Chapter 2 Queen of Shadows

Shadows wrapped around me like a second skin.

When I crawled out of the Deadlands' cold earth, I was no longer the broken, shamed girl who'd crawled into darkness. The pain of Ronan's rejection still burned my chest-but now it fueled something deep and old within me.

My body hummed with unnatural strength. The wind screamed my name, and the black cloud of mist that once repelled even the bravest warriors now coiled around me like a guardian sentinel.

My wolf-Solara-stirred.

She wasn't the same, though.

"I feel. different," she whispered in me. "Stranger. Hungrier."

"So do I," I breathed aloud.

The forest was alive around me-breathing, pulsing, sentient. The trees bent ever so gently as I passed by. Even silence had respect.

And then the voice spoke once more. The same voice that called me when I first fell into the Deadlands.

You have been chosen, Lilith Blackthorn. You are not forsaken. You are heir to the Shadow Throne.

I didn't understand, not fully. But the truth was clear: I wasn't powerless anymore.

---

I walked deeper into the woods, past dead trees and rotten stumps, until I came to the ruin of a temple made of obsidian and bone. Vines draped over it like a bereaved veil. Glyphs in an ancient alphabet glowed fitfully on the walls.

When I entered the sanctum, a cold wave of magic washed over me. I collapsed to the floor. Flashbacks battered my brain.

A blackfire-shrouded queen.

A sword that smelt of blood.

A crowned, horned one with a razor-hewed shape that would rend the skies.

And myself-sitting upon a pack of wolves standing as a legion at my feet, bowing before me.

When I awoke, there was a stone altar before me. Upon it was a ring crafted from the bones of a long-dead Alpha. It pulsed with dark power.

I reached out to claim it.

The moment my fingers closed over it, I cried out.

My veins turned dark. My eyes radiated an unearthly violet glow. Solara erupted in a triumphant roar inside of me.

"We are Queen now."

A voice echoed in the room again-old, female, authoritative.

"You need to wake up. The world above thinks you dead. Let them. Be what they are afraid of."

---

When I emerged from the ruins, the mist closed in behind me.

I was at the edge of the Deadlands again in silence. The trees that had loomed over me earlier now bowed down in subjugation. The curse mark on my shoulder ceased its festering shame-it throbbed with dark promise.

I didn't know how much time had passed in the Deadlands. Time moved differently there. But when I reached the edge of the forest on Midnight Howl Pack's border, I saw torches in the distance. Hunters. They were sent to make sure I was really dead.

Fools.

They moved through the trees. One of them knelt beside a snapped branch.

"She went this way. The tracks stop here."

"Good. Alpha Ronan said she would die in the Deadlands. He wants evidence. Bring her back with your scent."

They moved like hunting animals.

But I was no longer prey.

I stepped into the clearing.

Five of them.

All armed.

One of them screamed when he saw me. "She's-she's alive!"

I raised my hand. Shadows unwound from my fingers. The forest groaned as it came to life to do my bidding.

The hunters fell to their knees, clutching their chests.

"I'm not alive," I said to them. "I'm reborn."

I let them go. Not out of mercy. But because fear was stronger than death.

"Tell your Alpha," I gasped. "His mistake still lives."

And I disappeared into the mist.

---

That night, I slept under a twisted black tree, roots curled like claws. I stared into the fire, remembering Ronan's cold gaze, Camellia's smug smile, my parents' betrayal.

"What do we do now?" Solara asked.

I pulled out the bone ring from my cloak. I slipped it onto my finger. It pulsed with warmth.

"We create a kingdom," I said. "One that will never bow to any Alpha."

The night wind screamed in assent.

I was more than just a spurned mate now.

I was the next Queen of Shadows.

And my reign was only beginning.

---

That evening, the fire's light drew me into a dream.

I stood again before the Shadow Queen. Her face was shrouded in starlight, and her throne hovered over an ocean of black fire.

"Ronan's betrayal will not be the last," she said to me. "Even among those who bend the knee, watch for the dagger."

"Why me?" I demanded. "Why choose me?"

She stepped down from her throne, walking across the flames as if they were solid ground.

"Because you were broken. And only the broken can rise unshackled."

She placed a burning crown in my hands.

"Make your throne of the ashes of your pain. Gather the forsaken. Make them strong. Rule them well."

---

I awoke at dawn.

The forest was still with the only noise being the gentle crunch of a twig.

I leapt to my feet. A figure stood just beyond the trees.

A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in frayed black.

He spoke nothing.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

He dropped his hood. His eyes burned silver.

"You're not the only one to have been cast out," he said. "We've watched you. You walked through death and emerged Queen."

"Are you rogue?" I asked.

He smiled. "I was. Until you."

He knelt.

"My name is Kade. I was once Beta, in a pack that betrayed me. I will serve your reign, my Queen."

A flutter in my chest. Not love. Not yet.

But possibility.

---

We cantered northeast, to the edge of lands understood. There, a ruined village hid behind cliffs-abandoned by the oppressive Alphas.

Ash-covered children played. Women sharpened knives. Men stared at the horizon like they expected it to bite them.

All of them bore scars like mine.

The unwanted. The rejected. The cursed.

They huddled as I cantered in. Quiet. Guarded.

And then there was a girl, barely sixteen years old.

She was hair of moonlight and silver eyes.

She knelt low.

"We've waited for you, my Queen."

---

That evening, the fire burned more fiercely. My people-indeed, mine-spoke of how they were thrown aside, beaten, hunted.

And I promised them one thing.

"We will never bend again."

That night howled with bellowing.

The Queen of Shadows was well-earned her court.

And soon. the world would know her vengeance.