Chapter 1
Lynette's POV
The whiskey sat untouched in front of me, amber liquid catching the neon flicker of the broken bar sign. Through the shattered window, the sky bled red—a blood moon rising fat and swollen over the Yukon wasteland. They said it only happened once every hundred years. Lucky me.
I'm Lynette. Twenty years old. Alpha of the Northern Ice Plains territory. Not just any Alpha—the only female Alpha this world's ever seen. The strongest Alpha in Canada, though that title came with a price tag written in blood.
Five years ago, I killed the previous Alpha with my bare hands, wore his head like a crown until the flesh rotted. That's how you claim territory up north. No votes, no ceremonies—just survival of the most vicious. For five years, I ruled alone, turned the frozen tundra into a graveyard for anyone stupid enough to challenge me.
But here's the thing nobody tells you about being the strongest—you're also the loneliest. I don't know where I came from. No memories before the ice, before an old Alpha found me. He was later replaced by a tyrant I was happy to put down. But it led to a lifetime of wondering if I had a family somewhere.
Three months ago, I got my answer.
I'd been clearing out some rogue wolves when one of them, this grizzled old bastard with half his face missing, grabbed my wrist as he was bleeding out. He was an outcast, exiled from a pack down south years ago
"Your eyes..." he wheezed, blood bubbling between his teeth. "Just like... the Grey family kid... in Oregon..."
Then he died. But he'd left me an address, scrawled in his own blood. I sent Cole to investigate. What he found made my chest feel tight in a way that had nothing to do with injury.
I have a family. A real one. Parents, a brother, a sister. Living in some town called Mist Creek in Oregon, completely unaware that their long-lost daughter had grown up to be the most feared predator in the northern territories.
I don't know why they gave me up. But I'm going to find out.
The satellite phone felt heavy in my jacket pocket. I pulled it out and dialed Cole's number.
"Alpha." His voice was low, careful.
"How's the setup?"
"Weapon caches are in place. Three in Washington state, two in Oregon. Coordinates encrypted and sent to your secure server."
"Good." I allowed myself a small smile. Can't just waltz into the States as Canada's top Alpha without some insurance. "I'm heading south tomorrow. Should reach Oregon in a week."
Silence on the other end. Cole's silences always meant he was debating whether to speak up.
"The Hunter's Market's been active," he finally said. "Someone's asking questions about your movements. Recommending you delay."
I laughed, sharp and bitter. "I've waited twenty fucking years, Cole. I'm not waiting anymore. Let them come. Couldn't kill me on the ice, won't kill me in the south either."
"Understood, Alpha."
I ended the call and downed the whiskey in one burning gulp.
I stood and headed for the door. The blood moon painted everything crimson, made the world look like it was drowning in blood.
My black SUV sat alone in the gravel parking lot. I pulled out my keys, but my Alpha instincts suddenly screamed danger. The air smelled wrong. Too still.
I kept my pace casual, continued toward the driver's door like I hadn't noticed. My fingers wrapped around the handle.
That's when they attacked.
The tree line exploded—fifteen wolves launching from the shadows in perfect synchronization. Professional. Coordinated. Expensive.
I shifted halfway, let my claws extend and my canines elongate. The first wolf that reached me got my claws through his abdomen, intestines spilling hot onto the frozen ground. I kicked him aside and pivoted.
More coming. Always more.
I caught a flash of their pack marks—twisted wolf head caught in a bear trap. The Wild Hunt. Fucking mercenaries who hunted other wolves for sport, harvested organs for the black market.
And standing on top of my SUV was Fenrir. That bastard had a face like a roadmap of knife fights.
He was holding a photograph.
My heart stopped. The photo showed four people in front of a small wooden house: a middle-aged couple with tired faces, and a young man and a girl with my eyes. My family.
"Recognize them?" Fenrir's voice dripped with satisfaction. "Your adorable little family. The black market's offering a million dollars for you, Lynette. But your family? They're a bonus."
My lips peeled back from my teeth. "Touch them and I'll make you beg for death."
He laughed. "Big words from someone who's about to die."
I stared at those faces—strangers connected to me by blood. I'd never met them, never heard their voices. But looking at that photo, I knew: if they died because of me, I'd never forgive myself.
"Fine." The word tasted like poison. I slowly lowered my claws, forced my body back to human form. "I surrender. But you leave my family alone."
Fenrir's grin widened. "You think I trust an Alpha's word?"
I tensed—not toward Fenrir, but toward the nearest wolf.
"Kill her!" Fenrir roared.
I let the shift take me completely, felt my bones crack and reform. My wolf form was massive—twice the size of a normal Alpha, silver-grey fur bursting through splitting skin.
I caught the first throat between my jaws and bit down, felt vertebrae crunch. The second got my claws through his spine. The third—
Silver mist exploded around me. Wolfsbane bombs.
The poison hit my lungs like inhaling acid. My vision blurred, my limbs felt like concrete. I could feel my strength bleeding away with each breath.
Fenrir never joined the fight. Just watched, waiting for me to exhaust myself.
My front legs gave out. I crashed to my knees, panting hard. The remaining wolves circled closer.
Fenrir jumped down, pulled out a silver blade. He walked toward me slowly, savoring it.
"Could've made this quick. But you had to be difficult."
I forced my head up and smiled. Showed him every bloody tooth. If I was dying tonight, I was going out mean.
I lunged. Everything I had left in one strike. My claws connected with his face, felt his nose shatter. Blood sprayed hot.
But he was already moving. The silver blade punched through my abdomen and he twisted it, dragged it sideways, opening me up.
I staggered backward, hit the SUV, slid down into a spreading pool of my own blood.
Fenrir stood over me, one hand pressed to his ruined face, the other raising the blade. "Goodbye, legend."
The blade came down toward my heart. I looked up at the blood moon. My last thought was crystal clear: I wanted to meet them. Just once.
The silver punched through my chest. Pain exploded white-hot, then—darkness.
But not the end. The blood moon had other plans.
My consciousness was fragmenting, scattering like ash. But something held me together—some power in that crimson moon that refused to let me go.
I could see my body below, sprawled in the parking lot. My soul floated above it, tethered by the thinnest thread.
And that thought—I want to see them—burned through me like a brand, pulled at my soul with irresistible force, yanked me south.
I flew through the darkness, through space and time, pulled by blood connection. Canada blurred beneath me, then Washington, until—Oregon. Mist Creek. The little wooden house.
The lights were still on inside. Warm, yellow, inviting.
Then I felt it. Another soul, nearby, dying. The pull was magnetic. Blood calling to blood. I was yanked toward the high school, toward a building that smelled like teenage angst.
I crashed through the walls and found her.
A girl. Seventeen. Curled in the corner of a storage closet, hands clutching her chest, face turning blue. Suffocating.
Her face was mine. Three years younger.
Elara. My sister.
Her memories crashed into me: the locked door, the asthma attack, no inhaler, pounding until her hands bled, hearing someone outside—a girl's voice smirking, "Blythe, let's get out of here."
She'd tried to scream. Could only manage a dying wheeze.
Her heart stopped.
And the blood moon shoved me into her body.
Two souls colliding. Two lifetimes of memories forced to mix. I felt her life and mine crash together—my twenty years of ice and blood and loneliness, her seventeen years of family warmth and cruel bullies and today's locked closet.
The body rejected me. This weak thing with damaged lungs tried to expel my soul. I crushed the rejection with Alpha will, forced myself into every cell.
The heart kicked. Started beating again.
The lungs expanded, dragged in air like swallowing broken glass.
Voices outside: "Oh my God! Someone's passed out in the storage room!"
I tried to move. The body wouldn't cooperate. Too weak. Too damaged.
Consciousness slipped away soon, darkness claiming me.