Chapter 1

Skye's POV

I stood in the dim laboratory, breathing in the sharp smell of herbs mixed with something metallic, probably blood. The witch doctor's workspace was a mess of shelves crammed with jars of weird liquids, dried plants hanging from the ceiling, and silver instruments that made my wolf want to claw her way out of my skin just from being near them.

But I wasn't here to be scared anymore.

"I want to test your drugs," I said.

The witch doctor's head jerked up from whatever he was working on. His eyes went wide when he saw who I was, one of the harem tributes. "But you're from the harem, I can't—"

"I'm already abandoned." I didn't let him finish. I looked right at him, not flinching, not caring. "Ask if you don't believe me."

He stopped, studying my face like he was trying to figure out if I was serious. After a long moment, he got up and walked out. I could hear him talking to someone in the hallway, his voice too low for me to catch the words.

When he came back, something had changed in his face.

"Very well," he said quietly, moving toward a locked cabinet in the corner. "But I must warn you—"

"I don't need warnings." My wolf was pacing inside me, restless and angry. We're done being careful.

The witch doctor pulled out two things. One was this small vial with deep blue liquid inside that kept swirling around even though nothing was shaking it. The other was a leather pouch with silvery-white powder that caught the candlelight and threw it back.

"The forget potion will erase all emotions tied to a person you choose," he said, holding up the blue vial between us. "You'll remember everything they did, but you won't feel anything anymore, no love, no pain."

God, yes. That was exactly what I needed. What I'd been desperate for since the moment I realized I couldn't survive this with my heart still intact.

"And the silver resistance?" I nodded at the pouch.

His whole expression shifted, got heavier. "It will allow your wolf to resist silver weapons. But we don't know the side effects. You could lose your ability to shift, or worse."

Worse than what I've already lost? I almost laughed, but the sound died somewhere in my throat.

I thought about the baby I'd cradled in my arms while it slipped away from me, too small and too early. I thought about my father and everyone I'd ever loved being marched off to die in someone else's war. I thought about five years of being nothing, of being used, of smiling and pretending and dying a little more inside every single day.

"I'll take them both," I said.

"Are you sure?" His hands were actually shaking a little as he put the containers down on the table. "Once you take it, there's no going back."

I reached for the leather pouch first, my fingers steady. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

The silver powder burned going down. It felt like I'd swallowed fire, like every vein in my body had been filled with molten metal. My wolf was howling, thrashing, but I clenched my jaw and took it. This pain was temporary. The pain of being weak, of knowing silver could always be used against me, that had been five years too long already.

When the burning finally died down to something I could breathe through, I picked up the blue vial. The liquid inside moved on its own, pulsing with something that didn't look natural or safe. I pulled out the cork and this strange smell filled the room.

This is it. The moment I take control back.

I closed my eyes and made myself picture his face. Those sharp angles, the eyes that never looked at me with anything real, the way his jaw got tight when he was pissed off. Axel Blackthorn. Every detail, every moment, every wound he'd given me.

I want to forget what I felt for you.

The liquid tasted like ashes and bitterness and the aftertaste of every regret I'd ever had. I forced myself to swallow all of it, feeling it slide down my throat cold enough to hurt.

Then my head exploded.

I gasped, stumbling back. The witch doctor grabbed my arm but I could barely register it. Everything blurred and suddenly I wasn't in the laboratory anymore. I was falling backward through time, through every memory, through five years that felt like they were being ripped out of me in reverse.

It's working... oh god, I can feel it... going all the way back...

To forget the end, we must return to the beginning.

I saw myself last week in his chambers, doing what I had to do, hating every second but doing it anyway. Three months ago finding out I was pregnant and feeling that stupid, dangerous hope that maybe things could be different. Five year ago learning how to hide my tears, how to smile when he looked my way.

Further back they went, and the feelings attached to each one started dimming, fading like lights going out one by one. The desperate love I'd tried to kill, the humiliation that had become normal, the twisted obsession that had replaced what the mate bond should have been, all of it was dissolving, disappearing, becoming nothing.

Until I reached where it all started.

Five years ago.

The sun was setting over Silvercrest Pack territory, throwing long shadows across everything. I was standing in our great hall with everyone else, and nobody was saying a word. You could see the fear and grief written all over their faces.

We'd lost. The battle had been fast and brutal and completely one-sided. Alpha Axel Blackthorn's forces had torn through our defenses so easily we might as well have been made of paper.

My father stood at the front, and his shoulders were bent in a way I'd never seen before. He'd gotten old in just a few days. The Alpha who used to stand tall and proud and unbreakable looked like someone had taken everything that made him strong and crushed it.

There was a messenger from the Shadow Moon Pack standing there, his face cold and blank like this was just another job to him. He unrolled this scroll.

"By order of Alpha Axel Blackthorn," the messenger said, "the Silvercrest Pack must offer a tribute, an unmated she-wolf of Alpha bloodline."

I felt everyone turn to look at me.