Chapter 3 Ash and Silver

The morning was gray when Aria woke.

She lay in the center of the glowing circle, her torn dress clinging to her skin, her body thrumming with something fierce and new. Every breath tasted of iron and starlight. The forest was different too-no longer silent, but breathing with her, alive with whispers she almost understood.

Slowly, she sat up.

The mark on her wrist pulsed, a deep silver etched into her skin. Not the fragile mate mark that had been torn away-this was older, rooted in her blood and bone.

"Royal blood," the voice had said.

Aria shivered, but it wasn't from fear. It was something else. Destiny, maybe.

She stood, testing her balance. The forest bent around her, almost bowing. She could feel it-the life in the trees, the hidden streams beneath the earth, the wolves that watched from the shadows.

"I was never nothing," she whispered.

The words hung in the air, and for the first time, her wolf didn't whimper. It growled low and strong, a promise of the power awakening inside her.

Branches cracked to her left.

Aria spun, instincts sharper than they'd ever been. A rogue wolf-huge, black-furred, scarred from battles long past-stepped into the clearing. His yellow eyes glowed, wary but curious.

Aria didn't flinch.

The rogue circled her slowly, sniffing the air. When he caught her scent, he froze, ears flicking back. And then-unbelievably-he bowed, pressing his massive body low to the ground in submission.

Shock rippled through her. Rogues didn't submit. Not to anyone.

"Who are you?" she breathed.

The wolf lifted his head, and for a moment, she swore she saw something human in his gaze. An old loyalty, long forgotten.

The silver mark on her wrist flared, and the rogue whimpered, retreating into the trees with a low whine-as if summoned elsewhere.

Aria stumbled back a step, heart pounding. Everything was changing. Fast.

Movement flickered in the corner of her eye. More wolves. Shifting shadows. Watching.

They know, she realized.

They feel it too.

The Wilds had claimed her-or perhaps she had claimed them.

A voice spoke again inside her mind, but this time, it was clearer. Feminine. Regal.

"Find the others. Gather your Court. The true war has not yet begun."

Aria clenched her fists. Kade and the Shadowfang Pack thought they'd broken her. Humiliated her. Cast her into nothingness.

They had no idea what they had unleashed.

She turned toward the deeper heart of the Wilds, where the old magic was strongest, where others like her-forgotten, cast out, broken-might be waiting.

Her new destiny wasn't to beg for scraps at the feet of an alpha.

It was to become a queen.

And she would rise-not in spite of her brokenness, but because of it.

With silver fire in her veins and ancient blood in her heart, Aria disappeared into the Wilds, leaving behind the last shreds of the girl she had been.

The Moon had not forsaken her.

It had forged her anew.