After I died, Alpha collapsed.

I was a Vampire Princess, mated and married to an Alpha werewolf.

But our child was neither vampire nor werewolf; he was nothing but a scrawny, feral mutt.

In a fit of rage, Kaelen killed him and banished me.

To save my baby, I drained every drop of my magic and died completely.

Five hundred years after my death, Kaelen came seeking my heart to ensure his new Luna could bear an heir.

"Five hundred years... has she learned her lesson? Tell her to offer up her heart, and I might just forgive her this once."

But when he finally learned of my death, he fell to his knees before my grave, weeping and begging for forgiveness.

Chapter 1

Five hundred years ago, I was Elara, a pureblood Vampire Princess.

Today, I was nothing but a phantom, a spirit tethered to the mortal realm.

I had no heartbeat, no body temperature, no physical form.

I had spent centuries watching over the only thing I had left in this world: my son, Lucian.

Due to the trauma of his birth and the ruthless depletion of his magic, Lucian was trapped in the sickly, frail body of a six-year-old boy.

He wandered between two worlds, accepted by neither.

In the eyes of the vampires, he was a filthy half-breed, a walking symbol of the Princess who had defiled her bloodline by mating with a werewolf.

In the eyes of the pack, he was a monster, a hairless, scentless anomaly born of his mother's infidelity.

But to me, he was my everything.

Through the veil of death, I watched his grueling life. I watched the elder vampires kick him into the mud simply because he dared to beg for scraps from the blood kitchens.

In the deepest catacombs of the Sanctuary, resting silently on a slab of magical glacial ice, lay my physical body.

"Mom, I'm here," Lucian whispered, his voice echoing in the hollow silence.

He would climb onto the ice, seemingly immune to the biting chill, and curl his tiny, scrawny body against my withered side.

He closed his eyes and began to chant an incantation.

A faint, silver-blue glow-the ancient magic he inherited from his werewolf bloodline-flared in his palms. He would press his glowing hands against my forehead, pouring his own life essence into my dead veins.

"No! Stop, please!" I screamed, throwing myself over him. "Lucian, you're killing yourself! Stop!"

But my hands passed right through his trembling shoulders. He couldn't hear my voice.

As the magic transferred, my skin would briefly regain a soft, pale hue, and the decay of my flesh would be delayed.

But the cost was devastating. It was the drain of this very magic that kept him forever trapped in a child's shell. He was five hundred years old, yet he sacrificed his own maturity, strength, and future just to keep my corpse from turning to dust.

"I miss you, Mom," he would whimper, burying his face in the crook of my freezing neck. "I can't hold on much longer. Please... wake up. Please take me away from here."

I could only kneel by the ice and weep phantom tears that vanished before they even hit the ground. I was trapped in this purgatory.

But our quiet, agonizing daily routine was about to be shattered.

The Alpha King, Lucian's biological father, was coming. He wanted to take the very last thing I had left.

The day Kaelen arrived, the air in the Vampire Sanctuary grew heavy and suffocating.

I felt his presence even before he appeared.

The vampires, usually so arrogant and aloof, hissed and retreated into the shadows, terrified by the overwhelming aura of a Supreme Alpha.

Kaelen strode through the obsidian doors of the Sanctuary like a conquering god.

He was taller, broader, and far more lethal than the rogue wolf I had saved centuries ago.

He didn't come alone. A hundred elite werewolf enforcers trailed behind him.

But Kaelen wasn't here to wage war; he was here to claim my Scarlet Core.

"Elara!" Kaelen's voice boomed, shaking the dust from the cavern ceiling. "I sent twelve messengers, and you ignored every single one. Must I personally drag you out of your den?"

I floated behind Lucian as my son stood in the center of the crypt's grand antechamber. Compared to the towering werewolf at the door, he looked impossibly small.

"Who are you?" Lucian asked, his voice eerily calm, though I could see his tiny fists trembling slightly. "What do you want with my mother?"

At the word "mother," Kaelen stopped in his tracks.

He narrowed his glowing eyes and looked down at the child.

He took in the boy's frail body and the jagged silver scar trailing from Lucian's forehead down his neck-the cruel reminder of the day he was born, when Kaelen had tried to cleave him in half.

A look of sheer disgust twisted the Alpha's features.

"A mutt is a mutt. The lowly bloodline of a feral cur," Kaelen spat, the venom in his tone making my phantom heart ache.

"Five centuries have passed, and you're still a weak, stunted little runt. I'll never understand why she wasted her royal blood to keep you alive."

Lucian clenched his jaw. "State your business, Alpha, or leave."

Kaelen scoffed and stepped into the room. His suffocating pheromones grew heavier, seemingly crushing the air itself.

"Tell her to stop playing these ridiculous games. I stripped her of her Luna title and banished her here to heal. Five hundred years later, and she's still throwing a tantrum?"

Kaelen crossed his arms over his chest, his dark leather jacket pulling tight against his massive biceps.

"Tell Elara to stop being so selfish. Selene is carrying my true heir."

"But because Selene is an Omega, her body cannot handle the strain of bearing an Alpha pup. The pack healers say she needs the magic of a pureblood's Scarlet Core for a safe delivery."

Kaelen's eyes turned icy.

"Tell Elara that if she gives up her core's magic to help Selene deliver my pup, I will spare her."

"I will allow her to return to the Blood Moon Pack. Not as my Luna, of course, but as a mistress. That is far more mercy than a traitor deserves."

Fury, searing and sharp, surged through my intangible form.

A mistress?

Give my heart to the woman who killed me?

If I had breath, I would have shrieked. If I had claws, I would have ripped his throat out.

"Where is she?" Kaelen demanded impatiently, taking another step forward. "Tell her to get her ass out here!"

Lucian didn't flinch. He lifted his chin. "My mother is dead. She cannot help you. Leave."

Kaelen's amber eyes darkened to molten gold. "Dead? Elara? She's a vain, spoiled vampire royal. She would never let herself die."

"She just knows Selene needs her magic, so she's using these underhanded tricks to make me beg. She wants me on my knees so she can crawl back into my bed."

He brushed past Lucian, heading straight for the inner sanctum of the crypt.

"You can't go in there!" Lucian threw his arms wide, using his frail body to block the way.

Without breaking his stride, Kaelen backhanded him.

The strike wasn't meant to kill, but the casual force of an Alpha werewolf was devastating. It sent my son flying.

Lucian slammed hard against the stone wall, a sickening thud echoing through the room.

"Lucian!" I screamed, lunging toward him. I tried to cradle his head, but my hands grasped at nothing.

"Elara, I know you're here!" Kaelen roared, striding into the inner chamber.

He froze.

In the center of the room, illuminated by a flickering torch, stood a monument of black marble.

Engraved upon it were the words: Elara, the Last Princess of the Night. Beneath the monument sat a simple clay urn, surrounded by withered, dying roses.

Lucian stumbled into the room, leaning heavily against the doorframe. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, staining his pale chin.

"Alpha Kaelen," Lucian rasped, clutching his bruised ribs. "My mother is truly gone. Her core shattered."

"I beg of you, for the sake of the crown she once helped you win, do not desecrate her resting place. Let her be."

A heavy silence hung in the frigid air. Kaelen stared at the urn.

For a split second, I thought I saw a flicker of hesitation in his eyes-perhaps.

But then he ground his teeth together. "Lies."

He reached for the urn.

"Don't touch her!"

Lucian lunged, his small hands glowing with silver magic as he tried to shove the massive Alpha away from my monument.

Kaelen's patience completely snapped. He unleashed the full force of his Alpha aura.

Under the crushing weight of the invisible magic, Lucian's bones groaned and popped. He curled up on the stone floor, his mouth open in a silent scream, veins bulging in his neck as his internal organs were slowly compressed.

"Stop!" I threw myself at Kaelen, pounding my ghostly fists against his chest. "You're killing him! Kaelen, you bastard, he's your son! Stop!"

But I was nothing. My fists passed right through him, kicking up nothing but dust.

Fortunately, Kaelen didn't actually want to kill the boy. Just before Lucian's bones snapped, he reined in his magic.

Lucian lay on the ground, twitching and coughing up thick, dark clots of blood.

Kaelen slammed a heavy steel-toed boot down on my son's chest, pinning him to the floor. He glared down at him without a shred of pity.

"A pathetic stray dares to bare his fangs at me?" Kaelen sneered. "Know your place, mutt."

He looked back at the urn.

"Did you really think I'd be fooled so easily? Elara gave up her daywalking ability to save you, yes."

"But she's a pureblood. She has nine drops of Ancient Blood in her veins. Losing a fraction of her magic wouldn't kill her. Even if she lost her core, the vampire in her blood would survive. This is nothing but a charade."

Lucian glared up at him, his small hands gripping Kaelen's massive boot, trying in vain to push it off. He had the exact same murderous look in his eyes that I did. But he was too weak. Kaelen didn't even register the boy's resistance.

Kaelen stepped over him and picked up my urn. He held it up to the light, inspecting it casually.

"I give her three days," Kaelen announced to the empty room. "If Elara doesn't step out of the shadows and hand over the Scarlet Core, I will finish what I started five hundred years ago. Tell her, if she disobeys, I'll slaughter you like a dog."

With a flick of his wrist, Kaelen hurled the urn at the stone wall.

It shattered into a thousand pieces. Gray ash-just ordinary ash Lucian had gathered to fake a monument and hide my real body-scattered across the floor.

Kaelen turned and walked out, his boots crunching over the ceramic shards.

The heavy doors finally slammed shut, leaving us in the dark with Lucian lying motionless.

It took him a long time to gather the strength to roll over. Weeping silently, he crawled across the floor on his hands and knees, meticulously picking up every broken piece of clay, cutting his fingers in a desperate attempt to piece my monument back together.

Watching him, my soul shattered all over again.

Seeing my son's blood spill across the flagstones, memories I had tried to bury came flooding back, sharp and unforgiving.

When I first met Kaelen, he was nothing but a rogue, a lone wolf lying at death's door outside the Sanctuary.

His pack had cast him out because the wolf inside him was deformed, chained by a dark curse.

The Supreme Alpha of the time-Kaelen's own father-refused to acknowledge him as his son, leaving him to rot.

I found him. I was captivated by his untamed, unbroken spirit.

When he looked at me, there was no fear in his eyes, only a burning defiance.

I fell in love with a dying dog.

To save him, I broke the sacred laws of my kind.

I fed him my royal blood. The magic of a pureblood vampire healed his deformed wolf, transforming him into a creature of terrifying power.

But that wasn't enough for him. He wanted revenge. He wanted his father's throne.

Because I loved him, I gave him the world.

I used the vast wealth and secret armies of the Night Clan to fund his rebellion.

I fought by his side, using my shadows to block silver arrows for him on blood-soaked battlefields. Step by step, bathed in blood, I helped him conquer the packs and reclaim his rightful title as the Alpha King.

On the day of his coronation, he carried me into the luxurious penthouse suite of the Blood Moon Packhouse. He fell to his knees, buried his face in my stomach, and wept.

"I swear to the Moon Goddess," he whispered, his tears soaking through my dress. "I will cherish you forever, Elara. I will never betray you. You are my life."

We were happy. For a fleeting, beautiful moment in time, we were incredibly happy. Even when I discovered I was pregnant-an unprecedented miracle between a vampire and a werewolf-his joy was boundless.

He treated me like fragile glass.

Until he brought her home.

Selene.

He found her during a border skirmish-a stray, beautiful, and fragile Omega with clear, doe-like eyes.

She was shivering, claiming her entire pack had been slaughtered. Kaelen took pity on her and brought her back to the pack lands.

Because she was a wolf, and because my pregnancy left me bedridden and weak, I welcomed Selene with open arms.

I treated her like a little sister.

She was so gentle, always sitting by my bed, reading to me, and brewing special herbal teas to ease the agonizing pains of my pregnancy.

Whenever I asked about her future and offered to find her a strong, high-ranking mate within the pack, she would blush, look down at her hands, and softly say that her heart already belonged to someone out of reach.

I was so blind. Utterly blind.

The tea she fed me every day wasn't some miracle cure; it was a slow-acting dark voodoo brewed by a swamp witch.

It suppressed the werewolf genes in my womb, mutated the baby, and slowly drained my own magic.

When I went into premature labor, the pain was apocalyptic. I screamed until my vocal cords tore.

When the child was finally born, the midwives gasped in horror and backed away.

I didn't give birth to a majestic, powerful wolf pup. I birthed a scrawny, scentless, hairless creature that looked like a sickly feral mutt.

Kaelen, the proud new Alpha King, stood by the bed. I will never forget the look of absolute revulsion on his face. The love in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, murderous fury.

He accused me of whoring myself out to a rogue dog. He refused to believe the child was his, entirely ignoring the biological fact that vampire loyalty is absolute.

Fueled by wounded pride and the whispers of the pack, Kaelen flew into a blind rage and drew his massive silver broadsword.

Before I could even reach for my baby, Kaelen brought the blade down, cleanly cleaving the newborn infant in two.

I screamed.

He stripped me of my Luna title right there, while I lay in a bed soaked in my own blood. He announced to the pack that I was a whore, banished me to the Sanctuary, and that very night, he took Selene as his new mate.

Only then did I realize who Selene's "out of reach" lover was. She had played the long game, and she had won.

To stitch my child back together, I performed a forbidden blood sacrifice.

Kaelen was right about one thing: purebloods possess nine drops of Ancient Blood, the source of our immortality and magic. Every time we suffer a fatal wound, we burn a drop to resurrect ourselves.

To regenerate my son's severed limbs and broken body, I sacrificed my Ancient Blood, pouring my life force into his tiny, shattered form.

But what Kaelen didn't know was that I didn't have nine drops to spare. I only had two left.

During his ruthless rise to power, I had secretly used seven drops of Ancient Blood to save him from assassinations.

I took the silver bullets and poisoned blades meant for him, dying and coming back to life in the shadows, never letting him know the price I paid.

In his final battle with the old Alpha King, when the magical core of his wolf was shattered, he was inches from death.

While he lay in a coma, I tore open my own chest, ripped out my crystallized Scarlet Core, and placed it into his heart to sustain his wolf's life.

I gave him my heart. Literally.

With only two drops of Ancient Blood left, saving my son consumed one. I was left with a single drop, hovering on the brink of death, entirely stripped of my magic, my core, and my strength.

As I lay exhausted on the blood-soaked sheets, holding the miraculously revived and breathing infant, my bedroom door locked with a heavy click.

Selene walked in.

The sweet, clear-eyed Omega was gone. Her eyes were manic, gleaming with dark, triumphant malice. She held a silver dagger.

"Don't blame me, Elara," she whispered, her voice dripping with venom. "Blame yourself for trusting a wolf. Blame yourself for standing in my way."

She bound me in silver chains, burning my weakened flesh. She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me out of the Packhouse and into the blinding sunlight.

She sliced open my chest with the dagger and plunged her hands into the cavity, searching for the Scarlet Core that would grant her supreme power and immortality.

When she found the cavity empty-because the core was already beating inside Kaelen's chest-she shrieked in frustration.

She crushed my remaining cardiovascular system and dragged my broken body to the edge of the Daylight Rift, a bottomless chasm eternally bathed in lethal sunlight.

"Goodbye, Princess," she sneered, kicking me off the cliff.

As I fell, turning to ash, I looked up.

At the edge of the cliff, a tiny, determined figure hurled itself into the abyss, plunging after me. It was my son. The baby I had just saved.

Through the searing, blinding light, the curse placed upon my womb broke. Just before the darkness swallowed me, I saw his true form for the very first time.

He wasn't a mutt.