AMARA’S POV

I woke up being dragged to my death.

Rough hands hauled me across cobblestones toward the execution platform. I must have passed out overnight because the sky was pink with dawn and the square was packed with people waiting to watch me die.

There were two babies that night. A boy and a girl.

Odessa's words slammed into me and I couldn't breathe. A daughter. A twin. But was it even true? Why would she lie about something like that?

My wolf stirred weakly. She wouldn't. There's no reason to lie.

My heart raced. Where was she? What did she look like? Did she have my eyes? My hair? Was she even alive?

The questions tore through me with physical pain, sharper than any blade. Three years. She'd be three years old now, the same age Jules was.

Had Odessa kept her hidden somewhere? Sold her? Hurt her?

Why steal a baby? Why take my child and let me believe she never existed?

If she was out there somewhere—alive or dead—I couldn't die here. I wouldn't die here.

Not after surviving twelve months at war. Not while while Jules was still with those vipers, being poisoned against me. Not while my possible baby girl's fate was unknown.

The guards hauled me up the platform steps. Tomatoes hit my face, my chest. My people—the ones I'd bled for—screamed insults and threw rotten food like I was nothing.

I searched the crowd desperately for Odessa's face, needing to see her, needing answers about my daughter. But my eyes snagged on something else entirely.

Jules. Sobbing in Odessa's arms near the front.

She held him with one hand while the other waved at me mockingly, a cruel smile on her lips.

She leaned down and whispered something in his ear that made him cry harder, his little face crumpling as he reached for me with desperate hands.

She was making him watch. Making him watch them kill me.

But I refused to die. Not today. Not when both my children needed me.

The guards shoved me to my knees. One fumbled with chains while the other gripped my shoulder. The executioner stepped forward with his ax.

Then a maid rushed up the platform steps, stumbling in her haste. She carried a wooden bowl—water for the executioner, probably.

But when she passed me, she dropped it. Water splashed everywhere and in the chaos, she leaned close.

"Forgive me, my lady," she whispered frantically. "The girl child—Lady Odessa had her taken to the northern territories a few months ago. For disposal of the body, they said. But I heard whispers she was still breathing when they left her." Her voice dropped even lower, urgent and terrified. "You have to survive this. You have to stop her. Your people need you. Lady Odessa isn't what she seems. If you don't save us from her, the entire wolf realm is doomed."

The words hit me like lightning. North. My daughter was taken north.

A chill spread through my blood because north meant one thing—the northern territories.

The Monster of the North's domain.

Caelan Black, the savage who'd nearly destroyed my father's pack decades ago. The man whose brutality was legend, whose cruelty made even hardened warriors pale.

If my daughter had been left there to die...

The guard grabbed the maid. "What are you doing here?"

I moved.

My elbow cracked into the first guard's throat. I grabbed the chains and swung them into the second guard's face.

The crowd erupted and I ran, hitting the ground and sprinting toward the forest.

Shouts behind me. Footsteps pounding.

"KILL HER ON SIGHT!" Elian's roar echoed across the square.

I reached the trees and let my wolf surge forward. The shift tore through me and I hit the ground on four paws, running faster than I'd ever run in my life.

Arrows rained down. One hit my shoulder. Another my leg. Pain exploded but I didn't stop because my daughter might be alive.

My baby girl might still be breathing in the northern territories and I had to find her.

And once I found her, once I knew she was safe, I'd come back for Jules. I'd tear through Elian's soldiers if I had to, but I'd get my son back.

But not yet. Not with an army at my heels. Not when they'd kill me on sight and leave both my children orphaned.

More arrows. They hit my ribs, my back, my flank. Blood matted my fur but I kept running, the maid's words consuming every thought.

Your people need you.

I crossed the border into Black Fire territory and my legs finally gave out. I collapsed hard, the shift reversing without my permission.

My wolf retreated and I lay naked in the dirt, arrows embedded in my flesh, bleeding out onto foreign soil.

The world tilted. My vision blurred. I was dying. I could feel it—the cold creeping in, my heartbeat slowing.

"Jules," I whispered to no one, my voice barely audible. "I'm sorry, baby. Mama tried. She tried so hard." Tears mixed with blood on my face. "And your sister... I have to find your sister... have to know if she's..."

Footsteps approached through the fog of my dying consciousness.

I forced my eyes open just slightly. Black boots. Long legs. Broad shoulders.

Then his face—storm-grey eyes looking down at me with an expression I couldn't read. The scar down his cheek made him look like death personified.

Caelan Black. The Monster himself.

I tried to speak but only blood came out.

"My daughter..." I managed to whisper. "North... have to find..."

He crouched down beside me, his head tilting slightly as he studied my broken body like a predator assessing prey. Those grey eyes held no warmth, no mercy.

"I'm afraid this is not the day you die, my little Luna," he said, and there was something dark in his tone that made my blood run cold even as I bled out.

Then he was lifting me, his arms sliding under my naked, broken body. The movement sent agony through every nerve but I couldn't even scream anymore.

"Jules," I mumbled against his chest, barely conscious. "My son... have to go back... both of them..."

He didn't respond. Just started walking, carrying me deeper into his territory. Away from the border. Away from any chance of escape.

My father's enemy held me in his arms and I was too weak to fight, too broken to resist. Whatever he planned to do with me, I was completely at his mercy.

And monsters didn't have mercy.

The last thing I felt before darkness claimed me was the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and the terrible certainty that I'd just traded one nightmare for another.