Chapter 1

“Please, stop!” I choke, my voice raw, knees sinking into the cold stone. My palms scrape against gravel and shattered glass, the remnants of a night I don’t want to remember.

But Rosalina only scoffs in my face, lips curved into a venomous smile. Her long blond hair tumbles forward, a golden curtain veiling her face from the pack gathered behind her, but I know what lies beneath it—a monster draped in silk.

She leans down slowly, as if to embrace me, to show them all what a saint she is, their pure Luna, merciful to the end. But her lips brush my ear and the illusion shatters like glass.

“This is where you end, Nara. It’s what a girl like you deserves. A stain on the pack’s name.” Her breath is warm, but her words are ice, sinking into my skin. “You should’ve died years ago. But better late than never.”

Her laughter is soft, delicate, like bells on a wedding day, but there’s malice dripping from every note. She straightens, pulling back with a holy smile, a glowing aureola of hair around her head. From the outside, we must look like friends, sisters even. But my body trembles, dirty and broken beneath her.

My gala dress, once pink and flowing, is shredded, bloodstained from hours spent in the holding cell—the cell where they beat me, starved me, broke me. My hands shake, nails cracked, skin stained with bruises. My black hair clings to my face, matted and tangled. My brown eyes, swollen from crying, meet hers—ice blue and merciless.

She is the saint.

I am the devil they want to burn.

I hate her, with every shattered piece of me.

I hate her.

I hate them.

To my sides, they approach. The two men who once vowed to protect me—my mates, the ones I trusted with my soul.

Lucian walks first, his footsteps heavy, deliberate. I turn to him, clinging to the last shred of hope in my chest.

“Lucian, please…” I whisper, brokenly. “Don’t do this.”

I search his face—those grey eyes I once drowned in. The man who carried me through winters, who kissed me under the moon, who promised forever. But his gaze is ice now, and where I seek love, I find only revulsion.

“I… I didn’t try to kill her,” I say, but my voice falters.

No one believes me. Not even him.

Then I turn to Damian, my white knight, the one who used to laugh when I cried, just to see me smile again. The one who held my hand when the nightmares came. The goofy boy who said he’d never let the world hurt me.

“Damian,” I whisper, reaching for something—anything real. “Please… you know me. This isn’t me. I didn’t—”

His eyes blaze with fury. A snarl rips from his chest as he lunges forward, grabbing a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back so hard I see stars.

“Don’t you fucking dare say my name, whore!”

I scream, pain lancing through my skull, but no one moves. No one stops him. My tears fall freely now, mixing with the dirt and blood. My wolf howls inside me, desperate to break free, but I have nothing left. No strength. No will.

Only heartbreak.

I see Lucian raise the gun. Cold steel gleams under the full moon. My breath catches, frozen.

“For the crime of attempting to kill the Luna, you, Nara Starlit, of the Starlit pack…” His voice is flat, dead of emotion. “…are condemned to death.”

The crowd watches, silent and hungry, eyes gleaming with righteous fire. No one speaks for me. No one defends me.

I was never one of them.

Not truly. Not golden-haired. Not chosen.

Just Nara.

I look at the moon one last time, silver and cold in the sky, and I wonder if it ever saw me—really saw me.

A tear slips down my cheek. I whisper the only thing I can.

“Please save me…”

Then—

Someone screams. A bang.

The world explodes into darkness.

And I fall.