Aria/Lysara's POV

I thought I was dead. I thought I was lying in some shallow grave somewhere, where Roran must have dumped me. My eyes snapped open, and there were dark, rough walls around me instead of the gates of the underworld where I belong.

I started, my bare buttocks grazing the rough floor, my eyes doing a quick visual sweep of the whole place. The walls were not only rough, they were stained with dirty, muddy imprints of various sizes of palms. A large gate was fitted to the walls, trapping me in a cell. Strong smell of human excrement haunted the whole cell like a witch's curse.

“Where the hell am I?” I asked myself. I had no idea I had said that aloud until a voice rang out from outside the cell. I threw my gaze fast in the direction—a cell opposite mine. A naked girl, wearing nothing, not even lingerie, grabbed the cell bars. Her blue eyes roamed over me.

“You have finally woken, Lysara,” she yelled, her voice strained with concern.

“I am not Lysara. I am Aria.” I corrected. I dragged my eyes from her back to the cell.

She sighed heavily. “You must have forgotten who you are when you hit your head on the floor while we were being brought here. It was a pretty nasty hit. You are Lysara, and I am your friend, Lisa. We are both Alpha King Kael Darion’s slaves and a part of a few who were chosen to be his seventh sub,” she explained.

I scoffed. I could never be Alpha King Kael Darion's slave. Two packs ruled the Lycan world: my pack, the Crimson Moon pack, and Alpha King Kael's Obsidian Fang pack, and we were mortal enemies, each alpha proclaiming himself Alpha King of the Lycan world. Alpha Kael could only proclaim himself Alpha King after my father's death. Once I married another Alpha and gave him control of my pack, then the Alpha King's title would be shared between us.

I moved my lips to tell Lisa that she was mistaken. That I was Aria, of the renowned Crimson Moon Pack. Then I paused. My eyes fell on my skin, and a startled cry escaped me. This wasn't me. This wasn't fucking me. My skin was a clear porcelain with a few freckles here and there, but what I was seeing was a smooth bamboo skin, light with olive undertones. Under the soft, flickering glows of the fire-touches on the walls of the dungeon, the skin glowed like polished bronze.

My eyes dropped to the rest of my body, and I made a strangled gasp. This is definitely not me. I was thin and scraggly, at least when Selene and Raron had poisoned me. But this lady was fit, with round, full hips, a slim waist, a natural hourglass figure, and a curvaceous body that I could only have dreamt of in my head.

This definitely isn't me. I had silky silver-white hair falling from my head to rest on my shoulders, instead of the brown chestnut hair I had always known. Had I reincarnated into another body? I continued to look myself over, comparing the new details of this body with my own. In the Lycan world, reincarnation happens, but it was super rare—a once-in-a-century kind of rare.

I spun sharply to the other girl, Lisa. “What year is it?" I asked eagerly.

She stared at me for a while, saying nothing but quietly observing me. She eventually sighed, dropping back into the darkness of her cell. “This is the year 2010, Lysara.”

“2010,” I gasped. That was a whole year after Selene and Raron poisoned me. Have I truly reincarnated into another body, a whole year after I died? Is that even possible? Was I truly among the few souls the moon goddess took pity on and gave a second chance?

“If I were you, I would be conserving my energy. I heard the competition to become Alpha King Kael Darion's sub is a life-or-death kind of thing. That is why we were asked to sign consent forms. Only six people have ever made it. The rest had died trying.”

That jerked my mind to the bigger problem. “Did you really say we are Alpha King Kael Darion's slaves, competing to be his next sub?”

She was silent for a moment, then she answered. “Yes,” her voice brisk and curt.

Hell, I screamed in my head, collapsing against the rough wall. Alpha King Kael Darion's pack has a history of bloody feuds and rivalry with mine. He hated my family as my family hates him. He was definitely going to have me killed again once he learned I was the Luna of the Crimson Moon pack.

I remembered something, and I sighed, relief flooding my chest. I looked different now. He wouldn't recognize me. He couldn't. It was while checking myself out now that I realized I was actually naked, wearing nothing but my own skin. My breasts were full and round, and a wall of dark curly hair sat atop the dark pink slit of my sex.

Noises of approaching footsteps bounced off the wall, echoing in the dungeon. I instantly covered myself up with my arms and knees. Two huge male werewolves, wearing cargo pants, their chests hard and well sculpted, stopped before Lisa’s cell and mine, unlocking the gates.

“Stand up,” they ordered. “It's time.”

I refused to stand up. I had no idea what a sub meant. In fact, this was the first I would hear the word, and yet I had to compete to be one.

“Stand up!” The guard before my door snapped, his voice louder now. There was an unmistakable threat in his crimson eyes that warned me I was better off standing up. I rose fast to my feet.

I walked out of the cell, stepping into the more illuminated aisle between to see five other girls before me, Lisa included, also walking out of their cells. They were all as curvaceous as me, with hourglass figures and petite bodies built entirely for seduction.

Cold hands slapped my back as the guard pushed me forward. I staggered on the rough stone floor, warm against my feet. I followed behind the other girls, silently strolling out of the dungeon. We took a couple of corridors, only to stop at a large room.

Six steel chairs were set feet away from a large steel table. Before each chair was a combination of female sex toys I had never seen in my life—my previous life. I had just started this one a few minutes ago.

The werewolf guards pushed each of us towards a chair. “Sit,” they ordered.

I was sinking into a chair when my eyes fastened on a magazine on the table ahead. I recognized the yellow cover and the word LYCANTOPIA printed in blood-red letters and stylish signature fonts on the front page. It was one of the strictly lycan race magazines, published yearly for werewolves only.

My eyebrows furrow on the paper, my butt still halfway to the chair. I could find out something about Roran and Selene from it. Selene had modeled for the magazine a couple of times, and I had wasted sixteen years of my life in making the bastard, Roran, into an alpha worthy of being featured in the magazine.

My whole body quivered as I fought the curiosity splitting me open from the inside.

“Sit, bitch,” one of the guards screamed at me, strong hands clamping down on my shoulders, pushing me to the chair.

I didn't know where the strength came from, but I shrugged the hands away from my shoulder. I bolted to the table. I didn't have to turn the page. On the front page were their pictures staring at me. Roran and Selene together, stylishly dressed in the same custom attire. Under the picture was the caption in stylish fonts. “Powerful Couple of the Year.” Under that was another broader caption: “Alpha Roran of the Crimson Moon Pack and his Luna.”

What the hell? My eyes tore the magazine to shreds, though my hands only pinched the steel table. Cold sweats pooled on my forehead, dripping down to my cheeks, cold hands gripping my spine, reaching for my soul. How could this be? How could they have stolen my pack from me after killing me?

I was still reeling from the shock when a rich, velvety voice, roaring like the noise of a pouring waterfall, sliced the air behind me, and thick but manicured fingers dropped on top of mine on the table. “Do you hate them like I do?” I heard.

I turned sharply, colliding into a wall—a well-dressed wall. My eyes drifted up and fell on a face that sucked up every bit of air from my lungs. He was tall and huge, with broad shoulders and onyx-black hair packed in a little ponytail behind him. His ice-gray eyes, like moonlight frozen on a winter lake, bore into me, alluring, entrancing, just like the three-piece suit and the smile he wore.

He could have been anybody, but he was Alpha King Kael Darion. I never knew him by face, but I knew him by reputation. And by reputation, he was the worst bastard any woman could ever get entangled with. Yet he was also a specimen of maleness any woman would die to love.