Chapter 0001

For as long as I lived, I would never forget that day.

It was the day the people I considered my friends—my family, failed me irreparably. The day that the life that I knew and loved was ripped out from under my feet, splintered like the deck of a mighty ship, leaving me to drown in the ferocious waves below.

This was the day I learned the sheer power of betrayal and how it can motivate a person to endure anything.

The shackles around my wrists were heavy. Cold against the burnt flesh that spanned my wrists. Just as my skin would start to heal, scabbing over in rough patches caked with dried blood, the silver would brush up against them and split them wide open. With every step I took, the chains connected to those shackles rattled, singing a terrible song of agony, death, and unrequited love.

The townspeople parted to let me through, keeping their distance only because the guards standing on either side of me forced them to. I was more than positive if they were allowed, they’d hurl stones and throw fists, shouting words just as painful as their blows.

If only they knew that had I wanted to, I could’ve broken free.

These were the people that had watched me grow up, that had stood on their front porches waving as their children and I walked to school each day. How quickly they turned on those they considered friend and family, tossing away their narrow-minded ideas of community when it suited their sadistic needs.

I’d never forgive them for this.

I held my head high because that’s what Einar (AY-NAR) women did. Turning my nose up at the crowd like I was better than them because I knew the truth.

It’s what my mother did when the rogues murdered her, uncaring that she was holding my newborn sister against her chest. Using her abilities would’ve saved them both but would also have painted a target on all our backs. One that could never be removed. It was their sacrifice that granted me life—a life I threw away for something as fickle as love.

The one solace I had to this entire situation was a double-edged blade. One poised at my throat, pressing hard enough to draw blood that only I could see. Once this was all over, I’d be with my mother and sister. I’d walk into the Moon Goddesses arms, my head held high, and tears buried beneath silent rage.

…but my father.

Titus Einar, the one man that believed me, that loved me despite the crime I committed. He’d spend the rest of his life mourning me, just like he mourned my mother and sister.

The mere thought of my father made my eyes sting with tears. They would never know the pleasure of falling, of drying against pale skin, leaving salty kisses behind.

I scanned the crowd, my neutral expression carefully composed and perfectly in place. Disappointment battered me upside the head when I failed to see his broad shoulders and long blonde hair, but I couldn’t blame him.

What person on this Goddess-forsaken earth would want to attend their only daughter’s execution?

I was led through the clamoring crowd, shoved past their hateful words that ricocheted off my skin like spitballs, and into the city court room.

Even though I’d spent my entire life in this pack, I’d never been in this building before. There was never a need to come here.

The guards flanking me bypassed the security check-in, escorting me around the metal detectors and to a series of large double doors. Seeing as I’d been locked in a cell for the past three days, there was no need to check me for weapons. Hell, the scraps of cloth they called clothing didn’t even have pockets.

I knew which room we were going to by the sound of chattering coming from within.

Part of me wanted to snort when I was escorted into the largest, grandest court room I’d ever seen. Of course, Alpha Oliver would take every opportunity to make a spectacle out of this.

Even my bastard of an Alpha, who was among the many that had watched me grow up, hadn’t believed me when I tried to explain myself.

No one had. Not even him.

The moment I entered the court room, I could feel his eyes on my face. They had a weight to them that no one else seemed to have, inciting a pressure that rippled over the skin and caused one to shudder.

Despite everything—despite every way he failed me, I could not stop myself from meeting his eyes.

Nox Griffin, my best-friend, the boy I harbored a secret love for, and the son of our illustrious Alpha.

He stared at me from the podium where he stood proudly beside his father, his eyes a bright whirlpool that sucked me in only to spit me back out. Just the sight of him cracked the mask I’d spent three days crafting.

How could you, Nox? I wanted to cry out.

Everything I did—everything—it was all for you.

He looked so much like his father, rigid and immovable with hair darker than the prison cell I’d been thrust into, an expression of malice on his face where there had once been fondness. I clung to the scraps of my mask because without them I knew I’d cry.

A gavel rang out, clashing against wood and echoing in the courtroom until every witness in attendance grew silent.

I stared at Nox unblinkingly, showing him with my eyes the horrible mistake he’d made.

I take back the love I gave you, Nox Griffin.

I take back the future I pictured for us.

I take back the mate-bond I prayed to the Goddess for.

I take it all back.

This one last time, I let myself drink him in. I traced the lines of his plump rose petal lips, ones I never had the pleasure of kissing but had often dreamt about. His shoulders, which had filled out more over the summer, along with the mop of unruly hair on his head, so thick and soft that I’d often tug at it every chance I got.

When his father began speaking, I was forced to look away.

“I, Alpha Oliver Griffin, have gathered you all here today to sentence Ms. Lilac Einar for her heinous crimes against this pack.” He addressed the crowd, sweeping his pale eyes over every one of their faces.

Murmuring rang out, rippling along the crowd that sat in rows at the back of the room and on the shoulders perched on small balconies overlooking the courtroom.

“Lilac Einar, do you confess to the murder of Beta Silas Whitlock?” Alpha Oliver asked in a steady voice that made me want to roll my eyes.

Your mate would watch Nox and I after school when my dad was busy at work. She’d make us little sandwiches and give us juice boxes, watching with starry eyes as we played. Yet now you stand here with wariness in your eyes, because now—now you finally see me for what I am.

A threat you cannot contain.

A threat no one can contain.

So many memories, so many chances for them all to just listen to me, but they never did. They saw a fraction of what I could do and let the fear of it swallow them whole, stealing away their memories and reason.

“Yes.” I replied, chin raised and voice just as eerily calm.

I hid my disgust for that wretched name beneath a carefully crafted façade of heartlessness.

There was nothing more for me to say. This wasn’t a place to express yourself, or to make notions of innocence. No, this courtroom was created for one thing—dishing out sentences. And there wasn’t a person in this pack who didn’t know the punishment for murder.

Alpha Oliver nodded to the gasping crowd as if to say, ‘See? See what this girl has done?’

I didn’t react, didn’t dare turn around to where Beta Silas’s family sat. I could feel the daggers his son, daughter, and mate were thrusting into my back. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. Their father’s name was carved where no one could see, deeper than flesh and bone, right down to the soul.

“As Alpha of the Midnight Falls Pack, your punishment for murdering a beloved member of this community is—”

“Wait! Please, wait.” A voice interrupted.

I knew that voice and knew it well. It was the one that would sing me lullabies as a child, gruff and husky but full of so much warmth that I’d never gone a moment in my life without feeling it’s gentle touch.

“Father.”

My mouth opened, forming the word, but no sound came out.

In all of his six-foot glory, my father rushed into the courtroom through the side door. His long hair was unbound, showing me he’d been in a hurry to get here. The dress shirt he wore was crumpled, as was his slacks. He wasn’t the type to wear suits. Mom was the one who would knot the tie around his neck, which is exactly why he wasn’t wearing one right now. This wasn’t unusual for him, but the sight managed to bring a smile to my face.

That’s what my father was. Light, undying warmth, and the only joy I had left in this bleak, miserable world.

“Titus, I understand this is difficult for you, but you must obey the rules of this court.” Alpha Oliver stared down at my father, but the indifference on his face wavered when looking into the eyes of the man he considered his closest friend.

“Oli—Alpha Oliver…” My father corrected himself, clearing his throat. “You make the rules here. Please, I beg you. All I’m asking is for you to hear me out.”

Slowly, without looking at the muttering crowd, Alpha Oliver nodded.

Rage bubbled beneath my skin, charring my insides until I was sure my next exhale would be tinged with smoke. If only that had worked for me. If only they had stopped and listened to me instead of tossing me into a cell, locking me away in the dark.

My father, the man who swallowed his grief and showered the only daughter he had left with unconditional love, looked our Alpha in the eye and said the unspeakable.

“I ask to take my daughter’s place.”

Gasps rang out, exploding across the courtroom in echoes of pure shock and panic. I barely heard them above the sound of blood rushing to my ears.

Nox’s eyes were on my face, the waves in his gaze churning viciously as they fought to pull me in, but I couldn’t look away from my father.

“Father, no—” I cried out, my heart shriveling in my chest.

He whipped around, eyes blazing with both fury and love, and I knew then that it wasn’t only my heart that was breaking. His was too.

“Silence, Lilac.” He bellowed harshly.

No one else would know that this man had never, ever raised his voice to me in my entire fourteen years on this earth.

Alpha Oliver’s eyes flickered between open and closed, blinking away the shock that mirrored in the faces of everyone in this room. Everyone who couldn’t quite comprehend how far my father was willing to go for me.

“Titus, you can’t possibly—”

It was then that my father, one of the world’s most prolific warriors with an ability so brutal he had long ago locked it away, fell to his knees.

“Oliver, I beg you. As your friend. As—As the man that saved your son’s life. Please, please do not take my daughter from this world. She is all I have left. I cannot live in a world where she is gone. Let me stand in her place. Take my life but spare hers.”

One tear, one singular tear crested my lower lid and trickled down my cheek as I watched my father beg for my life.

The man whose past was so terrible that my mother and I became the beacon’s that kept his darkness at bay, the one that still to this day would wake in the middle of the night screaming at invisible enemies hiding in the shadows, was offering his life in exchange for my own.

With nothing left to lose, my eyes snapped up and met Nox’s, who had been watching me this entire time.

If you let him do this, there will be no prison on this earth that will keep me from you. Even love won’t be strong enough to stop me. I will kill you, Nox.

I prayed to the Moon Goddess above that my plea—my threat made it through. That somehow the boy I’d loved with every fiber of my being heard my words and cared enough to listen.

“Titus, old friend. What you’re asking me for…I—I cannot accept.”

The only time I’d ever seen Alpha Oliver torn was the night his mate, Nox’s mother, was killed. His face held the same haunted expression, staring down at his closest friend, as it did when he carried his wife’s lifeless body to the pack hospital.

“Oliver—” My father began, but our Alpha raised his hand and cut his words short.

“Let me finish, Titus.” Alpha Oliver said not unkindly.

His eyes swiveled to where I stood and that speck of emotion vanished, evaporating like water on scalding pavement.

“Lilac Einar, this one time I will act against the best interests of my people, for the only friend I have ever had the honor of calling brother. You are hereby exiled from this pack and ordered to live out your days as a servant for the Lycan’s, our kinds most brutal clan of warriors. You will be ushered from this room directly onto the next flight to their training camp where you will remain until your final breath.” Alpha Oliver commanded. “Tonight, when you look up at the sky and feel the moonlight seep into your skin, I want you to remember one thing. It is not the Goddess you should thank, but your father.”

I didn’t have time to process my sentencing or what it meant for me. The court erupted in outrage, exploding in screaming matches directed to the podium at which I stood. Words were hurled, slicing through the air and cutting into my skin.

The guards standing at my sides grabbed hold of my arms, the chains swaying as they lifted me a foot off the ground. I barely registered that I was fighting against them until I locked eyes with my father.

I needed to say goodbye, to thank him for giving so much, for loving me more than he loved himself.

I’d like to think that the Moon Goddess heard my prayer, and that she was responsible for my father’s voice floating into my head, the phantom touch of his love brushing against my thoughts.

‘The Lycan’s camp is a brutal, terrible place that many do not survive. Remember what I have taught you. Hide in the shadows, learn what you need to make it another day. You are mighty, my beautiful Lilac. You have my strength and your mother’s cunning. You must use them to survive this.

It is of the utmost importance that you never use your abilities. This alone is crucial. Death would be a kinder fate than what they would do to you if they found out the full extent of your power.

We will meet again, daughter. We will meet at the place where the moonlight and water touch, and when that time comes, our family will be whole again.”