Nyx's POV
I wake up screaming.
The silver power is gone. The dark witch is gone. I'm lying in the dirt beside the broken wagon, and my whole body feels like it's on fire.
The guards are still unconscious. I need to run before they wake up.
I try to stand, but my legs won't work. The rejection wounds have gotten worse. Black veins spread up my arms like poison.
Through the bonds, I feel my five Alphas. They're alive—barely. I saved them, but just enough to keep us all breathing.
Big mistake.
I should have let us all die.
Using my elbows, I drag myself off the road and into the dead forest. Every movement is torture, but I don't stop. Can't stop. If the guards wake up, they'll kill me for what happened.
It takes me an hour to crawl a few hundred feet.
The forest gets darker. Colder. The trees here are black and twisted, like burned skeletons reaching for the sky. Nothing grows. Nothing lives.
Welcome to the Forsaken Lands.
This is where I'll die.
My arms give out, and I collapse face-first into the ash. I lie there, too tired to move, tasting dirt and blood.
Maybe this is better. Maybe dying alone is easier than facing what comes next.
"Get up."
I jerk my head up. There's no one there.
"I said get up!" The voice is inside my head. My wolf. She sounds angry. "We didn't survive this long just to die in the dirt like a coward!"
"I'm not a coward," I whisper. "I'm just... tired."
"Tired? TIRED?" My wolf snarls. "They rejected us! They threw us away! And you want to give them the satisfaction of knowing we died out here?"
"What else can I do? I can barely move."
"Then crawl. Crawl until you find water. Find food. Find shelter. And when you're strong enough, we'll go back and make every single one of them sorry they were ever born."
Her rage gives me strength.
I dig my fingers into the ash and pull myself forward. One foot. Two feet. Three.
I crawl for hours. Maybe days. Time stops meaning anything. There's only pain and ash and the burning need to survive.
On the third day, I find a muddy puddle. The water is brown and tastes like metal, but I drink it anyway. It makes me sick, but I keep it down.
I eat a beetle. Then another. They crunch between my teeth and make me want to vomit, but they're food.
This is what I've become. The girl who was supposed to unite kingdoms is eating bugs in a wasteland.
But I'm alive.
That has to count for something.
On the fourth day, I can't go any further.
I collapse beside what used to be a river. Now it's just cracked earth and bones—animal bones, and some that might be human.
"I'm sorry," I whisper to my wolf. "I tried."
"Don't you dare give up on me," she growls. But even her voice sounds weaker now.
I close my eyes.
This is it. This is where Nyx Evermoon's story ends.
Footsteps.
My eyes snap open.
Someone's walking toward me. Multiple someones.
I try to run, but I can't move. I'm too weak to even lift my head.
This is how I die. Killed by bandits or monsters in the Forsaken Lands.
"Well, well." A woman's voice. "What do we have here?"
Rough hands flip me onto my back. I blink up at a face—a woman with red hair and a scar across her cheek. She's strong, muscular, dressed in torn leather.
Behind her stand three more people. All of them look hard. Dangerous.
"Please," I croak. "Don't—"
"Rejection wounds," the woman says, studying the black veins on my arms. "Fresh ones. Five bonds, from the look of it." Her eyes widen. "You're the Mate of Five. The one who failed at the ceremony."
I close my eyes. Even here, I'm known as a failure.
"Should we leave her?" one of the men asks. "She's as good as dead anyway."
"Probably," the woman says.
I wait for them to walk away.
Instead, she picks me up like I weigh nothing. "But I've never been good at doing what I'm supposed to do."
"Ember, are you crazy?" another woman protests. "She's got maybe a day left! Why waste our resources—"
"Because I was her once," Ember snaps. "Left to die in this wasteland by people who decided I wasn't worth saving. Someone gave me a chance. I'm paying it forward."
She starts walking, carrying me in her arms.
"Where are you taking me?" I whisper.
"Somewhere safe. Well, safer than here." She looks down at me. "You're tougher than you look, kid. Most people with rejection wounds like yours die in hours. You've lasted days."
"My wolf," I manage to say. "She won't let me die."
Ember's eyes flash with respect. "Good. You're going to need that attitude where we're going."
We walk for what feels like forever. I drift in and out of consciousness. When I wake up again, we're approaching a crack in a cliff face—a hidden entrance.
Ember carries me through a narrow tunnel. It opens into a huge cave lit by torches.
And it's full of people.
Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. All of them watching as Ember carries me through.
"Everyone," Ember announces. "We have a new arrival. She's—"
"The reject!" someone shouts. "That's the Mate of Five who failed!"
"She's one of them! From the kingdoms!"
"Why did you bring her here?"
The crowd gets angry. I can feel their hatred like a physical thing.
Ember sets me down gently on a bench. "She's one of us now. A reject. An exile. Someone the kingdoms threw away."
"She's not one of us," a man snarls, pushing through the crowd. He's huge, scarred, with eyes full of rage. "She's the Beta's daughter! She lived in luxury while we starved! She was supposed to be a queen!"
"I didn't want—" I start, but he cuts me off.
"You didn't want?" He laughs bitterly. "None of us wanted to be here either! But we don't get choices, princess!"
The crowd mutters in agreement. They're surrounding me now, their anger building.
I'm going to die here. Not from the wounds. From these people who hate me for something I couldn't control.
Then I feel it.
That silver power, stirring deep inside.
My wolf, sensing danger.
"Back off," I hear myself say. My voice sounds different. Stronger. "Now."
The man laughs. "Or what? You'll cry at me? You'll—"
My eyes flash silver.
Every single person in the cave drops to their knees. All at once. Like puppets with cut strings.
Even Ember falls, her eyes wide with shock.
The huge man who was threatening me is flat on his face, whimpering.
I stand up, even though my body screams in protest. The rejection wounds are still there, still killing me.
But right now, I'm not the weak girl who got rejected.
I'm something else.
Something that makes even the forgotten and exiled bow.
"What are you?" Ember gasps, still on her knees.
I look at my hands. They're glowing with silver light. Around me, frost spreads across the cave floor.
"I don't know," I whisper.
But my wolf knows. She's laughing in my head, wild and fierce.
"We're an Omega Sovereign," she says. "And it's time everyone learned what that means."
The silver light explodes outward, filling the entire cave.
And somewhere far away, in five different kingdoms, five Alphas wake up screaming as they feel a power they thought was impossible.
Their rejected mate isn't dead.
She's awakening.
And she's going to be their worst nightmare.