Chapter 1
448words
The execution was supposed to happen at the moon's peak, but my mate Alpha King Ethan couldn't wait. He wanted to watch me suffer slowly.
He dragged me through jagged stones, silver chains burning through my neck like acid. Each step left trails of my blood on the pack ground where we had once played as children.
The silver dust they forced down my throat felt like molten fire. I was too weak to shift, too weak to fight back.
"Why?" I gasped through the agony.
I couldn't understand. Ethan and I had grown up together, trained together, been destined to rule together as Alpha King and Luna Queen.
For five years, my pack had supported his claim to the throne, helped him gain respect among the elders, stood by him through every battle.
But after he became the Alpha King, he orchestrated my downfall, framed me for dark magic, and destroyed my family and everything I cherished.
"Why, Ethan?" My voice came out as a broken whisper, fingers clutching desperately at his pants.
His boot came down hard on my hand, crushing my fingers against the jagged stones. I gasped in pain, but he pressed down harder, grinding my bones beneath his heel.
His face was carved from ice, beautiful and terrible in the blood moon's crimson light. This wasn't the man I'd grown up with—this was a monster wearing his face.
"You killed my fated mate!" he snarled, his grip tightening around my throat, fingernails dug deep into my skin. "Every day you lived was an insult to Cassandra's memory! Every breath you took was stolen from her!"
Cassandra?
Cassandra Stone?
The name hit me like a physical blow. I hadn't heard it in years, not since her mysterious death had shattered our world.
But I remembered that face—innocent, fragile, always playing the perfect victim. That pathetic little omega who'd died three years ago. The one I'd tried so hard to save despite everything she'd done to me.
So he'd blamed me for her death all this time. Had convinced himself I was a murderer.
His claws extended, pressing against my throat until warm blood began to trickle down my neck.
"This is about making you pay. Every. Single. Day. Of suffering she endured."
I couldn't help but laugh bitterly.
"Ethan, you pathetic—"
His claws tore through my throat before I could finish.
I felt my windpipe collapse, felt the warm rush of blood filling my lungs.
But worse than the pain was watching his face as I died. There was no regret, no mercy.
Only cold satisfaction as my life—and our unborn child's—faded away beneath the blood moon.
