KAEL'S POV
The scar over my heart feels like someone's driving a burning knife through my chest.
I stumble backward, hand pressed against the mark I've carried for five years—the rejection scar that's supposed to be dead and cold. Instead, it's screaming with recognition, with desperate need, with something I thought I'd destroyed forever.
Beside me, Damon curses and grabs his own chest. Asher makes a sound like he's been punched in the gut.
"Tell me you feel that," I rasp.
"The mate bond," Asher chokes out. "It's not dead. It's—"
"Alive," Damon finishes, his usual smooth control shattered. "How is that possible?"
We all know the answer, even if we don't want to say it out loud.
The woman in black armor walking toward Morgana's throne—the one radiating enough Alpha Prime power to make my knees want to buckle—is connected to us. Our broken bonds are reaching for her like starving things.
But that's impossible. Sera Ashwood died in the Outlands five years ago. Didn't she?
"High Queen Morgana," the woman's voice cuts through the chaos in the hall. It's different from what I remember—stronger, colder, laced with alpha command that makes half the room flinch. "I am Sera Ashwood, Queen of the Shadowfang Legion."
The name hits me like a physical blow.
No.
No.
Sera was a tiny omega with frightened eyes who could barely speak above a whisper. This woman commands fifty warrior wolves and moves like a predator. This woman has conquered territories that defeated my best armies.
This woman is powerful.
"I've conquered three Outland territories you failed to claim," she continues. "I've come to compete for the High Crown."
The hall explodes with noise. Wolves shouting about tradition, about rules, about how women—especially omegas—can't compete for the Crown. I don't hear any of it. All I can focus on is the burning agony in my chest and the impossible fact that Sera Ashwood is alive.
And I killed her. Or tried to.
The memory slams into me—standing in the Moonrise Ball five years ago, looking down at the small omega girl who'd just become my fated mate, feeling terror at how much I wanted her. My council had demanded I refuse the bond, marry the Eastern Princess for political alliance. So I did what I was trained to do.
I chose duty over my heart.
"I, Kael Thornhart, reject you, Sera Ashwood, as my mate."
I've heard her screams in my nightmares every night since.
"You're a dead exile," Morgana snarls now. "You have no right—"
"Then I invoke ancient rite," Sera interrupts, her voice cutting clean through Morgana's rage. "I challenge you. The Bloodmoon Trial. Face me, or forfeit your crown."
Silence crashes over the hall like a wave.
The Bloodmoon Trial. Sacred law older than the kingdoms themselves. Challenge issued, challenge accepted, or lose everything.
Morgana's face turns white with fury, but she can't refuse. Not in front of every alpha in the Seven Kingdoms.
"Challenge accepted."
Sera turns to leave, and that's when I see her face clearly for the first time.
My legs nearly give out.
It's her. Those grey eyes with flecks of gold. That silver hair—though it's longer now, falling like water down her back. The delicate features I remember, now sharpened into something lethal and beautiful.
She's alive.
The thought screams through my head on repeat. She's alive, and she's powerful, and I destroyed her.
"We have to talk to her," Asher breathes beside me. His face is desperate, hopeful in a way I haven't seen since the night of the rejection. "We have to—"
"She'll kill us," Damon says flatly. But even he's staring at Sera like she's water in a desert.
"I don't care." The words tear out of me before I can stop them. "Move."
We push through the crowd. Wolves scramble out of our path—we're still alpha princes, still powerful. But compared to what Sera's radiating? We might as well be children.
We reach her just as she's about to exit the hall.
"Sera." Asher says her name like a prayer.
She stops. Slowly, deliberately, she turns to face us.
Up close, the change is even more devastating. The frightened girl is gone completely. In her place stands a queen who looks at us like we're beneath her notice.
The mate bond between us crackles with electrical tension. I can feel Damon and Asher fighting the same urge I am—to fall to our knees and beg forgiveness, to grab her and never let go, to demand answers for how she survived.
Sera reaches up and removes her helmet.
Silver hair spills free. Those grey-gold eyes lock onto each of us in turn, and I feel the weight of her judgment like a physical force.
"Address me as Queen Ashwood," she says, loud enough for everyone to hear. "You three lost the right to my name when you threw it away."
The words cut deeper than any blade.
She walks past us like we're nothing. Like we're ghosts. Her Legion follows, and then she's gone.
I stand frozen, hand still pressed over the burning scar on my chest. Around us, wolves whisper and stare. They remember. Everyone remembers the night three alpha princes publicly rejected the same omega mate.
"She's alive," I say numbly. "How is she alive?"
"I don't know." Damon's voice shakes—actually shakes. "But her power... that's Alpha Prime level. That's not possible unless—"
"Unless she was never weak to begin with," Asher finishes. His face crumbles. "What if we broke the bond with the most powerful wolf in the kingdoms?"
The implications crash over me like ice water.
If Sera's an Alpha Prime—if her power was just sealed somehow—then we didn't just reject a weak omega. We destroyed a future queen. We nearly killed the one person who could've been our salvation.
And she hates us.
Before I can process that nightmare, Marcus—my cousin and captain of my guard—appears at my side. His face is grim.
"My lord, you need to hear this."
"Not now, Marcus."
"Now, my lord." He leans close, voice dropping. "Morgana just announced the first Combat Trial matchup. Tomorrow morning."
Something in his tone makes my blood run cold. "Who's fighting?"
"Queen Ashwood versus Viktor Ashwood."
The world tilts.
Viktor Ashwood. Sera's uncle. The man who dragged her to the Outlands border five years ago and left her bleeding in the dirt. The man who betrayed her father to Morgana in exchange for keeping his lands.
"That's not a random matchup," Damon snarls. "Morgana rigged it."
"Of course she did." Asher's hands clench into fists. "She wants Sera dead before the real trials even begin."
"Viktor's killed twelve wolves in challenges," Marcus adds quietly. "He fights dirty. No honor, no mercy."
My mind races. Sera's powerful—more powerful than I ever imagined—but Viktor's a monster who's been hunting and killing for forty years. And if he knows Sera survived, he'll do anything to finish what he started.
"We have to warn her," I say.
"She won't listen to us," Damon points out.
"Then we make her listen." I'm already moving toward the exit. "Find out where she's staying. I don't care if I have to break down her door—she needs to know what she's walking into."
We push through the crowd. My chest still burns with the mate bond, screaming at me to find her, protect her, fix what I broke.
But as we reach the hallway, a messenger runs past, face white with panic.
"What's happening?" Asher grabs the boy.
"Assassins, my lord! Someone just tried to kill Queen Ashwood in her chambers!"
My heart stops.
"Is she—"
"Alive, but there's blood everywhere, and—"
I don't hear the rest. I'm already running.
Behind me, Damon and Asher follow. The mate bond pulls me forward like a compass, leading me toward Sera. Toward the woman I rejected. The woman who should hate me.
The woman I'll die protecting, even if she never forgives me.
We round a corner and skid to a halt.
Sera stands in the center of the hallway, surrounded by five dead wolves in assassin gear. Blood drips from her blade. Her silver hair is wild, her eyes glowing pure gold with Alpha Prime fury.
She's breathing hard but uninjured.
She's magnificent.
She looks up, sees us, and her expression turns to ice.
"Stay back," she warns.
"Sera—"
"I said stay back!" Her power slams into us, forcing us to our knees.
"Please," Asher gasps out. "Let us help—"
"I don't need your help." Sera's voice shakes with rage. "I don't need anything from you. I survived five years without you. I'll survive this."
She starts to walk away.
That's when I see it—a sixth assassin, hidden in the shadows behind her, drawing a crossbow.
"SERA!" I scream.
The bolt flies.