<h1 ss="test-[24px] w-title" data-v-85816c8f="">Chapter 1</h1>
Freya’s POV
The coronation ceremony was in full swing,ughter drifting through the moonlit clearing like the ghosts of joy I no longer recognized.
Banners embroidered with the Silverfang crest rippled in the night wind, threads gleaming with sacred runes—symbols of a legacy I had once bled to uphold. The elders stood like statues around the perimeter, robes weighted with centuries of authority, eyes reflecting generations of judgment and expectation.
And in the center—he stood.
My mate.
Alpha Caelum.
He had told me he was too busy today—too busy for pack rites, for oaths beneath the moon, too busyunching a product built on the blood-price of my fallen family. Yet here he was, bathed in stolen moonlight, standing beside her.
Aurora.
Daughter of the Bluemoon Pack. Beta-born. Newly anointed female pilot of the Airborne Wing. The council’s perfect heir.
Then she spoke.
Her voice, soft as down-fur and twice as venomous, slid through the firelit circle like a velvet-wrapped de.
“Alpha Caelum, you said…” She tilted her head, eyes glinting with calcted cruelty. “You said that when I became the female pilot, you would give me something no one else could ever have. A token of loyalty. Of love. Was that just pillow talk?”
The clearing froze for a single heartbeat.
Then the wolves erupted—not in challenge, not in outrage, but in celebration. Howls rose into the sky like smoke from a pyre; paws pped, throats snarled their approval; even the elders nodded as if pride had taken root in their bones. They thought this was his im. His Luna revealed.
Because Caelum had never spoken my name.
Never marked me.
Never dered me before the Circle of Stone.
And now, when Aurora stood beside him, it was her they saw.
Caelum did not deny her words.
He smiled.
Not the boyish grin he once gave me beneath the stars when we named imaginary pups in the constetions, but a smile colder, sharper, calcted—the smile of an Alpha iming his prize. His hand slipped into his coat, and when it reemerged, I saw it.
The ne.
The one from the Crescent ck Market, the one I had begged for not because of its worth but because it was thest tether to my mother. And now, he ced it around Aurora’s throat.
Something inside me broke.
I lunged forward through the circle of wolves, through hands mid-p and mouths mid-howl.
“Wait!”
Gasps rippled across the clearing. Faces turned toward me—confused, pitying, amused.
Ryker, Caelum’s enforcer, sneered from the shadows. “One ne and she’s drooling like it’s moonstone and fate,” he jeered. “Told you Omegas are shallow. Especially the orphaned ones.”
I ignored him. My eyes were fixed on the ne glinting at Aurora’s throat. My hand rose—
Caelum caught my wrist, his grip hard as iron.
“It’s hers now,” he said, his voice cold, Alphamand threading every syble.
“But you promised,” I whispered.
He did not blink.
“It was a gift. For Aurora. To celebrate her promotion.”
Promotion.
As if the ne hadn’t belonged to the ghost of a war hero.
As if it hadn’t been bought with blood.
I stared at him. “What if I told you I wasn’t asking?”
Behind him, Ryker barked out augh. “Gold-digger. I told you she was never Alpha’s equal. Just a charity case with good eyes and no teeth.”
Aurora scoffed, unsping the ne. “Please. I didn’t even want it. Caelum never said it meant anything.” She tossed it at my feet.
The ruby struck the ground with a sound that echoed like a curse.
I knelt, fingers curling around the gem, pressing it into my palm until its edges bit into my skin.
This ne had once belonged to Healer Myra. Medic. Warrior. My mother. They dismissed her as another Omega, but they did not know she had negotiated peace in blood territory with nothing but her name and this gem. They did not know about my father either—Arthur Thorne, field strategist, the Ghost General of the Iron Fang, who lost his entire unit in enemy territory except for the peace their sacrifice purchased.
And they did not know about me.
Their only daughter.
Once a frontlinemander in the Iron Fang Recon Unit, a ck ops force so secret that even the council had no jurisdiction. When I retired, I had not only been ordered to bury my identity—I had been forbidden, by blood-vow, to release my true scent. My Alpha pheromones.
For three years I suppressed every instinct, not with suppression drugs, which never worked on high-ranking wolves, but through raw will, discipline, pain. And even after the vow expired, I kept hiding it. Why? Because I wanted to believe love was possible without dominance. That someone could love me for who I was, not for my Alpha blood, not for my legacy, not for the wolf coiled beneath my skin.
So when I met Caelum—when I found him broken yet ambitious, a wolf with dreams too big for his pack-born chains—I let him see only what I chose: a humble Omega from a rear logistics unit. A woman with no past, no expectations, no name.
And I chose him.
I believed that would be enough.
So I gave him everything—my parents’ blood-earnedpensation, the resources they died to protect, the foundation of the Silverfang Pack, the capital to build hispany. I gave him three years of my life—three years of faith, loyalty, waiting.
And now, I stood betrayed, looking at the man I once called pack.
Slowly, I rose. The ache in my chest hardened into something colder.
“Forget the ne,” I said. “Tomorrow, my parents return from the Eastern Border. I want you beside me. Stand as my mate.”
For the first time, hisposure wavered. A flicker—guilt? Doubt?
“Alright,” he said atst.
I turned and walked away.
Behind me, Ryker muttered, “Courier service for dead Omegas now? What’s next, ghost parades?”
I didn’t turn.
I only held the ne tighter.
“Rest easy,” I whispered. “Tomorrow, youe home.”
And the wolf inside me stirred.
Not with grief.
But with rage.