Chapter 1. The Goddess’s Bride

Eighteen years later…

The full moon watched over the grove, its light spilling across the ancient stones. The oaks stood like silent sentinels.

Torches burned low around the dais, shadows dancing across the moss-covered pedestal.

They had all come.

Every wolf in the pack stood gathered, a sea of bodies and silent breath, cloaked not in fur or fangs but in reverence. Not one voice rose, not one foot stirred. All eyes were fixed on her—the girl in white.

Ismeria Elowen felt the weight of a thousand gazes pressing against her skin. Her gown flowed like liquid moonlight, her beauty carved from starlight.

She did not feel holy.

Her mother stood beside her, fingers brushing lightly down the length of her arm. The touch was gentle, but Ismeria could feel the tremor beneath it.

“You’re beautiful,” Lyssa whispered, trembling with pride and something more complicated. “The Goddess herself must be watching. Your father and I... we’ve never been prouder.”

Ismeria smiled, but the expression was taut, more a mask than a truth.

Inside, her stomach twisted. The silver veins throbbed brighter, sensing her unease. Ismeria glanced toward the circle of stones and the figures waiting there—the Alpha, his Luna, and Aeron, the boy she’d been promised to before she was even old enough to speak her own name.

Her thoughts turned traitorous. What if the Elders were wrong? What if this isn’t who I’m meant to be?

The thought wasn’t just treacherous—it was lethal. She didn’t only doubt the prophecy. She loathed it.

Every lesson, every ritual since childhood had been another reminder that her body wasn’t her own—that she existed to serve the will of the Goddess, the will of the Alpha, the will of men older than the forest itself. The Elders had called it “training,” but it had felt more like coercion.

They had taught her how to bow lower, how to still her hands until even fear became silent and invisible.

But the silence had never been enough.

They made her choke down moonbane steeped in bitter root until her tongue went numb and her pulse slowed—“to scour the beast within,” they’d hissed. The taste of it still haunted her, metallic and sharp, leaving her dizzy for hours. On those days, the world tilted sideways; her wolf’s voice would rise, then vanish beneath the fog the herbs left behind.

They fed her shadowleaf tea that burned her throat and clouded her mind, a draft meant to starve her hunger for the hunt, for freedom, for anything beyond obedience. The brew had stained her veins gray for weeks. Even now, years later, the ache behind her eyes sometimes pulsed with the same poisonous rhythm.

When she resisted—when the wild in her refused to stay quiet—they slammed her wrists into iron-soaked ribbon, forcing her to kneel until her vision blurred, whispering prayers meant to flay the animal spirit out of her bones.

And when at last she trembled with exhaustion, they smiled. “Good,” they had said. “Now you are learning devotion.”

She had called it survival. They had called it faith.

The truth tasted like iron on her tongue: she was not a bride. She was an offering. A sacrifice wrapped in silk.

And she hated them for it—the Elders, the Alpha, the prophecy itself. Hated that even her heartbeat had been trained to obey.

But the words never left her lips. Her father’s voice cut through the stillness, “It’s time.”

Raymond stood tall in his ceremonial cloak, face unreadable, though his eyes lingered on her with something tender. Together, he and Lyssa began to walk her forward, guiding her like an offering.

The crowd parted as they approached the dais, the hush among the wolves becoming so deep it seemed even the trees were holding their breath.

Alpha Magnus waited atop the pedestal, flanked by his Luna and their son. Aeron’s eyes met hers, steady and unblinking, dark pools reflecting the torchlight. He smiled—small, soft, reassuring—the kind of smile meant to calm wild things.

It only made her feel more like one.

At the base of the stone platform, her father bent to press a kiss to her brow. Her mother pulled her in, arms trembling around her.

“We love you,” she whispered. “No matter what.”

And then they let go.

Ismeria stepped forward alone, her bare feet brushing the cold stone, her silver veins flaring brighter with every step as though drawn by some ancient tether. A murmur rippled through the watching wolves—whispers of awe, and something darker. Unease.

She bowed low before the Alpha and Luna.

Alpha Magnus raised a hand, and his voice rolled across the grove like thunder.

“Tonight,” he intoned, “under the gaze of the Moon Goddess, we bear witness to the union long foretold. Ismeria Elowen, born with the moon in her blood, stands before us as the mate to my son, Aeron. Together, they will lead us into strength and prosperity.”

Applause broke the stillness, a scattered howl rising into the sky. But Ismeria barely heard it. Her pulse throbbed too loudly in her ears, drowning out everything but the frantic beat of her heart.

Then the movement came.

Without warning, the wolves surrounding her began to shift—parting, drawing away—until a wide ring was left around her. The circle of firelight widened, leaving her exposed in the center. The wind stilled. Even the trees seemed to recoil.

They were waiting.

Her breath caught in her throat. It’s time. Her first shift.

A moment she had been prepared for her entire life, in theory—trained by Elders, reminded always to surrender.

Breathe. Yield. Let the wolf rise.

Ismeria closed her eyes. Tried to remember the feel of the earth beneath her feet, the rhythm of her breath. Her knees wobbled. Her chest ached.

Then it came—not the grace the Elders promised.

But pain.

Fire erupted through her bones; joints snapped, skin split and mended in ribbons of light. Her silver eyes flew open, wide with terror, as the power surged.

Gasps echoed around her. Then silence.

When Ismeria rose again, it was not on two feet but four. She was wolf.

Her pelt blazed silver-white, shifting like silk in moonlight. Her eyes burned with moonfire—so bright they stung to look at. She stood tall on the pedestal, radiant, divine.

And yet, there was fury.

It wasn’t the wild confusion of a first shift. It was recognition—sharp, ancient, and deliberate. Her wolf saw the circle before her, the chains of ritual and expectation. It saw Aeron standing at the center of it all, the chosen heir, the mate the prophecy had bound her to.

To her wolf, he wasn’t salvation. He was the cage.

A low growl rumbled through her chest, building until the air itself vibrated. The torches trembled, their flames flaring white.

Aeron took a cautious step forward, hand raised. “Ismeria,” he said softly. “It’s me. Breathe. Listen to me—”

But she did listen—too well. She heard the command in his voice, the same tone the Elders had used when they told her to kneel, to yield, to become what they wanted her to be.

Her wolf answered not with submission, but with defiance.

She lunged.

The motion was pure instinct—rage turned weapon. Her claws tore across his chest, a spray of crimson cutting through the silver light. Aeron staggered backward, clutching the wound, his shock mirrored by the crowd’s collective gasp.

In that instant, the ceremony shattered. The prophecy had promised unity, blessing, divine order. But the Moonblooded child had chosen rebellion instead.

Panic rippled like wildfire.

“Seize her!” Alpha Magnus roared.

The Elders raised their hands. Words in an ancient tongue spilled from their lips, and silver chains of light burst into existence, coiling around Ismeria’s body.

The moment the chains struck, something inside her knew. Her wolf flinched—not from pain, but from recognition.

These were not the Goddess’s blessings. They were leashes, forged not to protect but to command.

Every link hissed with the voice of her own pack—Elders chanting obedience, Alphas demanding silence. The magic seared not only her flesh but her freedom, whispering the truth her human mind had refused to see:

They never meant to crown you, little wolf. They meant to cage you.

She howled—a sound of pain and fury that split the night open. Her radiant form dimmed, the wild power pulled downward, smothered beneath layers of enchantment.

She collapsed, forced into her human body.

Her gown hung in tatters, the silver in her veins flickering like dying stars. The Alpha’s verdict would decide whether she lived another hour.

Alpha Magnus stared down at her. “She cannot be allowed to live,” he said coldly.

“She must be given,” one Elder added. “Let her blood appease the Goddess before she brings ruin upon us all.”

The wolves did not argue.

Two warriors stepped forward, silent and expressionless, and dragged her limp form across the dais. Her head lolled, hair dragging in the dirt, blood staining the edges of her torn gown. Somewhere in the crowd, a child whimpered.

Ismeria was barely conscious. Her thoughts were dimming, her body heavy. Only one word clung to the edge of her fading mind, repeated like a curse itself.

“Monster.”

And then the dark swallowed her whole.