Chapter 1

Adella POV

The roasted lamb was ice cold, and the candles had burned down to pathetic stubs. Six years. Tonight was the sixth anniversary of our union, and I sat entirely alone at the vast Italian marble table in the Alpha's penthouse. The minimalist, cold-toned room felt more like a mausoleum than a home.

My phone buzzed against the marble, shattering the suffocating silence. It was a message from the private investigator I had hired.

I opened the file, and my breath hitched. It was a photo taken through the floor-to-ceiling windows of an exclusive five-star restaurant. There sat Kian Blackwood, my Alpha and my fated mate, looking at Ember Vega with a tender, indulgent smile he had never once directed at me. Even through the screen, I could almost feel his suffocatingly powerful Alpha aura wrapping around her. Deep in my chest, the suppressed, one-sided mate-bond throbbed with a dull, pathetic ache.

Before I could lock the screen, another message popped up. An unknown number, but the venom in the words was unmistakable.

*Enjoying your cold dinner, you barren, wolfless Omega? Six years of your pathetic political tricks couldn't keep him. The Luna title will finally belong to a real she-wolf who can actually satisfy an Alpha.*

Ember.

My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. She actually believed I had stolen Kian from her. She had no idea that the late Alpha Alvah-the only person in this pack who had ever protected me-had banished her because he saw the vicious, feral Rogue hiding beneath her pretty face. But Alvah was dead now. My only shield was gone, and Kian was ready to tear up the alliance between our packs for a Rogue.

I was done bleeding for a man who despised my very existence. With trembling fingers, I typed a message to Kian: *We need to talk. I want to end this union.*

I hit send.

Less than thirty minutes later, the heavy oak doors of the penthouse crashed open. The air was instantly sucked from the room, replaced by the overwhelming, furious scent of a raging storm, wet pine, and expensive leather.

Kian stormed into the dining area, his storm-gray eyes lethal. His inner wolf was practically clawing at the surface, enraged that an "inferior Omega" had dared to challenge his absolute authority.

"You don't get to end things with me," he snarled, his voice vibrating with the Alpha's Command.

Before I could even scream, he grabbed my arm, his grip bruising, and dragged me down the hall into the master bedroom. He threw me onto the center of the king-sized bed. It wasn't an act of passion; it was a brutal, primal claiming. A punishment designed to remind me who held the power.

I tried to fight him, but the moment his skin touched mine, a violent surge of electricity shot through my veins. My treacherous body, enslaved by the cursed mate-bond, ignited. The physical surge melted my resistance into a confusing, shameful mess of need. When his lips crashed down on mine, a foolish, desperate spark of hope flared in my chest. *Maybe,* my broken heart whispered, *maybe his wolf has finally recognized me.*

But the moment the heavy panting stopped, the illusion shattered.

The lingering heat of our bodies was instantly swallowed by the freezing reality of his gaze. Kian pulled away, buttoning his shirt with clinical precision. He looked down at me, his eyes devoid of any warmth or recognition.

"We don't need to continue this shameful union, Adella," he said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, icy calm. "I will reject you."

The word *reject* pierced my chest like a silver blade, burning through my veins and tearing at my soul. The phantom pain of the severed bond was already beginning to suffocate me, leaving me paralyzed on the tangled white sheets as the last fragment of my hope turned to ash.