Kiera's POV
The silver dagger slipped from my fingers and clattered against the marble floor.
I should pick it up. I should run. I should do something other than stand here staring at the man I just killed.
But I couldn't move.
Damien's body lay sprawled across our mating bed, blood soaking through the white silk sheets we were supposed to share tonight. His eyes were still open, frozen in shock. He hadn't believed I would actually do it. Right until the end, he thought I was too weak, too obedient, too broken to fight back.
He was wrong.
My hands trembled as I looked down at them. Dark red blood covered my fingers, my palms, my wrists. Some of it was already drying, turning brown at the edges. It should horrify me. I should be screaming or crying or feeling something.
Instead, I felt... nothing. Just a cold, hollow emptiness where my heart used to be.
You'll never save her now.
His final words echoed in my mind. Even dying, Damien had wanted to hurt me one last time. He'd smiled as I drove the blade between his ribs, that cruel smile I'd learned to hate over the past three months.
Lyra dies at dawn, he'd whispered, blood bubbling on his lips. The execution order is already signed. You killed me for nothing.
But he was lying. He had to be lying.
Lyra couldn't be dead. Not my sweet, brave little sister who'd never hurt anyone in her entire life. Not the girl I'd raised after our parents died, the only family I had left in this world. I'd killed my mate—my fated mate—to save her.
It had to mean something.
The mating chamber looked like a battlefield. Shattered ceremonial cups littered the floor, glass crunching under my bare feet. The sacred candles had been knocked over, wax pooling on the expensive rugs. Torn red silk hung from the bedposts where I'd ripped down the decorations in our struggle.
This room was supposed to witness our bonding tonight. The final step in becoming mates forever—body, soul, and spirit joined until death.
Instead, it became his grave.
A sharp pain stabbed through my chest, stealing my breath. I pressed a hand against my ribs, gasping. The mate bond. It was breaking.
When you killed your fated mate, the bond severed violently. Some wolves died from the pain. Others went mad. All of them suffered.
I welcomed it. Physical pain was easier than the weight of what I'd done. Let it hurt. Let it destroy me. As long as Lyra lived, I didn't care what happened to me.
Footsteps thundered in the hallway outside. Heavy boots pounding against stone. Raised voices shouting orders.
The guards. Someone must have heard the fighting, or maybe they'd sensed their Alpha's death through the pack bond. It didn't matter. They were coming, and when they found me standing over Damien's corpse with his blood on my hands, there would be no trial. No questions. No mercy.
Mate-killers didn't get second chances.
I bent down slowly and picked up the silver dagger. My reflection stared back at me from the blood-smeared blade—a stranger with wild eyes and tangled black hair, wearing a torn white mating gown that was supposed to make me look beautiful.
I looked like a ghost.
Maybe that's all I was now. A ghost waiting to join the dead.
The footsteps were closer now. Right outside the door.
I could run. There was a balcony behind me, overlooking the pack grounds. I could shift and disappear into the forest before they broke down the door. Some part of me—the part that wanted to live, screamed at me to move, to fight, to survive.
But what was the point?
If Lyra was dead, I had nothing left to run for. And if she was alive, running would only make things worse for her. They'd hunt me down eventually. They always did.
Better to face it now. Face them. Face the consequences of my choice.
I dropped the dagger again and lifted my chin, forcing my spine straight even though my whole body shook. If I was going to die tonight, I'd do it standing.
The door exploded inward with a crack of splintering wood.
Guards poured into the room, weapons drawn, faces twisted in rage and shock. They froze when they saw me. Saw Damien. Saw all the blood.
Alpha! one of them choked out, dropping to his knees beside the body.
Another guard pointed his sword at me, his hand trembling. You, you killed him. You killed your mate!
I didn't answer. What could I possibly say?
Arrest her! someone shouted. She murdered the Alpha!
They surged forward, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the bite of silver chains or the slash of a blade ending this nightmare—
Then everything stopped.
A presence filled the room. Not walked in. Filled it. Like a storm rolling across the sky, impossible to ignore, impossible to escape. The temperature dropped. The air grew heavy, pressing down on my chest until I couldn't breathe.
Power. Raw, overwhelming, ancient power that made every wolf in the room drop to their knees.
Every wolf except me.
My eyes snapped open.
A man stood in the doorway. Tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a black cloak that seemed to drink the light. Silver eyes—not gray, but true metallic silver—locked onto mine from across the room.
Alpha King Theron Nightshade.
The most feared wolf in all the territories. The one who made Alphas bow and enemies disappear. The enforcer of our laws and the judge of our crimes.
He'd come for me.
But that wasn't what made my blood freeze in my veins.
The instant our eyes met, something slammed into my chest. Hot. Electric. Impossible.
The mate bond.
Not breaking. Not severing.
Snapping into place.
With him