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EVE

I ’d always been worth more alive than dead.

In the human world, what they did to me would be considered sick. Depraved. Shocking.

In the Heraclid pack, that was just how things were for an oracle wolf with a ruthless fiancé and his merciless alpha father. They didn’t care about my life, only the visions I uttered under the influence of the Shadow Moon.

And this time was like every other summoning for a vision.

The crowd parted as I moved through the grove, eyes following me with the same awe and fear, as they always did. Many Heraclids were here, but the thousands-strong pack meant that many continued their work and didn’t have the luxury to attend this spiritual event. Some whispered as I passed, their words barely more than breaths—a quick prayer, a murmured question.

No one dared touch me, but as I walked by, someone leaned close and blew into my face—it was a strange, warped superstition, as though such a huff might mean the oracle would speak a vision in their favor.

I really wished they wouldn’t do that.

“Frigid bitch,” someone grumbled as I walked past. I turned to see it was the newest addition to the enforcers, a betrayer from another pack that Grayson had been only too happy to welcome.

“Even bitches can shift.” His enforcer companion spoke low, but a shifter’s hearing is extraordinary, even in human form. He’d wanted me to hear it. His tone was full of venom. “She’s something else .”

“Watch what you say,” a woman hissed, and my shoulders relaxed. Someone was on my side. In the Heraclid pack, almost no one came to my defense.

“Why should I?” the new enforcer challenged her.

“She’s an oracle , you dumbass.” The woman clucked her tongue. “Who knows what shit she might say about you once she’s up there, uttering prophecies?”

So much for standing up for me.

I should have known. Ever since I joined this pack, they’d seen me as an outsider, a freak—and a dangerous one at that. I was barely more than a girl when I came here, and my position in the pack was never truly affirmed. They all wear the mark of the Heraclid pack on their skin with pride. The mark on my forearm only ever appeared as a faint stain. Like it was an accident. Like even my own skin knew I’d never belong.

As I passed through the crowd, a hand slipped into mine, squeezing quickly before letting go. Kenza, her dark eyes fierce, fell in step beside me, murmuring just loudly enough for me to hear. “You look like you’re about to breathe fire.” She grinned. “Show those assholes what you’ve got.”

Kenza was a viper ready to strike at any given moment. She was the lead scout, tough as iron, with a quick wit and sailor mouth to match. I’d first met her when she’d tackled me while trying to keep me away from a border patrol route—back when I didn’t know the rules yet. She’d cursed me up and down for wandering where I didn’t belong, then showed me the trails herself, explaining where to walk and where to avoid if I wanted to keep my head attached to my body. She’d looked out for me ever since, protecting me when no one else dared to.

Her loyalty was bound only to her unbreakable code and her commitment to the Heraclids, and at the beginning, she was suspicious about my abilities. Fortunately for me, she believed me when I said that I was—like her—doing what I could to support the pack through sharing my visions. She truly believed the Heraclid pack would come around and accept me as one of them one day.

I wasn’t so sure.

Another bystander blew in my face, and I pushed away the flecks of spit that stuck to my cheek, never looking to the left nor right.

They could call me cold, icy, unfeeling.

I would never let them know that I felt everything .

A voice hissed, “What good is an oracle who won’t speak the curse we need from her?”

Kenza shot them a glare that could’ve peeled bark from a tree. “You better keep that tongue behind your teeth,” she spat. “Or I’ll rip it out for you.”

I held my head high, focusing on the platform ahead, a simple stone slab in the middle of the Blackthorn Grove where Alpha Grayson awaited my arrival. It sat in a circle of trees so twisted and heavy with ivy that the moonlight only managed to break through in thin, silvery threads. The shadows were deep here, dense and quiet, very different from the Heraclid city, which felt like a human city. The platform was where I was expected to stand, to give the thousands of Heraclid pack members what they had come for—a vision, a prophecy, a curse.

If only they knew how my power truly worked, they wouldn’t put me on this pedestal.

But being up here was what kept me alive. I knew what they did to oracle wolves in other packs. I’d heard the rumors. Caged, tortured, used and abused until they finally gave in to what their alpha demanded of them.

Yet, they were never killed. To do so would bring the wrath of the Shadow Moon down on their pack.

So they enslaved us—alive.

Please tell me Anwen is here. I scanned the crowd for her wrinkled face. If she had anything to say about it, the old healer would be in the front row, making sure I had a friend nearby. But her knees were giving out, and the Heraclids weren’t known for making accommodations.

There she is.

Wrapped in robes as she usually was—the dampness always seeping into her bones, so she said—Anwen made eye contact and nodded.

As I opened my mouth to greet her, a hot hand wrapped around my neck from behind. It traced down my spine until it reached the small of my back, and a familiar voice breathed into my ear .

“I hope you don’t disappoint tonight, Eve.”

Damian .

He brought his nose to my neck and inhaled, his breath warm and invasive, cascading over me. I forced myself not to recoil, knowing any reaction would only encourage him. Damian—Alpha Grayson’s son and my betrothed . Calling him that felt like a cruel joke. His hand slipped beneath the fabric at my back, fingertips brushing my bare skin in a way that made my pulse quicken with dread.

I was bound to him, obligated by the very rules of this pack. Every time he touched me, it felt like I was shrinking, being pulled further into the role I’d never wanted.

He was smiling, I was sure of it, even though I couldn’t see him. His satisfaction curled around me like a predator’s shadow.

“Disappoint?” I said, forcing my tone to stay dry. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I live to entertain.”

His smile turned into a sneer I heard in his words as he raised his hand back to my neck. “Entertain me , and maybe you’ll get to keep that sharp tongue of yours a little longer.” A nail pressed into my flesh and his hand began to shift into his wolf form—fingers elongating, the tips sharpening into claws that grazed the side of my neck. “Did you hear me?”

Damian’s claws pressed a little harder. I kept my face impassive, refusing to give him what he wanted.

“Fucking haughty oracle.” He spat on the ground by my feet.

The faintest rumble of my wolf stirred deep inside, a spark of anger ready to rise. Before I could even try to harness any of her power, the sensation died as quickly as it had come. My wolf was locked away, silenced by the command I’d been forced to obey ever since my mother abandoned me here, bound to follow orders.

Never to shift.

Damian snarled. “I ought to teach you a lesson in submission right here, right now. Let the entire pack see who truly owns you.”

His claw pierced the surface of my skin, the smallest trickle of blood running into the fabric of my white dress.

“I’d bet you’d even enjoy the humiliation, knowing the stock from which you come, precious oracle wolf.”

And he licked the blood from my neck.