“You think you can walk into Alpha Gideon’s Keep and claim blood?” the carriage master barked. “Stormveil doesn’t open for broken girls with wild stories.”
I ignored him.
I lifted Ayla into my arms and walked to the gates.
Kneeling in the snow, I felt the past rise like steam in my throat.
Because I wasn’t born a stray.
I was born Selene of Stormveil. Daughter of Alpha Gideon, heir to the Northern Clans. My mother—Luna of the Highborn Howl—died with a blade in her hands and fire in her heart.
I had once been a princess.
Until Damien.
I met him during a treaty hunt in the Ravenlands. I was restless. Reckless. I slipped away from my guards and found him half-dead in the riverbed, bones jutting from skin, eyes full of stormlight.
He spoke of shame and lost honor. I offered him healing. And my heart.
I marked him beneath a star-cloaked sky.
My father warned me.
“That wolf walks with ghosts. He will drag you down with him.”
I didn’t listen.
I gave him everything. My lineage. My light. Myself.
And in return, he unraveled me.
He fed on my strength. Twisted it. Hollowed me out until I was nothing but a title he no longer needed.