Chapter 2 Into the Wilds

The cold bit into her lungs as Aria sprinted deeper into the forest, branches whipping at her skin, tearing her ceremonial dress to shreds. She didn't care. She didn't stop.

Her mate had rejected her.

In front of everyone.

In front of the Moon Goddess.

Tears blurred her vision, but she didn't fall. Couldn't. Wouldn't.

Behind her, the glowing lights of the mating ceremony faded into darkness. She crossed the boundary-the scentline of the Shadowfang Pack-and stepped into forbidden territory: the Howling Wilds. No one ventured here. It was cursed, they said. Haunted by rogue wolves and older things that didn't obey the Moon.

Maybe that's where I belong, she thought bitterly.

Her legs finally gave out at the base of a blackened tree. The forest was quiet, too quiet, the kind of silence that had a heartbeat. She gasped for breath, blood dripping from a gash on her cheek, her wolf whimpering inside her chest.

"I'm nothing," she whispered. "He was right."

But the forest didn't agree.

A breeze rustled the trees-not cold, but warm. It smelled like silver and fire and... something else. Ancient. Feminine. Powerful. The hair on Aria's arms stood up.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

The wind answered.

"Daughter of the Bloodline. You have returned."

Her heart stuttered. "What...?"

Suddenly, the ground beneath her glowed-pale silver light etching ancient runes into the earth. A circle. A mark.

Her mark.

A voice filled her head, deep and echoing, not hers but not foreign either.

"You were broken to awaken. The Queen sleeps no more."

Pain lanced through her chest-like her heart was being ripped open-and then fire.

She screamed, arching back as silver light burst from her skin, from her eyes, from the faded mating mark Kade had destroyed. It glowed again-not as a mate mark, but a birthright.

Visions flickered through her mind:

A woman crowned in moonlight, standing atop a battlefield.

Wolves kneeling at her feet.

A broken throne, waiting.

Aria collapsed, gasping.

She wasn't weak.

She wasn't an omega.

She was royalty.

And Alpha Kade had just made the greatest mistake of his life.