The Night He Shattered Her
Three Years Ago
The moon was full the night Raine bled—not from claws, but from words.
She stood in her white ceremonial dress, hand trembling in his. The clearing buzzed with anticipation. Warriors surrounded them, pack elders murmured blessings, and the pack watched with reverence.
Tonight, she was to become Luna of the Bloodfang Pack.
But Alpha Kael didn't kiss her.
He didn't look into her eyes.
He ripped her soul out with a sentence.
> "I, Alpha Kael Draven, reject you, Raine Nightshade, as my mate and Luna."
Silence slammed into the clearing like a physical blow.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Not the guards.
Not the Beta.
Not even the wind.
Raine blinked, as if she'd heard wrong. "What…?"
Kael's cold gray eyes didn't flicker. "You're not fit to be Luna. You're weak. Emotional. And I need a queen, not a charity case."
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Laughter rose from behind him—Selene Vale, the Alpha's new "advisor." Her voice, sharp and sweet like venom, curled around the moment like a knife.
"But don't worry, Raine," Selene purred, brushing her fingers over Kael's shoulder. "You're free now."
Raine's knees buckled. No one caught her.
Even her childhood friend, Jaxon, the Beta, looked away.
The mate bond snapped.
The mark on her neck burned black.
And her heart shattered into a thousand silent screams.
She ran.
She didn't shift. She didn't scream.
She just disappeared into the trees, a ghost trailing behind her in white silk and blood.
She ran through the forest until the celebration sounds faded, replaced by silence and shadows. Her body burned, not from wounds, but from humiliation. Her wolf whimpered inside her, curling into itself. She fell once, then again, branches cutting her skin, her gown torn and stained.
Then something in her broke open.
The pain wasn't a wound anymore. It became fire.
Raine collapsed by the riverbank, half-mad with grief, and screamed into the void. The water didn't answer. The stars didn't care. But something ancient heard her.
A shadow from the trees moved. A hooded figure stepped into view.
"Do you want to stay broken, Raine Nightshade?" it asked. "Or do you want to rise?"
---
Now – Present Day
The Bloodfang Pack was holding a gala.
The courtyard shimmered with gold light. Alpha Kael stood in full black, his Luna-to-be—Selene—smiling beside him. Guests clinked glasses. Music swelled. No one remembered Raine Nightshade.
Until the wind shifted.
Until the scent of ash, wild roses, and vengeance blew through the gates.
Until she walked in.
Not limping. Not crying.
Raine wore midnight-black leather. A jagged scar curved over her brow like a crown.
Behind her stood strangers—not rogues, but warriors. Trained. Deadly. Loyal.
She didn't arrive quietly. She arrived like a storm.
Kael's goblet fell.
Selene choked on her wine.
Jaxon dropped his drink and whispered, "Raine?"
Raine smiled, slowly, as if she had waited years for this moment.
> "Miss me?"
The room froze.
She took another step forward, boots clicking against marble. Behind her, four warriors fanned out—Laziel, her right hand and former assassin of the Black Dagger Clan. Mira, a healer with deadly aim. Torran, a silent giant with glowing red eyes. And Nyssa, a witch with a tongue sharper than blades.
They weren't guests. They were a warning.
Guards reached for their weapons.
Selene snarled. "You shouldn't be here. You're an exile."
"No," Raine said coolly. "I was your shame. Now I'm your reckoning."
Kael took a step forward, voice low. "Raine, I didn't think you'd survive."
"You hoped I wouldn't."
The crowd began to stir. Whispers spread. Warriors glanced at one another. Raine's name—forgotten by some, feared by others—was now spoken like an omen.
And then she raised a blade carved with her old pack's crest, pointed it straight at Kael's heart, and said:
> "You rejected me. Now I return the favor."
The moment Raine's blade leveled at Kael's heart, the air itself seemed to fracture.
The room held its breath.
Selene's scream tore through the hall. Guards lunged—only to freeze as Torran's massive frame blocked them, his red eyes burning like hellfire. Jaxon's hand hovered over his weapon, his face a mask of torn loyalty.
But Kael?
Kael didn't move.
He just stared at Raine, his gray eyes dark with something she'd never seen before—fear.
"You shouldn't have come back," he growled.
Raine's smile was a blade of its own. "You shouldn't have let me live."
Then—
Black mist erupted from her hands.
The chandeliers exploded. Glass rained like shrapnel. The crowd scattered, howling, as darkness swallowed the room whole.
Somewhere in the chaos, a hand grabbed Raine's wrist—warm, familiar, trembling.
"Raine, please—" Jaxon's voice, raw with desperation.
She wrenched free. "You don't get to beg."
A flash of steel. A choked gasp.
Then silence.
When the smoke cleared, Raine and her warriors were gone.
Only three things remained:
1. A single black rose on the floor, petals edged in gold.
2. Kael's blood dripping from Selene's fingertips—where she clutched a wound he hadn't been fast enough to dodge.
3. Words scrawled in ash across the shattered marble:
> "The Luna you exiled is dead. The Shadow Queen keeps her promises."
And beneath it, a symbol no one had seen in decades—the crest of the forgotten royal bloodline.
Kael's knees hit the ground.
Because that crest?
It belonged to Raine's mother.
Kael's POV
The lights went out. The chandeliers crashed like thunder. But it was the sound of her voice that haunted Kael most.
> "You rejected me. Now I return the favor."
For a split second, he couldn't breathe.
When the lights flickered back to life, Raine was gone.
So were the warriors she brought.
So was his control.
The gala descended into chaos. Warriors scrambled to secure the grounds. Selene shrieked at the guards to catch Raine, to do something, but no one moved fast enough.
Kael stood still in the middle of it all, staring at the broken shards of the chandelier, heart pounding like a war drum.
Because she came back.
Because she was powerful.
Because he couldn't stop looking at where she'd stood—and at the dagger she left behind.
His dagger. The one he gave her the night he thought he loved her.
The crowd was still murmuring when he finally turned away. Selene hissed something at him, but he didn't listen. The world had narrowed down to the storm she left behind.
---
Later that night, after the guests were sent home and Selene stormed off in fury, Kael locked himself in his quarters. He gripped the dagger with shaking hands.
"She shouldn't be alive," he muttered.
"But she is," came a voice from the door.
Beta Jaxon stepped in, quiet and grim. "She's not just alive. She's leading warriors. Strong ones. Did you see their formation? That wasn't random. She's trained. Someone's been preparing her."
Kael's voice was low, haunted. "She wasn't supposed to survive."
Jaxon stared. "You left her to die."
Kael said nothing. Because there was nothing to say.
---
Flashback - Three Years Ago
Kael watched her fall to her knees in the mud.
Watched the way her hands trembled as the mate bond snapped.
He told himself it was the right choice. That Raine was too soft. Too kind. That a Luna needed teeth, not tears.
And yet, as she turned and ran into the dark, something inside him twisted and broke. But he ignored it. Buried it.
He told himself she'd disappear. Fade. Be forgotten.
She didn't.
---
Present - The Bloodfang Packhouse, Midnight
Kael paced his war room. The dagger now rested on the table beside a map. Pins marked recent rogue attacks. But they weren't random. They were patterns—strikes, withdrawals, calculated pressure.
"Alpha," Lyra, his Gamma, entered, carrying a new report. "You need to see this."
She handed him a piece of leather.
Burned into it were six words:
> You thought I was the weak one.
His jaw clenched.
"She's not hiding," Lyra said. "She's hunting."
Kael sat slowly, running a hand through his hair.
Raine wasn't just back.
She wanted something.
And he knew—deep in his wolf's bones—this wasn't about revenge.
It was bigger. Deeper. Older.
A war was coming. And the woman he'd once rejected wasn't the same creature.
She had become something else.
Something unstoppable.
Jaxon returned moments later, face pale. "Alpha... we found something at the edge of the western patrol line."
He opened his hand. Inside lay a small pendant—one Kael recognized instantly. The Bloodfang Luna's crest.
But it had been split clean down the middle.
On the back, etched in dried
blood, were words that made Kael's blood run cold:
> "The Luna is dead. Long live the Queen."
Kael stared at the symbol for a long time, the weight of it anchoring in his chest like stone.
"She's making a move," he whispered.
"No," Jaxon said softly. "She already did."