Nyx's POV
The guards throw me into a cell beneath the temple. I hit the stone floor hard, and fresh pain shoots through my already broken body.
"Wait!" I scream, crawling toward the closing door. "Please! There's been a mistake! My sister—she did something—"
The door slams shut.
Darkness swallows me whole.
I curl into a ball, my whole body shaking. The rejection wounds burn like acid in my veins. Every breath feels like swallowing broken glass. This is how rejected mates die—slowly, painfully, alone.
But I can't die. Not yet.
Not until I prove what Lyra did.
I press my hand against my chest, trying to feel for my wolf again. She has to be in there somewhere. The Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes. Five Alphas wouldn't be fated to someone with no wolf.
Please, I beg into the darkness. Please answer me.
For a moment—just one tiny moment—I feel something stir deep inside. Like a flutter of wings. Like someone trapped behind a locked door, trying to get out.
Then it's gone.
But it was there. I know it was there.
"She's still breathing?" A voice echoes down the hall.
I recognize it instantly. My father.
Hope explodes in my chest. He came back for me! He's going to help me!
I drag myself to the cell bars. "Father! I'm here! Please, you have to listen—"
He appears in the torchlight, but he's not alone. Lyra stands beside him, her arm linked through his. She looks at me the way someone looks at a bug they're about to step on.
"Father, Lyra did something to me," I gasp out. "I saw magic on her hands. Purple magic. She's the reason my wolf won't come—"
"Enough!" My father's shout makes me flinch. "Do you have any idea what you've done to this family? To our reputation?"
"But I didn't—"
"You were supposed to unite five kingdoms! You were supposed to make House Evermoon the most powerful family in history!" His face is red with rage. "Instead, you humiliated us in front of everyone!"
"I tried!" Tears pour down my face. "I tried so hard, but something's wrong—"
"You're what's wrong!" He points at me like I'm poison. "Your mother died giving birth to you, and for what? A daughter with no wolf? A reject?"
Each word stabs deeper than the rejection wounds.
"Please," I whisper. "I'm still your daughter."
"No." His voice goes cold. "You're nothing to me now."
He turns to the guards standing behind him. "Take her to the Forsaken Lands at dawn. If she survives the journey, the wasteland will finish what the rejections started."
"Father, no! Please!"
But he's already walking away.
Lyra stays behind for a moment. She crouches down so we're eye to eye through the bars.
"Did you really think you were special, Nyx?" Her voice is sweet as honey and sharp as knives. "Did you really think the Moon Goddess chose YOU?"
"What did you do to me?" I demand, my voice shaking with rage and fear.
Lyra's smile is beautiful and terrible. "I did what I had to do. That destiny was always meant to be mine. You just got in the way."
"The Alphas will find out. They'll know you did this—"
"Will they?" Lyra laughs. "They rejected you, sister. They called you weak, incomplete, unworthy. Why would they believe anything you say now?" She stands up, brushing off her dress. "Besides, by tomorrow, you'll be dead in the Forsaken Lands. And I'll be choosing which Alpha I want to bond with first."
She walks away, her footsteps echoing down the hall.
I'm left alone in the dark again.
But this time, something inside me shifts.
The pain is still there. The rejection wounds still burn.
But underneath it all, anger begins to grow. Hot and fierce and powerful.
Lyra stole my destiny.
My father abandoned me.
My mates rejected me without even trying to understand.
And they all think I'm going to just die quietly in the wasteland.
I press my hand against my chest again, searching for that flutter I felt before.
Please, I whisper to my wolf. If you're really in there, I need you. We need each other.
This time, the response is stronger. Not quite awake, but not completely asleep either. Like someone stirring from a long nightmare.
And with it comes a feeling I don't understand. It's not the gentle warmth I always imagined the wolf bond would be.
It's fire.
It's rage.
It's power that makes the air around me crackle with energy.
For just a second, my eyes flash with light—not the normal gold of regular wolves.
Silver.
Like moonlight itself is burning inside me.
The cell bars start to frost over where I'm gripping them, ice spreading from my fingers even though I'm not doing anything.
What is this?
What am I?
Footsteps approach again. The guards are coming to take me to the Forsaken Lands.
I close my eyes and make a promise to myself, to my trapped wolf, to the Moon Goddess who gave me this fate.
I'm not going to die in the wasteland.
I'm going to survive.
And when I come back, everyone who threw me away will learn the truth.
They didn't reject a weak, broken wolf.
They rejected something far more dangerous.
And they're going to regret it.