didn’t know.

His eyes flickered.

“I tried.”

His voice was like ice. But I heard it—the falter. The slip.

He didn’t mean it.

Or if he did… he regretted it.

“You’re Alpha,” I said suddenly, the realization hitting me like instinct more than logic. “I can feel it. You… the room bends around you.”

He said nothing.

He didn’t have to.

It was the truth.

I could feel his power, humming under my skin like a current. His presence was a storm—silent but full of thunder.

He stepped closer again, and I shrank back just slightly, more out of caution than fear. He wasn’t going to hurt me.

I knew that somehow.

His eyes dropped to the mark on my collarbone.

“You begged me,” he said, voice quieter now, a hint of something human bleeding into the Alpha coldness. “You said you didn’t want to die. You said you’d rather be mine than be nothing.”

My throat tightened.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“I do.”

He was watching me again. Not like a hunter watches prey—but like something precious. Something dangerous.

Something he didn’t ask for—but couldn’t let go.

My wolf stirred again, this time stronger. She didn’t want to run. She wanted to crawl toward him.

I hated her for it.

“I didn’t choose this,” I said, voice sharp.

“Neither did I.”

That stopped me.

The air between us crackled—charged, electric. Something unspoken passed between us, a mix of pain, fate, and fury.

“You think I wanted this?” he asked, almost to himself now. “You think I wanted to mark a Moonveil? To bring one of them into my pack, under my roof? I should’ve killed you.”

“Then why didn’t you?” I snapped.

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he turned toward the door, his black-clad figure already retreating.

“You’ll stay here,” he said flatly. “Until we know who you are, and why you crossed our lands. No one enters. No one touches you.”

He paused.

“Except me.”

The words were soft.

But the weight behind them—undeniable.

I shivered.

“That sounds like a prison,” I whispered.

“It is.”

He reached the door. His hand lingered on the handle. But he didn’t look back.

“You’re under Alpha law now,” he said, voice low, final. “And mine.”

The door clicked shut.

And I was alone again.

With nothing but the firelight, the scent of him still clinging to the air, and the mark seared into my flesh like a silent vow.

I curled in on myself slowly, blanket clutched to my chest, heart still racing like it had somewhere to run.

But there was nowhere left to go.

No name.

No memory.

Only a mark.

Only him.

Rael.

Shadowfang.

The Alpha who claimed me.

The one my blood called an enemy.

But fate… fate had already chosen him.

And now, I belonged to the Alpha who marked me.

(Rael’s POV)

She stirred again.

I felt it before I heard it.

The subtle shift of breath, the tremble in her heartbeat. From where I stood just beyond the doorframe, every sound in the room was amplified. My wolf was already awake beneath my skin—still, alert, ears pricked with instinct.

She was awake.

And she didn’t remember a d*mn thing.

Good.

Or maybe… maybe that was just the lie I kept telling myself.

Because if she did remember—if those storm-gray eyes locked onto mine the way they did before the blood, before the screaming, before the bite—I didn’t know if I could survive it.

I tightened my grip around the wooden doorway, knuckles white.

The girl they carried into my territory three nights ago wasn’t a girl. Not really. She was wolf and woman, soul and shadow, flesh and fracture. Torn nearly in half by a shift gone violently wrong. Her skin shredded mid-transition. Her bones twisting in ways no wolf should have to endure.

It should have killed her.

Any other wolf would’ve died screaming.

But she hadn’t.

Because she fought.

Because she begged—not in words, not aloud—but in the way her trembling fingers clawed at my chest as I bent over her body in the mud. In the way her lips mouthed soundless pleas while blood bubbled from between her teeth. In the way her half-formed wolf whimpered, desperate and afraid.

And then there were her eyes.

Gods.

Those eyes.

They looked at me like I was salvation. Like they knew me. As if some part of her recognized what I refused to admit.

And in that moment, something inside me—something old and buried and cruel—snapped.

I didn’t know her name.

Didn’t know her purpose, her pack, or her loyalties.

All I knew was that she was dying, and the thought of her heart stopping made something primal in me rise up with a roar I could barely contain.

So I did what no Alpha should ever do.

I marked her.

No permission. No logic. No strategy.

Just raw instinct.

A claiming born of need, not choice.

I sank my teeth into her skin, deep enough to bleed, deep enough to seal.

I made her mine.

And I’ve regretted it every breath since.

The healer had stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered, voice low as he wiped her blood from her thighs. “Her scent’s wrong. It’s masked. There's Moonveil magic in her blood.”

Moonveil.

The name was enough to twist my gut.

The Moonveil wolves had been our enemies for generations. A pack of liars and sorcerers who twisted the old ways, who burned their bonds and broke sacred laws. I’d watched them rip through border towns and poison rivers just for land and power.

I should’ve killed her.

The moment her scent hit me, I should’ve ended it.

But I didn’t.

Because I’m a fool.

Because I’m weak where she’s concerned.

Because when she looked at me like that—with those broken, begging eyes—I couldn’t say no.

Now the mark was sealed.

The bond was forming.

And my wolf—usually cold, calculating, impossible to shake—was snarling at the thought of ever letting her go.

Even if she was a spy.

Even if she had Moonveil blood.

Even if she turned on me the second her memory returned.

Mine, he growled again.

“Not yet,” I hissed under my breath.

Then I opened the door.

The room was quiet. Warm. Lit only by the fire’s low glow and the scent of her. She sat at the edge of the bed, wrapped in thick furs, her posture tense—like a doe ready to flee.

When her gaze snapped up and met mine, I froze.

Not because of fear.

But because it still hurt to see those eyes and know she didn’t remember me.

Didn’t remember what it felt like to cry in my arms.

Didn’t remember how her voice broke when she begged to live.

Didn’t remember choosing me.

“I told you I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, keeping my tone steady. Controlled.

She didn’t respond.

Just stared at me like I was something strange. Dangerous.

Her eyes held no recognition. No trust.

Only the pure instinct to survive.

“You said my name,” she whispered, voice hoarse.

I blinked. “What?”

“Last night,” she said, eyes narrowing. “You called me yours.”

My throat clenched. “You are.”

Her breath caught.

“You marked me.” It wasn’t a question. Just disbelief. “But I don’t remember anything.”

“I know.”

She rose slowly, still weak, still unsteady. The blanket slipped down her shoulder, revealing skin that was bruised and raw—but healing fast. Faster than it should have.

That scared me more than anything.

The stronger she got, the more dangerous this became.

“I want answers,” she said, voice trembling. “I deserve that much.”

I took a step forward.

She stepped back.

My eyes dropped to the mark on her collarbone—still red, still faintly glowing under the firelight. My mark. My scent. My claim.

“I only know what we found with you,” I said. “A pendant. Moonstone crest. It belongs to the Moonveil pack.”

Her brows furrowed. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you’re from a rival pack,” I said coldly. “An enemy.”

Her lips parted. “That can’t be right. I don’t feel like—like one of them.”

I shrugged. “Memory loss doesn’t erase blood.”

“I don’t feel like a killer!” she shouted suddenly, voice breaking. “I don’t feel like someone who would lie. Or sneak into enemy land. I just… I don’t know who I am.”

Her fists clenched at her sides. She was shaking.

I didn’t speak.

What was there to say? That I believed her?

Because I did.

And that was the problem.

“Then why didn’t you kill me?” she whispered, like she’d been holding the question in her chest until it hurt.

I stayed silent.

She stepped forward, eyes burning. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? That I wouldn’t question this—this mark? You took away my choice.”

“You begged me to,” I said flatly.

Her mouth opened.

“You were dying,” I continued, walking closer until we were just a few feet apart. “Caught between forms. Your body breaking itself apart. I’ve never seen anything like it. Your shift was stuck. And your wolf—your soul—was screaming.”

I paused. Let the truth fall like stone.

“You said, don’t let me die like this. You said, please, I don’t want to die alone.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes, even as she tried to fight them.

I hated that.

Because it cracked something in me.

Not pity. Not guilt.

But something else.

Something tender. Something dangerous.

“I thought it would save you,” I said quietly. “And it did.”

She swallowed hard. “But now I’m yours?”

My wolf rumbled beneath my skin.

“Yes.”

Her hands trembled. “And if I want out?”

I stared at her. Long. Hard.

“There is no out.”

She took another step back.

I didn’t follow.

She stared at the mark on her skin like it was poison.

“I don’t know who I am,” she whispered. “But I know I would never have chosen this.”

I looked at her for a long moment.

And then, with a voice as raw as the truth itself, I said the one thing I’d been burying since the moment I tasted her blood.

“Neither would I.”

—

She didn’t run.

Even after I left, she didn’t scream. Didn’t rage. She just sat there, silent, staring at the mark on her skin while the fire cast flickering shadows across her pale shoulders.

I stood in the hallway outside her door, unable to walk away.

Something about her… it tugged at a part of me that hadn’t felt anything in years.

She should have been bound. Questioned. Interrogated.

But I couldn’t do it.

Because her scent—her voice—her pain—it quieted the storm in me that no one else had ever touched.

And that made her dangerous.

Not just to my pack.

Not just to the world.

But to me.

More than any blade.

More than any curse.

She was the threat my instincts never warned me about.

I didn’t sleep after he left.

The mark still burned.

Not painfully. Just... persistently. A low thrum under my skin, as if it were tethered to someone else’s heartbeat. Not mine.

Maybe it never was.

The fire in the hearth had long died into embers, and the silence that crept through the room wasn’t comforting. It was thick. Restless. Like it was waiting for me to do something—anything—so it could snap its jaws around my throat.

Just like him.

Alpha Rael.

Even thinking his name made something twist in my stomach. There was no softness in him. No apology. He spoke like someone who had never been denied, who never needed permission. But there was something fractured in his eyes. A crack just beneath the gold, buried so deep he didn’t even notice it anymore.

The worst part?

That crack felt familiar.

I curled tighter into the too-large bed, pulling the covers over me like armor, like they could hold me together. The scent clinging to the sheets was smoke, pine, cold air, and him.

And I hated how my body didn’t hate it. Even my wolf—still flickering and silent somewhere deep in my chest—seemed to reach for it. For him. For the bond I didn’t choose.

The bond I couldn’t ignore.

--- The knock came just after sunrise.

Not Rael.

I knew it instantly.

The scent was sharper. Feminine. Controlled. The door creaked open before I could speak, and a girl stepped in like she owned the space. She was tall and lean, her dark hair pulled into a tight braid down her back. She wore hunting leathers and the expression of someone who'd gutted a beast before breakfast.

She looked at me the way a predator sizes up prey—and finds it lacking.

“You’re up,” she said. Flat. Efficient. “Good. Alpha said to get you something to wear. We leave in ten.”

I blinked. “Leave?”

“For the hall. Or do you need a drawing to understand?”

I didn’t move. Something in her presence warned me not to show weakness.

“Who are you?” I asked, sitting up slowly.

“Nyra,” she replied. “Beta-in-training. Don’t ask if I like you—I don’t.”

She tossed a folded bundle onto the foot of the bed.

“Get dressed. Cover the mark.”

Then she turned and walked out, no room for argument.

--- The clothes smelled like wolf.

Not just any wolf.

His.

I knew it before I even unfolded the tunic. My fingers trembled as I stared down at it. That scent—pine, rain, something raw and wild—it made my pulse stutter.

I didn’t want to wear something that reminded me of him.

But I didn’t have a choice.

I got dressed in silence, the fabric cool against my skin. The tunic fit awkwardly—too big in the shoulders, too tight in the ribs—but it covered the mark.

The mirror across the room showed a girl I didn’t recognize.

Pale. Marked. Haunted.

But beneath the layers of exhaustion, a glint of something else had surfaced.

Not fear.

Something sharper. Something wild.

--- The great hall smelled like old wood and older blood.

It was vast, with high-beamed ceilings and walls lined with iron sconces. At least fifty wolves stood inside—males and females of every rank and size, weapons strapped to thighs, shoulders, backs.

The moment I stepped in with Nyra at my side, the room went still.

I felt it before I heard it—the weight of their gazes. Thick as fog. Hot as judgment.

They could smell the bond.

Their stares scraped across my skin, and the mark beneath the tunic pulsed as if it knew it was being discussed. Dissected.

“That’s her…”

“She’s the one he marked?”

“She doesn’t look like much.”

“She’s not even wolf. She smells wrong.”

A growl echoed from the head of the room—low, sharp, final.

Silence fell.

Rael sat on the raised platform like a carved statue, black cloak draped over one arm, his golden eyes locked on mine.

The moment our eyes met, the mark flared. I looked away.

“Step forward,” he commanded.

His voice wasn’t loud—but it didn’t need to be. It slid across the room like smoke and steel. I walked.

My legs moved stiffly, every step echoing in the hush. Nyra didn’t follow.

Rael watched me descend the aisle alone, his face unreadable.

“This is Lyra,” he said to the room.

Lyra.

The word sounded like a stranger’s name.

“He found me and still didn’t know my name,” I wanted to scream. “How dare he speak it like he owns it?”

“She was found on the northern ridge. Wounded. Barely alive. She carries Moonveil magic in her blood. And yet—she bears my mark.”

Murmurs spread like fire.

“She has no memory of who she is. No known allegiance. But she is mine.”

That last word made my stomach twist.

Not yours. Not anyone’s.

But it wasn’t a declaration of love. It was a warning.

A claim.

“But until her origins are confirmed,” he continued, “she remains under observation. Protected. No one touches her unless I command it.”

A heavy pause.

I could feel the pushback.

The unspoken rage.

Then a man stepped forward—tall, broad, with silver threaded through his beard. A warrior. His voice was steady but hard.

“Alpha, with respect—if she’s from Moonveil, if she’s touched by their seers—”

“She stays,” Rael interrupted.

Not a snarl. Not a shout.

Just calm. Cold. Absolute.

“Until I say otherwise.”

The man bowed stiffly and backed away.

Rael rose.

Each step down from his platform was deliberate. Heavy.

He stopped in front of me—too close.

I could smell his scent again. Feel the warmth radiating off him like a sun I couldn’t look at too long.

He leaned in, voice just for me.

“You wanted answers.”

I nodded.

“You’ll start getting them today.”

I met his gaze. “And if I don’t want them from you?”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Then you’ll get them from the ones who hate you more.”

--- He brought me to the archives.

Buried beneath the hall, the air was colder here. Stone walls lined with shelves. Scrolls. Tomes. Dust. The scent of ink and age and secrets.

“This is where we keep records,” he said. “Rogues. Exiles. Bloodlines. Mistakes.”

I looked at him sharply. “Which one am I?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s what scares me.”

He left me there.

Just like that.

With ink-stained history and the ghosts of things no one wanted remembered.

--- Hours passed.

My fingers sifted through pages older than I could comprehend. Names. Battles. Betrayals. Wolves who were burned at the stake for being caught mid-shift. Witch-blood. Hybrid-blood. Forbidden bonds.

A sketch made my breath stop.

A pendant.

Silver. Moon-carved. Identical to the one Rael had mentioned when I woke.

The name beneath the drawing had been half-burned from the page.

Only one word remained.

Lyra.

My hand trembled.

Was it me?

Why was my name tied to exile?

To seers? To Moonveil?

The mark on my skin burned hotter the longer I stared.

I turned to find someone behind me.

Nyra.

She leaned against the archway with her arms folded. Her voice was soft—but sharp.

“You’re not supposed to be reading that.”

“Rael brought me here,” I said. She stepped inside. Circled me.

“You think because he marked you, you’re above the rules?”

“I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s done. Now every female in this pack knows she’s no longer an option.”

The bitterness in her voice wasn’t jealousy. Not entirely.

It was grief.

“You like him,” I realized aloud.

Her eyes flared. “No,” she whispered. “I loved him. Once.”

I didn’t answer.

She stepped close—too close.

“If you betray him—if this bond ends in blood—we will bury you. Mark or not.”

I met her gaze. And something deep in me snapped.

Not fear. Anger.

“I don’t know what I am,” I said. “But I’m not the one hiding in shadows, waiting for scraps.” Her lip curled.

Then she did the unthinkable.

She smiled.

“Good,” she murmured. “You’ll need that fire. This pack eats the weak.”

--- That night\, I stood before the mirror again.

Same girl.

Same haunted eyes.

Same mark glowing beneath borrowed clothes.

But inside?

Something had changed.

Not much.

Just enough to make my wolf stir.

She moved inside me—weak, cautious, but awake.

And I knew.

Something was coming.

Something dark. Sharp. Real.

And I wasn’t ready.

But I wasn’t running anymore either.