Copyright & Disclaimer

Copyright © [2025] [EDEN BLACKWELL]. All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are purely the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or reallife events is purely coincidental.

This book contains mature themes, explicit content, and adult situations intended for readers 18 years and older. By purchasing or reading this material, you confirm that you are of legal age in your country or region.

All characters depicted in this book are consenting adults aged 18 or older. None of the characters are biologically or legally related. This work does not promote or condone nonconsensual activities, illegal relationships, or any form of reallife harm. It is solely a work of fiction intended for entertainment purposes only.

This book is protected under international copyright laws. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or articles.

The author and publisher assume no responsibility for misuse or misinterpretation of the content. Reader discretion is advised.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

CHAPTER ONE: EXPELLED OMEGA

The rain had a cruel sense of humor.

It slicked the iron gates of Mooncrest Academy like spit over a corpse, glinting red beneath the storm lamps that buzzed faintly with dying power. The sigil on the archway—wolf’s fang over crescent moon—flared as her boots crossed the threshold, like it remembered her.

It should. She’d been thrown out screaming.

Now she was back. And something in the ground itself seemed to tense with her return.

Evangeline didn’t walk. She prowled.

The wind curled fingers into her ink-black hair, tangling it around her jaw. She didn’t fix it. Let them see her as the storm had made her—soaked, silent, sharp-eyed like prey that bit back.

She hadn’t been here in almost a year, not since the Council declared her “unfit to bond,” her omega status revoked after the incident in the eastern chapel. After her howl shattered glass and bones and the illusion of control.

She remembered their faces. She remembered the scent of fear.

Now? She was summoned. No explanation. Just a sealed envelope delivered by a courier with bite marks on his neck and terror in his eyes.

Her scent had changed.

Her power was shifting.

And she knew—something had died to make room for her.

Mooncrest’s ancient stone buildings loomed ahead, their windows black and blind. The only light came from the tower where the Headmistress waited.

She passed students who paused mid-conversation. Laughter cut short. Eyes tracked her. Whispers slid down the hallway like oil.

“Is that her?”

“She’s not supposed to be here.”

“She’s the expelled one.”

One boy—a Beta by the color of his collar—sneered.

“Dead girl walking.”

Evangeline stopped. Turned.

The Beta flinched as her gaze met his. Her silence was deliberate. He bared his teeth, too fast, like a dog trained to snarl.

But he looked away first.

She smiled. Just enough to let him see the truth.

She remembered. Every. Single. One.

The Headmistress's office was too warm. It smelled of lavender and lies.

Behind a desk carved from darkwood, Headmistress Syra sat like a spider queen, all pale silk and rigid posture. Her face was still beautiful. Still deadly.

Her eyes were the only soft thing about her. And even they were dangerous.

"Evangeline," she said, her voice velvet over steel. "You've come."

"I was summoned."

"And you came. That, in itself, is interesting."

The door closed behind her with a finality that echoed in her chest. Evangeline didn't sit.

"Why now?"

The Headmistress stood, walking around the desk with the elegance of a dancer and the restraint of a killer. She held something in her hand—thin paper, folded. When she offered it, Evangeline didn’t move.

Syra placed it on the desk.

“Reclamation Week begins tonight. Four days. Four trials. If you succeed, you may reclaim what was lost.”

"And if I don't?"

A faint smile. "Then your death will be less... ritualized."

Evangeline’s fingers twitched. Her mark—once seared beneath her navel like a second heartbeat—flared, unseen, but no less present.

"Why me?"

"Because the Blood Moon returns in five nights. And something must be opened. Something... only you can open."

Evangeline’s voice was razor-thin.

"You want my gift."

"We want your survival. For now."

That smile again. As if survival and obedience were synonyms.

The paper on the desk unfurled. A name at the top.

Her name.

And beneath it—four more.

Ash. Ronan. Cassian. Vale.

Her new pack.

The words curled in her stomach like a nest of snakes.

“You’re assigning me to a pack?” she hissed.

“They volunteered.”

“Why?”

But she already knew.

Power. Control. Access to the omega with the ruined howl and the dangerous blood. They weren’t interested in redemption.

They wanted dominance. Or death.

The dormitory was colder than she remembered.

Stone walls. Iron bed. No windows. Only a mirror, polished to obsidian. She stared at her reflection.

Pale skin. Hollow cheeks. Lips bitten red. Her eyes... were different now.

Deeper. Wilder.

She didn't cry. Hadn't in months. The last time, she remembered biting her own fist to keep from howling.

Now, she sat on the bed and peeled off her coat. Her uniform was folded neatly on the end—Mooncrest colors, all black and silver. The scent on it wasn’t hers.

It was male.

Alpha.

Four different strands—one sharp like pepper and smoke, one cool like mint and steel, one honey-sweet and poisoned, and one… fire. Pure fire.

Ash.

Ronan.

Cassian.

Vale.

She stripped and dressed without shame. The fabric clung to her like memory, like belonging.

A knock.

Too late for visitors.

She opened the door.

The Alpha on the other side didn’t smile. His eyes were mismatched—one silver, one gold—and his body was too still.

"Ash."

His name was a warning.

He leaned on the doorframe like he owned it. Owned her.

"You missed dinner," he said.

"I wasn’t hungry."

He stared. Then leaned closer. Breathed in.

"You are."

Her body betrayed her. Heat curled low and traitorous. She didn’t step back.

"I’m not your plaything."

"Not yet," he murmured.

Then he was gone.

She didn’t sleep.

Too quiet. Too watched.

She knew what came next. The first trial would begin at dawn. Submission. That was always the start.

She curled into the sheets and closed her eyes.

But sleep was a luxury. And tonight, Mooncrest whispered beneath the stones.

It remembered her.

It wanted her back.

And blood would be the cost.

CHAPTER TWO: A SUMMONS FROM THE HEADMISTRESS

Dawn bled red across the spires of Mooncrest.

Evangeline stood at the edge of the training field, wind lifting her hair as the cold bit through her borrowed uniform. The sky above churned with stormlight, bruised and raw. Students circled around her like wolves, but none stepped too close. She wasn’t part of them anymore.

Not yet.

The Headmistress stood at the far end, flanked by four alphas—Ash, Ronan, Cassian, Vale. Shadows draped them like armor. Their presence turned the air electric.

Evangeline’s stomach twisted. Not from fear.

From fury.

Syra raised one elegant hand. “Today begins Reclamation Week. Four days. Four trials. Four chances to reclaim your place as an Omega of Mooncrest.”

Her voice echoed across the stone.

“You will be tested for power, for obedience, for loyalty, and for submission. Fail any trial, and your bond will be severed forever. The Veil demands strength. Not sentiment.”

The Veil.

There it was again—that word threaded like poison in the Headmistress’s mouth.

Evangeline stepped forward. Her voice was ice.

“And if I choose not to participate?”

A hush.

Then Syra’s smile—soft, cold.

“Then we take your gift. And your life ends where it should have, a year ago.”

No applause. No dramatics.

Just finality.

The wind howled through the trees. Evangeline nodded once.

“I’ll play your game.”

Syra's expression darkened, just for a moment.

Then she turned her gaze to the four alphas.

“Escort her to the Sanctum.”

The walk to the Sanctum was silent. Ash walked in front, his shoulders broad beneath the black leather of his academy coat. Cassian flanked her left—tall, lethal, with a profile cut like a blade. Ronan drifted behind her like smoke, silent, unreadable. And Vale… Vale didn’t walk.

He watched.

He studied her.

Every step she took, she felt his eyes on her spine like fingers pressed too gently to be innocent.

Inside the Sanctum, the air changed.

It smelled like musk and magic. Dark, old magic.

The space was circular, walls lined with carved wolves and moons and something older—something that moved when she looked too long.

A single chair sat in the center.

A collar rested on its seat.

Ash stepped forward. “Trial One: Submission.”

The words tasted like rot in her ears.

“Put on the collar,” he said, voice flat.

Evangeline stared at it. Her throat pulsed. No one moved.

Cassian’s voice cut through the tension like steel.

“On your knees.”

She turned her head. Slowly. His eyes met hers. So cold.

So sure.

He wasn’t testing her.

He was daring her.

“I’m not your bitch,” she said quietly.

Ronan's lip twitched, the ghost of a smirk.

Ash stepped forward, eyes dark. “This isn’t a choice.”

“It always is.”

Then she moved.

She took the collar in one hand. Raised it. Felt the weight of it.

Then dropped it.

The echo was thunder in the room.

“No,” she said.

Cassian’s growl was pure threat. “You refuse?”

Her smile was jagged. “I don’t kneel to strangers.”

And then Ash grabbed her.

It wasn’t a gentle touch. It was dominance, raw and fast.

His fingers curled into her wrist and yanked. Her back hit the stone, hard. She gasped, but didn’t break.

He straddled her hips, body pinning hers. His scent hit her like fire—smoke, cinder, something burning from the inside out.

“You think this is about control?” he hissed. “You don’t have control. Not here. Not anymore.”

Her thighs tightened under him, and still she didn’t struggle. “Then prove it.”

Silence.

Then—slowly, deliberately—Ash pressed his weight down. His body hard, hot, devastating. His nose brushed her throat. She felt his breath. His lips.

Her heart stuttered.

“Your scent,” he whispered. “It’s different.”

She didn’t speak.

“You shouldn’t be aroused.”

She was.

Her pulse pounded. Her body betrayed her again, the sweet ache of heat stirring deep. He felt it—his hips jerked, involuntary.

And that made her smile.

Ash growled.

Then he leaned down—mouth brushing hers.

“You want control?” he said darkly. “Then take it.”

She moved.

Her teeth grazed his lower lip—not gently.

He jerked back, eyes burning.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“You’re already tempted.”

He stood, breath ragged, face unreadable. He turned to Syra, who’d appeared in the doorway like a wraith.

“She refused.”

Syra raised one brow.

“Then she passes.”

Later, back in the dorm, Evangeline sat on the edge of her bed, breathing like she’d run a mile. Her lips still tingled. Her body thrummed.

The first trial was over.

And she’d won without kneeling.

But she knew the others wouldn’t be so simple.

A knock.

This time, it was Vale.

He didn’t speak.

Just held out a slip of parchment.

She took it. Unfolded.

Trial Two: Choose one Alpha to sleep beside. Without being touched.

She looked up.

Vale’s smile was razor-sharp.

“Choose wisely.”

CHAPTER THREE: WHISPERS IN THE HALLS

The parchment still lay in her lap.

She hadn’t moved for nearly an hour.

Choose one Alpha. Share a bed. No touching.

It was a riddle wrapped in provocation. Designed to twist instincts against discipline. To make her falter—not physically, but psychically. Emotionally. The mark of an omega wasn’t in how she bent—it was how she endured not bending.

Evangeline stared at the stone wall across from her, eyes heavy with sleeplessness, skin still humming from Ash’s heat. The memory of his body straddling hers. The weight. The scent. The moment where she could have broken—and didn’t.

They would test her again.

But this test was a different beast entirely.

This one wanted her soft.

Vale met her outside the dorm at dusk.

No words. No smile this time.

He simply offered his arm. Like a gentleman. Like a predator dressed in velvet.

She took it.

His sleeve was lined in crimson thread—a detail she hadn’t noticed before. And beneath the thread, she sensed it again.

The hunger.

The walk through the east wing was quiet. Too quiet. Students parted when they saw her. Not out of respect.

Out of fear.

“She’s the rejected one.”

“She didn’t wear the collar.”

“She made Ash hard. I saw it.”

The whispers curled around her like a living thing. Shame? No. She felt none.

Only fuel.

Let them talk.

She was building a legend.

Vale’s room was nothing like she expected.

It wasn’t cold. Or austere. Or lined with trophies like she imagined Ronan’s might be.

It was warm. Cluttered. Filled with books and strange relics, jars of herbs, dried petals hung from the ceiling like an apothecary in mourning. A bed sat beneath a canopy of dark velvet, unmade and huge. Too big for one person.

He closed the door behind them. Slowly. No rush. No threat.

Then he turned.

“You chose me.”

She shrugged. “Better the wolf I don’t know than the one I already want to bite.”

He laughed. A low, startling sound.

“Honest,” he murmured. “Dangerous.”

“I didn’t come to talk.”

She crossed the room and sat on the bed. The sheets were warm, faintly spiced. His scent was everywhere—amber, ink, something darker underneath.

Vale moved to the far side of the bed without another word. Removed his coat. His boots. But not the rest.

When he slipped under the covers beside her, the mattress shifted.

She lay still. Rigid. Listening.

Her body responded faster than her mind. The nearness. The scent. The male heat beside her.

She clenched her thighs. Willed her mind quiet.

Vale didn’t move. Didn’t reach.

But his breathing… changed.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours.

Then:

“I know what you are,” he said quietly.

Her eyes opened.

“And what’s that?”

“Not just omega.”

She rolled to her side. His face was shadowed, but his eyes glowed faintly in the dark. “Then what?”

His lips curved. “A key.”

“To what?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he reached out—slow, careful.

Not to touch her.

To touch the mark beneath her navel. Hovering.

Her breath hitched.

“I won’t touch,” he said. “But I can listen.”

And then he whispered.

Not words.

Something older.

Something that made her skin goose with memory she didn’t own.

Her pulse raced.

“Stop,” she said.

He did.

Silence fell again.

He rolled onto his back.

“You should sleep,” he murmured.

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

She did.

Not because she trusted him.

Because her body had spent the last forty-eight hours running on fire and vengeance. It needed the dark. The closeness. The lie of safety.

When she woke, it was to warmth.

Liquid, slow, shameful warmth.

Her thighs were damp. Her body pulsed with the aftershocks of a dream she couldn’t remember.

But she knew the cause.

Vale was still beside her. Still unmoving.

But his jaw was tight.

His nostrils flared.

“You dream loud,” he said.

She sat up, mortified.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I don’t have to.” His eyes met hers. “Your scent betrays you.”

She burned.

Internally. Everywhere.

“Then get out,” she snapped.

He stood. Dressed. Still no gloating.

But as he opened the door, he paused.

“I didn’t touch you.”

“I know.”

“But you wanted me to.”

She didn’t answer.

And that was her answer.

Later, when she stepped into the hallway, the air felt thicker. Alive with judgment. Whispers slithered toward her from the corners.

“She slept in Vale’s bed.”

“She’s already marked. Just not officially.”

“I heard she soaked through the sheets.”

Evangeline didn’t flinch.

She walked like she’d never heard them. Like she belonged.

Like a queen returning from exile.

Trial Two was over.

And she'd passed again.

But desire had teeth.

And soon, someone was going to bite.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE NEW ALPHA PACK

The mess hall was a cathedral of dominance.

Long tables. Stone columns. The Mooncrest crest carved deep into the walls—always watching. Always judging. The scent in the air was thick with testosterone and hierarchy. Burnt coffee. Charred meat. Slick heat.

Evangeline stepped through the archway, and the temperature dropped.

A hundred heads turned. Voices stilled. Utensils froze midair.

She felt the snap of gazes like cold teeth on her throat.

There were rules here. Pack dynamics. Territory markers. Alpha zones.

And she was walking in alone.

Untethered. Unclaimed.

Yet.

The table in the back wasn’t full—but it was occupied.

Four figures. All Alpha. All trouble.

Ash leaned back in his chair like a throne. Black shirt rolled to his elbows. Tattoos coiled around his forearms like shadows with secrets.

Ronan flanked him, half-asleep and half-deadly. He never blinked. Not once.

Cassian carved into his steak like it was an enemy. His jaw clenched in time with each cut.

And Vale…

Vale was watching her already.

Like he knew.

Like he’d never stopped.

She didn’t look away.

She walked to their table with the confidence of someone too furious to care. Her tray dropped with a crack.

No one offered her a seat.

She took one anyway.

Silence stretched like a noose.

Ash broke it.

“You smell different this morning.”

“Dreams,” Vale said, not looking at anyone but her. “Good ones.”

Her cheeks flamed. Her core tightened.

Cassian dropped his knife.

“Rules say we don’t touch during Trial Two,” he said coldly.

“No one touched me.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “You sure?”

“I’d remember.”

Ronan tilted his head. “Would you?”

Her hands curled into fists under the table.

“This isn’t a game,” she said.

“No,” Ash replied. “It’s a hunt.”

Later, she was summoned to the Arena.

The training rings were made of stone and heat and the memory of broken bones.

Evangeline stood alone in the circle.

The four Alphas leaned against the railing, watching her.

Headmistress Syra’s voice rang out.

“Each of you will engage the Omega in combat training. Observe her instincts. Her control. Her submission reflex.”

Evangeline’s lip curled.

Ash dropped into the ring first.

He didn’t draw a blade. Just cracked his neck and stared at her like she was something raw and bleeding.

“You want to learn control?” he said.

“No,” she whispered. “I want to learn how to kill you.”

He laughed. A low, wicked sound.

Then lunged.

He was faster.

But she was angrier.

She dodged, spun, elbowed. Caught him off-balance once—only once—but it was enough.

Her knee slammed into his thigh. He grunted. Grabbed her wrist.

And then he spun her, slammed her to the ground, and pressed his body down over hers like a full-body brand.

“You can’t win,” he growled into her ear.

Her breath hitched.

“You think this is winning?” she rasped.

His hips ground into hers. She gasped. Her legs opened—reflex.

“You’re wet,” he murmured. “You want me to break you here, now, in front of them?”

“I want you to try.”

And then she bucked.

He lost balance. She rolled him. Landed on top.

Their faces inches apart.

“I’m not yours,” she hissed.

“Yet.”

Trial ended.

No verdict given. Just the knowledge in their eyes—that she was changing the rules.

One of the Alphas would break first.

They all knew it.

And when they did, it would be violent.

And it would be hers.

That night, her room wasn’t empty.

Cassian was there when she opened the door. Sitting in the dark.

No invitation.

No apology.

Just this:

“You make too much noise,” he said. “In the hall. In the ring. In his bed.”

She closed the door behind her.

“I didn’t come to beg.”

“No. You came to bleed.”

He stood.

She didn’t move.

He stalked toward her, stopping inches away. The scent of iron and fury rolled off him.

“You’re not special.”

Her chin lifted. “You’re not Alpha enough to scare me.”

And then he kissed her.

Not soft. Not kind.

Claiming. Harsh.

His mouth devoured hers like punishment, teeth dragging her lower lip, tongue forcing entrance. She gasped, and he drank it in.

His hands were everywhere. Her hips. Her throat. Her breast.

Then they were gone.

He stepped back, chest rising like a beast caged too long.

“We’re not done,” he said.

“No,” she whispered.

“We’ve barely begun.”

When the door clicked shut behind him, Evangeline collapsed to the bed.

Her fingers trembled.

Not from fear.

From need.

This pack—they weren’t a choice.

They were a crucible.

And she was already burning.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE BLOOD ON THE STONE

The dream came with teeth.

Fangs, silver-tipped and dripping, closing around her throat. A flash of velvet-black eyes. Hands—too many, too rough—pulling her down into red. Always red.

Evangeline woke with her thighs slick, the sheets twisted like bindings around her legs. Her heart stammered in her chest.

Mooncrest was changing her. Or maybe it was waking what had always slept inside her.

She dressed in silence. Ignored the new bruises on her throat—Cassian’s marks, not quite bites, but something near enough.

They hadn’t spoken since that kiss.

They hadn’t needed to.

There were places in the academy that didn’t appear on maps.

Mooncrest had stood for over six hundred years, and its bones were ancient—soaked in blood and secrets. Most students knew better than to go digging.

But Evangeline had never been good at obedience.

She followed the pull—deep in her gut, beneath her ribs, like something half-forgotten whispering directions in her veins. It led her through the library’s rear archives, down the forbidden spiral behind the tapestry of the mourning wolf.

No one stopped her.

Maybe they couldn’t see her.

Maybe she wasn’t entirely here anymore.

The corridor was tight. Stone and mildew. The scent of iron clung to the air, sharp and heavy.

Her birthmark throbbed.

There was a door ahead. Old. Sealed with waxes in six languages, symbols etched into its surface like prayers and curses twisted together.

Her fingers hovered over the center.

The carving there wasn’t just familiar—it was hers.

A mirror of the sigil below her navel.

Her skin burned. The mark pulsed.

She touched it.

And the door unsealed.

The chamber beyond wasn’t large. It wasn’t meant to be.

It was a sanctum.

And on the floor—etched in white stone—was a circle of runes. Dried blood filled each groove.

Fresh.

Too fresh.

She stepped into the center, heart racing, breath shallow.

The room hummed.

Her body responded like a tuning fork. Heat rose between her legs, inexplicable and unwanted.

She crouched down and pressed her fingers to the grooves.

Warm.

Still wet.

She brought her fingers up—sniffed.

Not hers. Not Alpha.

Not even Beta.

Omega.

But not alive anymore.

She stood slowly.

Whispers rose from the walls, curling words around her ears.

“Open the Veil...”

“She returns...”

“Crimson-born...”

Her spine stiffened.

The Veil.

She'd heard that word too many times now.

Something inside her coiled tighter with every breath.

This room wasn't just for rituals.

It was a lock.

And she might be the key.

Back in the dorm, she didn’t speak.

She barely moved.

Until a knock shattered the silence.

Ash.

He didn’t ask to come in. Just entered.

He saw her face. The stillness. The heat beneath her skin barely leashed.

“What did you find?”

She didn’t answer.

He crossed the room in two steps, grabbed her chin, tilted her head.

“I can smell the blood,” he growled.

Her eyes flared. “You think I spilled it?”

“No.” He paused. “I think it called to you.”

Their breaths mingled.

She didn’t move away.

Neither did he.

Ash’s fingers slid lower, brushing the skin just above her heart.

“I want to see your mark.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because if you see it, you’ll want to use it.”

Ash's jaw ticked.

“Too late.”

He bent—his mouth grazing her throat.

She shivered.

“I should stop,” he murmured. “But I want to taste what’s mine.”

“You’re not my Alpha.”

“Then why are you panting?”

She shoved him back. Hard.

He let her.

But the heat lingered.

The storm didn’t break. It just coiled.

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

Again.

Instead, she returned to the chamber. Alone.

She stood in the center of the blood-stained circle and stared at the stone.

Then she knelt.

Just once.

Not for them.

For what came next.

For the part of her that was still waking.

And when her mark flared, searing hot, she didn’t scream.

She smiled.

The stone below her pulsed.

And from deep within Mooncrest, something ancient stirred.

Something hungry.

CHAPTER SIX: FIRST NIGHT, FIRST BITE

The heat came like a whisper.

It started low—between her legs, where the pulse beat fast and hot. A slow throb that wasn’t quite pain, wasn’t quite pleasure. It crawled up her spine like a fever, settled behind her ribs, and spread like smoke beneath her skin.

Evangeline gripped the edge of the basin in the dormitory washroom, knuckles white, breathing sharp.

She’d felt arousal before.

This wasn’t arousal.

This was need.

Her eyes burned in the mirror. Sweat beaded at her temples. Her body was primed for something it shouldn’t crave. Something it should resist.

Her first heat had been forcibly suppressed by the Council after her expulsion. Her cycles chemically caged.

But now?

The suppression had worn off.

And Mooncrest was scenting her again.

She shoved open the door, the cool air of the corridor hitting her like a slap. Her legs were unsteady. Her skin—too tight, too aware.

She needed cold.

Or distance.

Or chains.

She didn’t make it two steps before she collided with him.

Ronan.

His hands closed around her arms instantly.

She went rigid—caught in the heat and the scent of him.

Ronan didn’t speak.

He just breathed.

And his nostrils flared as the scent hit him.

Her scent.

The one she couldn’t hide.

The one screaming omega in heat.

His jaw clenched. His fingers spasmed around her wrists.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

She backed away—tried to.

He followed.

Not with words.

With presence.

Predatory. Silent.

“Don’t,” she rasped.

His eyes glowed in the dark.

“I can smell you.”

“Then walk away.”

His pupils dilated. His body shook with restraint.

“You think I want to?”

“You have to.”

“No.” His voice was a growl now. “I want to bite.”

She turned to flee.

He was faster.

She hit the wall hard—his body pinning hers, thigh slotted between her legs. She gasped.

His mouth hovered near her throat.

“You don’t want this,” she said. But her body told a different story—arching, slick, trembling.

“I do.” His voice was jagged. “I’ve been trying not to want it.”

His lips brushed her mark.

She whimpered.

Her nails scraped the stone.

He inhaled again—deep, greedy.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “You smell like you’re already mine.”

Her voice broke.

“I’m not.”

And then his teeth grazed skin.

And she didn’t move.

The first bite wasn’t deep.

Just enough to mark.

Just enough to claim.

Her world exploded.

Pleasure tore through her like fire. She cried out, arching, hips grinding against his. The bite pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

Ronan cursed.

She expected him to finish it—to knot her, fuck her, take what the heat demanded.

Instead, he pulled back.

His eyes were black with control.

Barely.

“You’re not ready.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t lie.”

Her knees buckled.

He caught her.

Held her for a second too long.

Then walked away.

Later, alone in her room, she traced the bite on her shoulder.

It was red. Raised. Glowing faintly.

A bond mark.

Incomplete.

But real.

Her first.

Not chosen.

Not consented.

Just taken.

And she hadn’t stopped him.

Because she hadn’t wanted to.

The door opened again, hours later.

She thought it might be Ronan returning.

It wasn’t.

Cassian stepped through. Locked the door behind him.

Saw the mark.

Growled.

“You let him bite you.”

“I didn’t let—”

“You’re mine.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t deny it.

“I’m not your anything,” she said.

His eyes were fire.

“We’ll see.”

He didn’t kiss her this time.

He didn’t need to.

His gaze promised everything.

War.

Claim.

Obsession.

When he left, she was still shaking.

Not from fear.

From anticipation.

Three Alphas watched her now.

Two had already touched her.

One had drawn blood.

And her heat had only just begun.

Mooncrest wouldn’t wait.

And neither would they.

CHAPTER SEVEN: TRIAL ONE: SUBMISSION

The bell tolled.

Its sound rolled across the academy grounds like thunder—low, reverberating, final. Evangeline felt it in her bones. In her teeth.

In the bond mark on her shoulder, still tender from Ronan’s bite.

She stood in the circle of the southern yard, the sky above her a dull, bruised gray, the air thick with the scent of power and dominance. The Trial Yard had been swept clean, but the blood beneath the stone had never left. She could feel it whispering underfoot.

This was where they broke the unbonded.

This was where they tested obedience.

Headmistress Syra stood at the edge of the ring in her usual pale silks, hair pinned, mouth unsmiling.

“Submission,” she said, her voice magnified by magic. “The first and most sacred trial. Not for humiliation. Not for pain. For clarity. The Omega must prove she can yield.”

Evangeline’s jaw locked.

“I don’t yield,” she murmured.

Cassian stepped forward, cloak billowing. He didn’t wear his Academy crest today. He didn’t need it.

He wore Alpha.

The others flanked the yard. Ash—lean, predatory, eyes like twin infernos. Vale—coiled elegance, lips twisted with unreadable amusement. Ronan—watchful, silent, his eyes fixed on her like she might vanish if he blinked.

Syra gestured.

“Cassian will begin.”

He didn’t speak as he entered the ring.

Didn’t posture.

Didn’t threaten.

He just looked at her.

Like she was already on her knees.

She squared her shoulders, nostrils flaring.

“I’m not going to kneel.”

“I know,” he said calmly.

“Then what is this?”

Cassian’s smirk was slow, cruel, calculated.

“This is where I make you.”

He moved with terrifying grace—one step, then another, until the space between them was nothing. His hand touched her jaw—not gently. He forced her chin up.

“Say my name.”

“No.”

His thumb dragged across her bottom lip.

“Cassian,” he whispered. “Say it, and this ends.”

She spat at his boots.

He didn’t flinch.

Instead, he grabbed her by the waist, spun her around, shoved her to her knees.

Her palms hit the cold stone. The wind whipped through her hair.

He leaned over her, breath hot against her neck.

“You think this is about pain?” he murmured. “It’s about truth.”

His fingers slid beneath her collar. Tugged. Tore.

The uniform top peeled back. The mark Ronan left gleamed in the gray light.

Cassian’s growl was feral.

“You let him mark you?”

“He didn’t finish it.”

“I will.”

And then his mouth was on her.

The bite came low, just beneath the first—deliberate. He didn’t pierce deep. Just enough to make her feel.

Her breath hitched.

Her thighs clenched.

The ache bloomed.

Heat surged so violently her vision blurred.

“Your body begs,” he said darkly. “But your pride refuses.”

She pushed up—elbowed him.

He caught her wrist before she made contact.

“You want this.”

She stared into his eyes.

“I want you dead.”

He smiled.

“Good. That’ll make it better.”

Suddenly, the world tilted.

She was on her back, wrists pinned above her head. Cassian straddled her hips, his weight crushing.

He leaned down.

“I’m not going to fuck you.”

“Then what—”

“I’m going to break you.”

His voice was velvet and knives.

Her heart pounded.

His mouth found her throat. Lingered. Nipped.

Her hips bucked—unwilling. Uncontrolled.

And she hated herself for the moan that slipped.

Cassian froze.

Pulled back.

Stared.

“You felt that.”

“No.”

“You did.”

His grip loosened.

And she struck.

Her knee rammed up, catching his hip. He snarled.

But she was already up—standing, shaking, furious.

“I’ll never submit,” she spat.

Syra’s voice echoed from the edge of the circle.

“Then the trial is failed.”

The yard held its breath.

Ash stepped forward.

“No.”

Syra raised an eyebrow.

“She didn’t yield.”

Ash walked to Evangeline, stared her down, and then dropped to one knee.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Cassian’s growl echoed behind them.

“She didn’t yield,” Ash said, “because submission is a choice. And she chose defiance. That’s still a choice.”

Syra’s eyes gleamed.

“Interesting.”

“She made me kneel,” Ash added. “What more proof of power do you want?”

There was silence.

Then the Headmistress spoke:

“Trial passed.”

Later, back in her room, Evangeline stared at the two marks on her skin.

Ronan. Cassian.

Not full bonds.

Not yet.

But close.

And each pulse from them made her shiver.

Ash’s kneel haunted her.

Vale’s silence worried her.

She was being changed.

Trial by trial.

Touch by touch.

And soon?

She wouldn’t be able to stop it.

CHAPTER EIGHT: ASH’S FIRE

The training ring stank of sweat, steel, and lust.

It wasn’t the sterile scent of discipline—it was the raw, slick musk of combat, blood, and unsated need. Mooncrest’s lower arena—the inner ring, reserved for bond trials and sanctioned dominance displays—was soaked in legacy and layered with rules designed to push every primal nerve.

Evangeline stood in the center, chest heaving from exertion, her palms slick. Her uniform clung to her like second skin, soaked in heat-sweat and fury.

She’d been paired with a second-year Alpha—some smug legacy brat from House Thorne—who’d tried to force her to kneel again during a mock duel.

He left on a stretcher, two ribs cracked, face bleeding.

The onlookers hadn’t jeered.

They’d stared.

She was changing the game.

And that made her dangerous.

Which meant, of course, that they’d send him next.

Ash stepped into the ring without ceremony.

His eyes found her. Pierced her. Burned her.

He wore a black shirt again—tight across his chest, rolled at the sleeves. Veins visible, jaw tight.

But this wasn’t the same Ash.

This was the Alpha.

The one who didn’t answer to the Academy. Who didn’t care about protocols or outcomes or rules.

The one who watched her like a meal wrapped in silk.

Syra’s voice floated over the comms:

“Training match. Non-lethal. No blades. Alpha-on-Omega restraint permitted. Trial record enabled.”

Evangeline spat to the side.

She was done being restrained.

Ash didn’t start with words.

He lunged.

She moved too—fast, practiced, her limbs already tuned to the rhythm of his body. But he anticipated it. Caught her ankle mid-spin. Yanked.

She went down hard, gasping, and then he was on her.

His thighs locked around hers. His weight pressed her hips down. His hands pinned her wrists to the stone.

She arched—furious.

“Get off.”

“No,” he growled.

Their noses touched.

“This isn’t about power anymore.”

She twisted. He shifted.

Now his thigh was between hers, high and hot, pressed directly against her sex.

Her breath caught.

He felt it.

He grinned.

“That’s the problem,” he whispered. “You don’t know what to do with fire.”

She growled—yes, growled—and shoved up with everything she had. He held.

“You want to control me?” she hissed.

He dipped his head, lips brushing her ear.

“No,” he said. “I want to ruin you.”

And then he ground his thigh forward.

The pressure sent a shockwave through her spine. She cried out, hips bucking.

The ring went silent. Watching.

Ash didn’t stop.

He rolled his hips against her, letting her feel his erection against her thigh—hard, heavy, restrained.

“Say my name,” he demanded.

“Never.”

“Then I’ll make you come without it.”

She tried to deny it.

But her body betrayed her again.

Heat surged. Her nipples ached under the fabric. Her clit throbbed with need. She could smell herself—and so could he.

“Say it,” he growled.

She bit her lip.

“Fuck. You.”

He leaned in, lips against her throat now, biting—not breaking skin, but close.

His voice was a furnace in her ear.

“I’m going to knot you in front of them.”

Her scream was a shock to even herself.

He hadn't moved.

Hadn’t touched her beyond the pressure.

But she came.

Hard.

Painfully.

She trembled beneath him, her body shuddering in waves of release she hadn’t wanted, hadn’t asked for, hadn’t expected.

Ash pulled back, eyes wild now. Scent high and thick around them.

The crowd watched in stunned silence.

He stood.

“Trial over,” he said.

And then—eyes still locked on her trembling form—he turned and walked away.

Syra’s voice, after a long silence, echoed overhead.

“Trial passed.”

Later, she found herself alone in the locker room.

Still shaking.

Still throbbing.

Ash had dominated her without a single stroke. Without stripping her. Without marking her.

But she felt marked.

Ruined.

Worse?

She wanted more.

The door slammed.

She turned.

Ash.

His shirt was off now. His eyes blistering.

He didn’t ask.

He didn’t wait.

He grabbed her—lifted her, shoved her back against the lockers, mouth crashing to hers.

She moaned, and he devoured it.

His tongue pushed past her lips—demanding. His hand yanked her uniform down. Her breasts spilled free.

His mouth covered one nipple, biting, sucking.

“Stop,” she gasped.

“No.”

He dropped her. Pulled his pants down.

His cock was thick. Heavy. Leaking.

“No knot,” she whispered.

“I didn’t say I’d fuck you.”

And then he grabbed her hand, forced it around his length.

“Make me come,” he ordered.

She stared at him.

“Now.”

Her fingers began to move.

He didn’t last long.

Her grip, her heat, her scent—it broke him.

He came with a roar, head thrown back, hips jerking into her palm.

Hot ropes across her wrist.

He looked down at her, chest heaving.

“You still think I’m weak?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered.

“But I’m not broken either.”

He stepped closer.

“I didn’t knot you tonight.”

“But I will.”

And when he left her—messy, dazed, still aching—she knew:

He was right.

She’d never burn hotter than when it was Ash on the other end of the match.

CHAPTER NINE: THE FORBIDDEN ROOM

The key wasn’t meant to fit.

Not for her.

Not for anyone.

But when Evangeline touched it—old brass, warm from the pocket she’d taken it from Vale’s coat—it clicked into the ancient lock like fate.

A hiss escaped the seams of the iron door.

No creak. No protest. Just surrender.

She paused at the threshold. The air beyond was cold, damp, and saturated with the scent of time. Moss. Ash. Bone.

A place that breathed memory.

The corridor behind the door spiraled downward, torch sconces dark, walls lined with carvings that pulsed beneath her fingertips.

She pressed one.

It glowed red.

The same deep red as her mark.

It shouldn’t have.

This part of the Academy didn’t exist on any map. No patrols. No wards. It had been closed off for over a century—sealed after the last “Veil Incident,” as whispered by those who remembered Mooncrest’s darker chapters.

But the whispers in the hall had led her here.

The old, bloodstained stone had pointed.

And the runes carved into the forbidden door?

They matched the shape of the mark between her hips.

Perfectly.

The hallway opened into a chamber that swallowed sound.

It was vast. Circular. Lined in obsidian mirrors, floor carved into a massive ritual circle.

Her breath fogged in the cold.

She stepped forward, eyes drawn to the center.

There, etched into the stone, was a series of glyphs arranged in a spiral, some glowing faintly. Her birthmark throbbed in time with the light.

She knelt. Traced a glyph.

Her vision blurred.

Suddenly, she was no longer alone.

The room shimmered.

And a figure stood at the edge of the circle.

Male.

Tall.

Unmistakably Alpha.

But not one of hers.

Not Ash, not Cassian, not Ronan, not Vale.

This one was shadow-made, his body outlined in red, eyes glowing void-black. Smoke coiled around his form.

He stepped forward, barefoot, shirtless, unmarked by the Academy.

Her heart slammed in her chest.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

His voice curled like smoke.

“You unlocked the Sanctum.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“But you did.”

He moved closer. She couldn’t move.

Her body was frozen, lungs unable to fill fully, but heat coiled low in her belly as his gaze burned through her. Not lust.

Something older.

He stepped into the circle.

And knelt.

Then whispered:

"Crimson-born."

The room pulsed.

Power licked her skin like a lover’s breath.

She staggered back, breaking the circle’s edge. The figure vanished, sucked into shadow with a sound like bones snapping under water.

She collapsed to her knees, gasping, heart wild.

Her fingers glowed faintly. Her pulse throbbed in her wrists.

The runes on the floor?

Now etched on her palms.

Permanently.

Later, back in her dorm, she scrubbed her skin raw.

The marks remained.

She didn’t tell anyone.

Not Ash.

Not Vale.

Not even Cassian, whose eyes had tracked her like prey every time they passed in the halls since the training ring.

But Vale knew.

He didn’t need to see her hands.

He just stepped close as she passed, and whispered:

“You found it.”

She didn’t deny it.

He smiled.

“Good.”

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

She curled beneath the covers, naked, hot, the sheets tangled around her legs.

And still, she dreamed.

Not of the four.

Not of trials.

Of the figure in the circle.

The way he knelt.

The way he called her name without lips.

When she woke, she was slick between her thighs.

And the glyphs on her palms glowed in the dark.

CHAPTER TEN: FLASHBACK TO THE EXPULSION

The screams came first.

Not hers.

Theirs.

Professors. Betas. An Alpha bond-instructor whose face she couldn’t remember but whose terror had been unforgettable—raw, primal, unforgiving.

Then the silence that followed—the kind only blood could buy.

Evangeline stood in the center of the chapel as if gravity had abandoned her. Stone shards littered the floor. The altar was cracked down the center, white petals from the ritual offering scattered like snow around her bare feet. One of the stained-glass windows still wept light—fractured, unnatural.

The rest were shattered.

Like them.

Her throat throbbed from the scream she’d loosed. A sound that had broken bone and law, glass and expectation.

A sound no Omega was ever supposed to make.

And it hadn’t been a scream.

Not truly.

It was a howl.

Headmistress Syra entered with slow, gliding steps, flanked by two enforcers.

Her heels clicked. The sound echoed.

“You broke the ritual,” she said.

Evangeline didn’t speak.

“You disobeyed command. You harmed three instructors. You exposed your power—publicly.”

Still, silence.

Syra's eyes flared with something half-reverent, half-afraid.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

Evangeline’s voice was barely audible. “I didn’t learn it.”

“Then what?”

“I am it.”

The two enforcers stiffened. One touched the hilt of his restraint collar.

Syra raised a hand.

“No. We won’t collar her.” Her lips curled. “That’s too easy.”

They stripped her of her rank.

Of her scent certification.

They took her room, her robes, her Omega status.

Declared her a rogue.

Unbondable.

Untamed.

Unwanted.

No trial. No appeal.

One day, she was the Academy’s brightest prospect.

The next, she was nothing.

They didn’t let her say goodbye.

To anyone.

Not to the friend who tried to defend her and earned a broken rib for it. Not to the Alpha who once swore he'd claim her when the time came. He’d watched from a window as they dragged her out, his expression unreadable.

She never saw him again.

Not then.

The carriage that took her from Mooncrest smelled like rust and regret.

She rode for hours. Days, maybe.

Ended up in the backwoods of Noctvale, living in a dilapidated boarding house meant for “fallen Omegas.” It wasn’t a place—it was a warning. A grave for girls with marks that didn’t glow right.

She worked in a healer’s hut for coin, cleaned blood from floors for food. Kept her head down.

But she never stopped remembering.

That sound.

That howl.

The way it had rolled out of her like a birthright. The way it had made grown Alphas cower. The way it had shattered everything.

And deep in her bones, even while the world forgot her name…

She knew they’d call her back.

Because no one could ignore that kind of power forever.

When the letter finally came—sealed in wax, stamped with Mooncrest’s sigil and a blood-thread ribbon—her hands had trembled.

Not from fear.

From hunger.

It wasn’t just an invitation.

It was a challenge.

Now, standing in her dorm with moonlight pouring through the open window, Evangeline let herself remember all of it.

The stone altar.

The broken vow.

The sound of her own howl—splitting her chest open.

She pressed her palms to the windowsill.

Felt the glyphs burned into her skin throb again.

This time, she didn’t hide them.

She watched them glow.

The howl hadn’t been her mistake.

It was her origin.

And the next time it tore from her lungs?

Someone was going to die.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: TRIAL TWO: LOYALTY OR LUST

The second trial was whispered through the halls before the sun even broke the sky.

Not announced.

Not scheduled.

Just expected.

Mooncrest had a way of twisting time—compressing hours, expanding pressure, warping space into something intimate and unrelenting. The air this morning was heavy, like it had already decided who would break.

Trial Two.

Loyalty or Lust.

Choose one Alpha to lie beside until dawn.

No touching.

No bonding.

Just heat. Tension. Control.

The whispers followed Evangeline through the halls like perfume.

“She’ll pick Ash.”

“No, Cassian—he already marked her.”

“Ronan bit her. It has to be him.”

But she didn’t pick the obvious.

She picked Vale.

His door creaked open before she could knock.

He was shirtless. Again. Every time she saw him like that, it felt like a test—and she was tired of failing it.

He didn’t say a word.

Just stepped aside.

She walked in.

No ceremony. No performance.

Just inevitability.

His room smelled of herbs and leather, soft smoke, and secrets. Everything in it was curated—like him. Soft candles flickered in carved sconces. The bed was massive, draped in black and crimson, sheets smooth and cool.

He sat on the edge. Watched her undress with zero shame.

Not sexual.

Observational.

That made it worse.

She peeled off her robe and slipped under the covers in only a camisole and silk shorts, both far too thin for modesty.

He followed her in.

The bed dipped under his weight.

They lay side by side.

The silence swallowed her.

“Why me?” he asked finally.

His voice was soft.

Unsettling.

“Because I don’t know what you want,” she answered.

A breath.

Then:

“I want to see if you can survive your own desire.”

The sheets were too cool.

His body was too warm.

And the scent of him—musk and storm and dry spell—settled in her bones like temptation soaked in oil.

He didn’t touch her.

Not once.

But the space between them crackled.

Every breath was counted.

Every shift, a risk.

Evangeline turned her head slightly.

He was staring at the ceiling.

His hands behind his head.

Muscles taut.

She watched his chest rise and fall.

Imagined her hand there. Her mouth.

She bit her lip.

“Vale,” she said softly.

“Mm?”

“If I touched you now… would you stop me?”

A pause.

Then:

“No.”

It wasn’t permission.

It was prophecy.

She didn’t touch him.

But her thighs clenched under the sheets. Her nipples hardened against the thin fabric.

She could hear his breath change.

He could scent her.

She turned away, pressing her body to the far edge of the bed.

He didn’t follow.

But his voice found her in the dark.

“You moaned in your sleep.”

Her breath caught.

“No I didn’t.”

“You said my name.”

“No, I—”

“Twice.”

She buried her face in the pillow.

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t need to.”

Minutes passed.

Then his voice again—soft, dangerous.

“Touch yourself.”

She froze.

“I won’t touch you. Not unless you ask.”

“I’m not going to—”

“You already are.”

Her hand was between her thighs.

She hadn’t realized.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

Vale turned to her. Leaned in. Still didn’t touch.

“Do it,” he murmured. “Let them scent you on me tomorrow.”

Her fingers moved.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Her breath came in soft gasps, thighs trembling, heat blooming.

He watched.

No expression.

Just eyes like dark velvet burning under candlelight.

She moaned.

His name again.

Louder.

He exhaled like a man on fire.

“You smell like surrender,” he whispered.

“I hate you,” she moaned.

“I know.”

She came silently.

A quiet quake under the sheets.

He never touched her.

Never moved closer.

But she knew—

He’d marked her all the same.

At dawn, they dressed in silence.

She wouldn’t look at him.

But as she opened the door to leave, he stepped behind her.

Close. So close.

His mouth brushed her ear.

“Trial passed,” he whispered.

“Barely.”

“I’ll remember every sound you made.”

Then he was gone.

And she was left—

Dripping, shaken, ruined in ways the others never touched.

Outside, the whispers returned.

“She picked Vale.”

“He didn’t even touch her.”

“But she came, didn’t she?”

“She screamed.”

Ash watched her from across the courtyard.

Cassian from the window above.

Ronan from the shadows of the southern corridor.

And for the first time…

They all looked afraid.

Not of her power.

But of the parts of her she was giving away.

One Alpha at a time.

And loving it.

CHAPTER TWELVE: DEATH GAMES IN THE BASEMENT

Mooncrest was built on blood.

Everyone whispered it. No one said it out loud.

But Evangeline knew now—it wasn’t a rumor.

It was a warning.

And she was already too deep to turn back.

She wasn’t following anyone.

She didn’t need to.

The scent hit her first—raw adrenaline, metallic sweat, and a spike of arousal that didn’t belong in any classroom. It crept up through the vents in the west stairwell, slipping through the cracks in the stone.

Then she heard it.

A scream.

Muffled.

Muffled and cheered.

The basement wasn’t just for storage.

It was older than the Academy above it. Older than the city.

No lights. No wards.

Just stairs that sank lower than the blueprints allowed.

She passed the final lantern and stepped into black.

The sound grew louder.

Clapping. Shouting.

Another scream.

And something wet.

She followed it through a passage behind the old laundry chute, where iron bars had been twisted back—recently. Someone was using this.

The corridor beyond pulsed with sound. Low drumbeats. A bass rhythm that vibrated in her bones.

She stepped through an archway and into—

The Arena.

Not the one upstairs. Not sanctioned.

This one was carved out of old stone. Rough and jagged, ceiling dripping with moisture.

Dozens of students stood around the pit. Betas, mostly. A few unbonded Alphas. Golden masks covered their eyes.

And in the center—two students fought.

Hard.

One Omega. One Alpha.

No weapons.

Just claws. Teeth.

And blood.

Evangeline moved closer, breath shallow.

She recognized the Omega.

Talia. Slender. Fierce. One of the second-years whispered to be in rut far too often for someone unbonded.

The Alpha—he was bigger. Stronger. Already bloodied from his lip to his chest.

Talia didn’t back down.

She moved like flame—fast, furious, desperate.

She wasn’t fighting to win.

She was fighting not to be claimed.

And no one stopped it.

Because that was the game.

The crowd wasn’t watching a battle.

They were watching a hunt.

A hand grabbed Evangeline’s arm.

She spun, ready to strike—

Vale.

Unmasked. Pale. Silent.

His grip was firm.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“And you are?”

His mouth twisted. “Not by choice.”

She yanked her arm free. “What is this?”

“Crimson Order tradition,” he said coldly. “The Death Ring. Trial before trial. Fight to submission or force a bond.”

“They’re going to rape her.”

He flinched.

“She volunteered.”

“No Omega would—”

“You still think this place makes sense?” His voice was low, sharp. “You’re here because you broke every rule they couldn’t control. This?” He gestured to the pit. “This is Mooncrest.”

Below, Talia lost her footing.

The Alpha pinned her.

The crowd roared.

Vale stepped in front of Evangeline.

“You don’t stop it.”

Her fists clenched.

“I will.”

“If you do,” he said slowly, “they’ll make you fight next.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Good.”

She descended into the pit.

The crowd gasped.

The Alpha turned—bloodied, teeth bared.

Talia sobbed beneath him.

Evangeline didn’t hesitate.

She punched him across the jaw.

The crack echoed.

He flew backward, hit the wall, and didn’t get up.

The room froze.

Vale jumped in, grabbed Talia, and hauled her out.

Evangeline stood over the stunned Alpha, chest heaving.

She turned to the crowd.

“I dare you,” she snarled. “Send another.”

Silence.

Then one mask stepped forward.

Ash.

Of course.

He removed the mask.

His eyes were on fire.

“You want to play hero?”

“No,” she said. “I want to end the game.”

He descended.

The others watched.

“She doesn’t submit.”

“She doesn’t bond.”

“She’ll break.”

Ash entered the pit.

He didn’t charge.

He walked.

Slow. Controlled. Purposeful.

Evangeline stayed still.

Then—at the last second—he lunged.

She met him halfway.

They crashed together, hands in hair, mouths colliding—not in combat.

In rage.

In lust.

In something inevitable.

He spun her, shoved her against the wall.

She arched, gasping.

He pressed his thigh between hers again.

“You want me to stop?” he whispered.

“No.”

His mouth found her neck.

And this time, she tilted it.

But he didn’t bite.

Instead, he whispered:

“They’ll try to kill you now.”

“I know.”

He stepped back.

“Let them try.”

They left the ring side by side.

Talia was gone.

Vale waited at the edge.

The crowd parted.

Not for Ash.

Not for Vale.

For her.

She’d bled for a stranger.

Fought without a trial.

Claimed a victory that wasn’t hers.

And still—

Every Alpha in the room watched her like they wanted her.

Because the Omega who didn’t submit?

Was a threat.

And they couldn’t stop watching.

Later, a note slipped under her door.

It was written in blood.

Six words.

They’ll use your gift to open the Veil.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CASSIAN’S THREAT

He waited in the corridor like a secret that had finally lost patience.

Cassian.

Leaned against the stone arch just outside her dorm, arms folded, eyes like cold steel dipped in fire. The shadows carved lines into his cheekbones, jaw set like a blade ready to be drawn.

Evangeline didn’t flinch.

She met his gaze and walked past him like he wasn’t there.

He followed without speaking.

She didn’t stop until she reached the garden behind the lower wing—walled off, overgrown, always empty at night. The moons lit the trellis in silver. The ivy shimmered like blood on stone.

Then she turned.

“Say what you came to say.”

Cassian stepped closer. His boots crunched gravel.

“You don’t get to pretend.”

“Pretend what?”

“That you’re not mine.”

Her laugh was low. Bitter. “You bit me to prove a point.”

“No. I bit you to start something I’m still not finished with.”

Evangeline’s pulse ticked in her throat.

He moved in—crowding her. Not touching.

But too close. Too intentional.

“You let Ronan mark you,” he said softly. “You came in front of Ash. You slept with Vale. But you still wear my scent when you walk these halls.”

“I don’t belong to you,” she snapped.

He bared his teeth.

“I don’t want you to belong.”

“Then what do you want?”

“To break you.”

The words should have chilled her.

Instead, her thighs clenched.

He grabbed her wrist.

Yanked her forward.

Her body collided with his—chest to chest, heat to heat.

“You think I don’t see it?” he growled. “The way you look at me. Like you want to burn me alive. You think I don’t want the same thing?”

Her breath hitched.

“I want to ruin you, Evangeline. I want to hear you scream. I want to make you beg. Not because you’re weak—but because you hate needing it.”

Her skin flushed. Her legs went weak.

Still, she fought.

“I’ll never beg.”

He smiled.

And then—swift, brutal—he spun her.

Pressed her against the ivy-covered wall, hands fisting her hair, mouth at her throat.

“No?” he whispered. “Then bleed.”

His teeth scraped her mark.

Not biting.

Just threatening.

She gasped.

“Do it,” she hissed.

He paused.

“You want me to?”

“No.”

“Then why are you wet?”

She didn’t answer.

He shoved a knee between her thighs.

She whimpered.

His mouth found her ear.

“I’ll give you one chance.”

“For what?”

“To submit.”

Her hands curled into fists.

“I don’t kneel.”

He yanked her head back. Met her gaze.

“Then I’ll make you bleed for it.”

She struck first.

Her fist hit his jaw.

He grunted.

Then laughed.

And pulled her down to the ground.

They rolled—teeth, nails, rage tangled in kisses that weren’t kisses, in touches that were half violence, half worship.

His hand found her thigh—slid under her shorts.

His fingers grazed her slick heat.

She moaned.

Then slapped him again.

He caught her wrist mid-strike.

“I could take you now.”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you want me to ask for it.”

His grip loosened.

She sat up—straddling him now, wild-eyed, hair a dark halo.

And leaned down, teeth against his throat.

“You’ll wait,” she whispered. “Because you need my want more than my obedience.”

Then she stood.

Walked away.

Left him panting on the garden floor.

Hard. Denied. Devastated.

Later that night, another note appeared beneath her door.

Not blood this time.

Black ink.

They want your howl. But I want your ruin.

No signature.

Just the scent.

Cassian.

She didn’t sleep.

She didn’t even try.

She lay awake in the dark.

And wondered—

Would it be worse to be broken by him?

Or to want it?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE PHANTOM OATH

The chapel was supposed to be abandoned after dusk.

The lanterns burned out. The altar sealed. The pews wrapped in dusty linen like corpses waiting for resurrection. No prayers echoed through its arched bones anymore. No rituals. No hymns.

But Evangeline felt it the second she stepped past the threshold—something was here.

Breathing.

Watching.

Waiting.

It began with a sound. Low. Muffled.

A voice, maybe. A chant.

She pressed her back to the cold stone column just inside the chapel’s inner nave, breath held.

Another voice joined the first.

Then another.

Not loud.

But rhythmic.

Whispers.

She followed the sound past the shattered stained glass window—yes, the one she’d broken the day she howled.

The air felt different here. Charged.

She crouched low, stepping behind the altar and through the hidden door beneath it—a passage once used by priests, now dusted with cobwebs and silence.

The voices grew louder.

She emerged in the undercroft.

Torchlight flickered across the walls—red, not gold. Shadows danced in symbols she didn’t recognize. The scent of blood was thick.

And in the center of the chamber, cloaked figures stood in a perfect circle.

Golden masks.

Crimson robes.

All facing inward.

Chanting.

“Vescere sanguine vincula…”

Feed the blood to the bond.

One stepped forward.

Held a scroll.

Read aloud.

“Let the Rejected rise. Let the False Bow. Let the Gift open the Veil. She will come again—Crimson-born, Omega-souled, howling like the first.”

Evangeline’s skin went cold.

They were speaking of her.

Not metaphor.

Prophecy.

A jolt of magic spiked the room. Her mark burned under her skin.

She stumbled. Gasped.

The circle froze.

One mask turned.

Then another.

“Who’s there?” a voice demanded.

She ran.

She didn’t remember the stairs.

Didn’t remember clawing her way back up the shaft to the chapel’s vestibule.

All she remembered was the sound of their voices following her—those words echoing behind her ribs, etched into her skin.

Let the Rejected rise.

Let the Gift open the Veil.

Outside, the moon was high.

She staggered to the edge of the Academy courtyard, breath ragged, eyes wide.

Vale was waiting.

As if he knew.

He reached her before she could collapse.

“What did you hear?” he demanded.

She shook her head.

“They called me the Crimson-born.”

His expression shifted.

Not surprised.

Afraid.

“You shouldn’t have gone alone.”

“I’m always alone.”

His hand curled around her wrist.

“You’re not anymore.”

She stared up at him, heart pounding, skin alive with fear and fury and lust and the need to do something.

And then she kissed him.

Hard.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t tender.

It was teeth. Tongue. Desperation.

Vale growled into her mouth and lifted her—hands under her thighs, pressing her against the cold chapel wall.

Her legs wrapped around him instinctively.

His hips pressed into hers, hard and aching.

She moaned.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” he breathed.

But he did.

Just before the edge.

He pulled back, forehead resting against hers, chest heaving.

“If I take you now, I’ll mark you.”

She trembled.

“I don’t care.”

“I do,” he growled. “Because when I do it… it won’t be in fear. It’ll be in fire.”

He set her down.

Walked away.

Left her wrecked.

Again.

In her room, she traced the mark below her navel.

It glowed.

She whispered the words she heard in the undercroft.

Felt them echo.

Her howl wasn’t just a gift.

It was a summoning.

And the Order knew it.

They were waiting.

For her.

To open the Veil.

To bleed for them.

But Evangeline had never been good at playing the part they gave her.

She wasn’t here to open anything for them.

She was here to burn it down.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: TRIAL THREE: HUNT THE OMEGA

The forest whispered her name.

Not in language. Not in words.

In wind. In shadow. In scent.

It was primal. Hungry.

And waiting.

“Strip.”

Syra’s voice was absolute.

Evangeline stood in the cold clearing just beyond the western gate, surrounded by the four Alphas. Moonlight carved silver lines along their shoulders, painted their eyes in lust and predation.

She didn’t move.

Syra lifted a single brow.

“This is Trial Three: The Hunt. You know the rules. The Omega runs. The Alphas chase. If caught, she must submit.”

“Submit to what?” Evangeline’s voice was low, dangerous.

Syra smiled faintly.

“Whatever they choose.”

She stripped.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Not because she was weak.

Because she wanted every single Alpha present to remember what they were about to chase.

Her skin gleamed in the moonlight.

The bite marks. The bruises. The glyphs pulsing faintly on her inner thighs and lower belly.

Ash’s fire.

Ronan’s bite.

Cassian’s threat.

Vale’s denial.

She stepped barefoot into the trees.

And ran.

The forest swallowed her.

Branches tore at her skin. Leaves brushed her breasts like fingers. Every scent felt amplified. The ache between her thighs pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

She wasn’t just running from them.

She was running for them.

Because deep down, some twisted, feral part of her wanted to be caught.

Wanted to be claimed.

The first to find her was Ronan.

He didn’t speak. Just emerged from the shadows like a beast reborn, chest bare, eyes molten silver.

She darted left.

He followed.

Silent. Relentless.

She hit a tree root—fell.

He was on her in seconds.

His mouth at her neck. Teeth against the old mark.

“You’re mine,” he growled.

Then bit.

Hard.

A second mark.

Her cry echoed through the trees.

Not pain.

Need.

Cassian was next.

She hadn’t even recovered when he crashed through the underbrush, eyes wild.

He saw the mark.

Snarled.

Ripped Ronan off her with a force that made the ground tremble.

“You think you get her first?”

“She’s already mine,” Ronan snapped.

“No,” Cassian said, stepping between them. “She’s everyone’s.”

And then he dropped to his knees.

Grabbed her thighs.

And licked the bite.

She gasped.

His tongue was fire. Worship. Punishment.

“Say it,” he demanded.

She shook.

“Say you want me.”

“I hate you.”

He grinned.

“Then hate me harder.”

Then came Ash.

His scent hit before his voice.

He stepped out from behind a tree, shirt gone, pants low.

He didn’t argue.

Didn’t ask.

He just took.

Lifted her into his arms, pressed her back against a tree, his cock hard between them.

“No knot,” she whispered.

“I’ll hold it.”

He slid inside her.

Her scream cracked branches.

It wasn’t gentle.

It wasn’t slow.

It was brutal.

Possessive.

Perfect.

Ash’s thrusts shook the forest.

She wrapped her legs around him and let go.

He didn’t knot.

But he came.

Hard.

Roaring.

They all heard it.

Even Vale.

Who didn’t arrive until the end.

He stood on the edge of the glade, untouched, unreadable.

He looked at her—naked, marked, flushed, filled.

And smiled.

“Still whole?” he asked.

She tried to rise.

Collapsed.

Ash caught her.

“Trial over,” Vale said.

“No,” Syra’s voice echoed from the trees. “Trial passed.”

Back in the dorm, Evangeline curled into the sheets.

Her thighs throbbed. Her neck was a map of marks. Her soul… still her own.

But her body?

Owned by four.

And the worst part?

She didn’t feel broken.

She felt born.

On the windowsill, a note appeared.

Six words.

They caught you. You caught them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: RONAN’S FIRST BITE

The moon hung high over Mooncrest, swollen and red like a wound that refused to heal.

Evangeline stood at the edge of the training tower, the wind threading fingers through her tangled hair. Her thighs still ached from the Hunt. Her skin pulsed with the memory of Ash’s thrusts, Cassian’s tongue, Vale’s unreadable gaze—but it was Ronan who lingered.

Not the way he’d chased her.

Not the way he’d watched her fall.

The way he’d bitten.

Clean.

Hard.

Deep.

No hesitation. No permission.

And something about that bite still pulsed under her skin.

A bond not yet finished.

“Why did you let me do it?” His voice came from behind her.

She didn’t turn.

“Let you?” she repeated.

He stepped closer. She felt his heat before she felt his touch—one hand on her bare shoulder, callused and steady.

“I warned you,” he murmured.

“You didn’t warn me. You devoured me.”

His breath hitched.

“I couldn’t stop.”

“Would you now?”

Silence.

Then, low and honest:

“No.”

She turned, finally.

Faced him.

His face was more shadow than light—features carved in midnight. His eyes shimmered, not glowing, but… reflecting her. Seeing her in a way that burned.

“You marked me,” she said.

“I tried not to.”

“You failed.”

“I always fail around you.”

His hand slid to her waist, slow.

No force.

Just gravity.

“I shouldn’t be near you right now,” he whispered.

“Why?”

“Because it’s coming.”

She blinked.

“What is?”

“My rut.”

The words dropped between them like a match to dry kindling.

Her body responded instantly—heat flaring, slick gathering, thighs tightening. The truth was, she’d known. She’d smelled it on him since the Hunt.

But hearing it—claiming it—

It changed everything.

“I can handle it,” she said.

“You’re lying.”

She swallowed.

“Yes.”

He stepped forward.

She stepped back.

Until her spine hit the stone wall.

Ronan’s hands bracketed her head.

His mouth hovered over hers.

“I want to finish the bite,” he said.

Her pulse screamed.

“I want to own the sound you make when I do.”

Her knees went weak.

“I want to feel you come with my teeth in your throat.”

She reached for his shirt.

Pulled it over his head.

His body was a map of scars and muscle—evidence of battles won and lost.

He pressed against her, chest to chest, skin on skin.

“I can’t promise I won’t knot,” he growled.

“I can’t promise I’ll stop you.”

He crushed his mouth to hers.

This kiss was chaos.

Tongues battling.

Lips bruising.

His hands slid under her shirt, found her breasts—squeezed, worshipped. She gasped, and he swallowed it.

Her shorts were gone before she realized.

Then her underwear.

Then nothing.

He dropped to his knees.

Spread her thighs.

Buried his face between them.

And feasted.

Her moans echoed into the night.

His tongue circled her clit, slow and precise.

He sucked until she screamed.

But he didn’t let her come.

He stood.

Lifted her.

Pressed her against the tower wall.

Slid into her with a groan.

No resistance.

No pause.

Just need.

He moved inside her like he owned her.

And when she shattered—screaming, clenching, sobbing—he sank his teeth into her neck.

Deep.

Final.

Complete.

His knot swelled inside her.

She gasped.

He held her—tight, trembling, buried.

“Mine,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she breathed.

And this time, she wasn’t lying.

They stayed like that for what felt like hours.

Knot locked.

Bond sealed.

He held her while the stars shifted overhead.

And when he finally pulled out, she collapsed into his chest.

He kissed her hair.

“You’re not like them,” he said.

“I know.”

“You’re worse.”

She smiled into his skin.

“Thank you.”

Later, when she lay in bed alone, fingers brushing the new bite—

She didn’t dream of blood.

She dreamed of teeth.

And let herself smile.

Because Ronan was hers now.

Not by words.

Not by choice.

By bite.

And he’d never come back from it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BOUND WITHOUT CONSENT

She woke to silence.

Not the kind that meant peace.

The kind that warned.

Evangeline sat up slowly, the sheets tangled around her waist, her skin bare beneath the thin cotton. The dorm room was still—moonlight drifting through the high arched window, her door cracked just slightly.

She didn’t remember leaving it open.

She didn’t remember… going to bed.

Her breath hitched.

The last thing she remembered was Ronan.

His knot. His bite.

The way he’d held her afterward, whispering things she hadn’t dared believe.

But this wasn’t that.

Something was wrong.

Her thighs ached in a different way.

Not from use.

From overuse.

Her hips felt raw.

Her neck burned.

And her bond marks—

They were different.

She looked down.

And froze.

Three.

Three fresh bond scars.

Not one.

Not the single, intentional one Ronan had given her with heat and teeth and growled possession.

No.

Three.

Red.

Raised.

Pulsing.

And one of them—

One of them bled.

She scrambled to the mirror.

Her breath fogged the glass.

And there it was.

A mark on her shoulder. Cassian’s bite.

Another, low on her hip. Ash’s signature curve.

And the third—grazing her collarbone.

Vale.

All three.

Claimed her.

While she slept.

The scream started in her chest.

But never made it out.

A knock stopped it.

Sharp.

Measured.

She opened the door with trembling fingers.

Vale stood on the threshold.

Unruffled.

Calm.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?”

He stepped inside.

Closed the door.

“I didn’t give permission.”

He looked at her neck.

“You didn’t need to.”

Her hands curled into fists.

“You marked me.”

“I finished what you already started.”

“I was asleep—”

“No,” Vale interrupted, stepping close. “You were in heat. You were bonded. You were burning. You asked.”

She shoved him hard.

He didn’t move.

“Liar.”

“I didn’t fuck you.”

His voice was ice.

“But I marked you. Because if I hadn’t, Ash would’ve done it alone.”

Her breath hitched.

“You think this is protection?”

“I think this is truth.”

He pulled her to the mirror.

Showed her the marks.

“Now they can’t fight over you,” he said softly. “Now you’re ours.”

She stared at her reflection.

At her skin.

At the bruises. The claims. The stolen choice.

Something inside her twisted.

Not grief.

Not rage.

Power.

Unfolding like wings.

“They’ll never forgive you,” she said.

Vale shrugged.

“They don’t have to.”

She turned slowly.

Met his eyes.

“And what if I reject the bonds?”

He smiled.

“Then we all die when the Veil opens.”

He walked out.

Left her naked.

Claimed.

Ruined.

She didn’t cry.

She screamed.

A sound like thunder.

Like prophecy.

Like the beginning of war.

Far below the Academy, in a room no one should enter, a stone altar cracked down the center.

And began to bleed.

The next morning, Cassian cornered her in the corridor.

No pretense.

Just darkness.

“You smell like all of us now.”

“Do I?” she whispered.

He grabbed her chin. Held her still.

“You didn’t say no.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“I don’t care.”

Then he kissed her.

Hard.

She let him.

When he pulled back, he was panting.

“This is only the beginning,” he said.

“I know.”

She looked at all three of them at breakfast.

Ronan. Ash. Vale.

None spoke.

But they all watched her.

Marked. Bound. And still unbroken.

She sat at the head of their table.

And smiled.

Because now?

She wasn’t just bonded.

She was dangerous.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A LETTER FROM THE DEAD BETA

The envelope was damp.

Not from water.

From blood.

It waited for her on her pillow—pale parchment, edges frayed, the seal broken. No wax. Just a smear of red. The faint, unmistakable copper tang of it.

Evangeline stood frozen, her towel still clinging to her damp skin, water dripping from the ends of her hair.

She hadn’t told anyone where she’d be.

She hadn’t told anyone she’d gone to the bathhouse alone.

And yet, someone had left her this.

She touched it.

It was still warm.

The paper inside was thin, fragile, covered in messy script.

The ink wasn’t ink.

It was blood.

The first line made her knees buckle.

“They’ll use your gift to open the Veil.”

Her fingers trembled.

She sat on the bed, the towel falling loose.

The next lines were written fast—urgent. As if the writer knew they had only seconds left.

“Your howl woke the bones. They’ve been waiting. You are not the first, but you may be the last.”

“The Crimson Order watches. You’re not a student. You’re a trigger.”

“Don’t trust the Headmistress. She was the first Rejected. She built the Order to find you.”

Evangeline’s blood turned to ice.

The signature was smeared.

But the scent on the paper—

Beta.

Male.

Familiar.

She’d known that scent in her first year. Laughed with it. Trusted it.

He had disappeared three months ago.

Everyone said he’d dropped out.

No one said he died.

And no one ever mentioned his room being sealed.

She folded the letter carefully.

Burned it over the candle flame.

The scent of his blood curled through the room.

She stood naked, bare, bonded—

And alone.

Later, in the archives, she broke into the forbidden files.

The Lost Omega Files.

Marked REJECTED in red ink. Locked behind wards that flickered when her fingers grazed them.

Her mark overrode the magic.

They wanted her to open this.

So she did.

Eighteen names.

Eighteen Omegas.

Rejected.

Expelled.

All before the age of twenty.

All dead within one year of expulsion.

Throats torn.

Marks removed.

Veins drained.

Not suicide.

Not accidents.

Sacrifices.

She turned the final page.

A photograph.

The first.

Hair dark. Eyes burning.

Syra.

Evangeline stared.

The Headmistress had been one of them.

The first to be cast out.

The first to rise back up.

And now?

She ruled.

She hunted.

She wore silk like a crown.

But she was building something under the Academy.

With masks.

With blood.

With girls who howled.

The sound that left Evangeline’s throat wasn’t a sob.

It wasn’t a scream.

It was a growl.

She returned to her dorm.

The door was open.

Inside—

Ronan.

On his knees.

Blood on his shirt.

Ash beside him.

Face pale. Mouth set.

Cassian. Silent in the corner.

Vale. Back against the wall, hands trembling.

“What happened?” she snapped.

No one answered.

She stepped closer.

And then she saw it.

Another letter.

Identical.

Only this one—

Had her name carved into the parchment.

Not written.

Carved.

Her voice was cold.

“Who opened it?”

Ash met her eyes.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because it said if you did… you’d die.”

She stepped closer.

Tore it from the table.

Inside—

More blood.

But no words.

Only a symbol.

Her mark.

Cut perfectly into the paper.

Her womb burned.

Ronan rose, eyes black.

“You’re the lock.”

Cassian stepped forward.

“She’s the door.”

Vale whispered, “And someone’s trying to kick it down.”

Evangeline dropped the letter.

Straightened her spine.

Her voice was steel.

“Then let them try.”

She walked to her bed.

Laid down.

Unbothered.

And said:

“When they come for me, I want all four of you waiting.”

Ronan nodded.

Ash cracked his knuckles.

Cassian’s eyes glinted.

Vale smiled darkly.

“You’ll bleed before they touch you,” he said.

That night, the dreams returned.

Not screams.

Not sex.

But whispers.

Under the bed.

Behind the walls.

Inside her.

Calling her name.

Crimson-born.

Crimson-marked.

Crimson-key.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: CASSIAN’S KISS, CASSIAN’S KNIFE

He waited for her in the ritual chamber beneath the east wing—where no one but blood-born students or masked enforcers were allowed to tread. She found him without needing to ask. Her body knew the path, even if her mind protested.

Cassian.

Back turned.

Coat discarded.

Bare-chested and barefoot on the stone, eyes closed, blade in hand.

The knife gleamed silver in the torchlight. Ritual-forged. Rune-carved.

Forbidden.

She stepped into the chamber.

He didn’t turn.

“You came,” he said.

“I always come when you call,” she replied, and hated the truth of it.

He turned then—slowly. His body, bare save for the scars across his ribs and the low slung pants, was a battlefield. So was his gaze.

“You smell different,” he said. “More open.”

“Blame Vale.”

“I don’t need to. He leaves a scent like ink on parchment.”

She stepped closer. The blade between them caught the light.

“Why the knife?”

His smile was cold. “Because I need to know if it’s real.”

“What is?”

“The bond.”

He held it up.

Flat across his palms.

“Blood doesn’t lie,” he said. “Not in Mooncrest. Not when it’s mixed.”

She stepped forward. Took the blade.

Balanced it between her hands.

It hummed.

And then—slowly, deliberately—she dragged it across her palm.

The blood welled fast.

Bright. Red. Glowing faintly at the edges.

Cassian’s nostrils flared.

His cock twitched beneath his pants.

He offered his hand.

She hesitated.

Then slit it.

Their blood mingled on the stone floor with a hiss.

A glyph flared beneath them.

Not one she recognized.

One older.

Older than the Academy. Older than packs.

Older than consent.

Cassian stepped into the circle of firelight.

His breath shallow.

His body trembling.

He reached up.

Gripped her jaw.

And kissed her.

This kiss wasn’t lust.

It was claim.

His tongue invaded. His teeth scraped. His mouth tasted like heat and steel and intent.

She moaned against him.

He pulled back, staring down at her.

“Say it,” he said.

“No.”

“Say I own you.”

She grinned.

“You’d have to break me first.”

His hand gripped her throat.

“Then let me try.”

The kiss became a war.

Clothes ripped.

Her shirt tore at the seams.

Her breasts bared to the cold air.

He knelt.

Bit.

Licked.

Left a trail of fire down her ribs.

She grabbed his hair. Forced his mouth between her legs.

He didn’t fight it.

He devoured her.

And when she came—hard, fast, furious—he licked her clean.

Then stood.

And pressed the blade to her throat.

“Cassian—”

“Shh.”

His voice was reverent.

“You don’t understand.”

“Then make me.”

He slit her shoulder.

Just above the bond mark.

Not deep.

But enough.

Enough for blood to rise.

He leaned forward.

Pressed his mouth to the cut.

And drank.

Her scream was not of pain.

But of revelation.

Because something in her woke when he did it.

Something ancestral.

Something locked.

The glyph beneath them pulsed.

The bond mark flared.

Her back arched.

The room shook.

Cassian pulled back—lips coated in her blood.

His eyes glowing.

His voice cracked.

“They’ll try to open the Veil without you. But your blood is the key. They need it spilled. Willingly.”

She shivered.

“And you just did that.”

“No.” He touched her throat. “I did it for me.”

He kissed her again.

Slower.

Deeper.

Full of something like need.

Then whispered:

“I’ll die before I let them take you.”

She watched him walk away, the blood still drying on his lips.

And felt something inside her shift.

Not just a bond.

A bind.

One not born of heat.

But hunger.

And in the torchlit silence, the glyph etched into the floor faded.

But not before it whispered across her mark.

Crimson.

CHAPTER TWENTY: VALE’S OFFER

The garden was cloaked in mist, moonlight filtered through twisted ivy and black thorns. Statues watched like silent sentinels, and the air dripped with the scent of wet earth, fading roses, and something darker—

Power.

Evangeline walked barefoot.

The stone path chilled her soles, but she didn’t stop.

Her body still pulsed from Cassian’s blade, her shoulder tender from the bloodletting. But it wasn’t pain that burned through her veins now.

It was awareness.

Of her body.

Of her power.

Of the four Alphas whose marks now whispered in her blood like sirens on fire.

And most of all—Vale.

Because he’d left her untouched for too long.

He stood at the fountain.

Back turned.

Hands clasped behind him like a prince in mourning.

She approached slowly.

“I know you followed me,” she said.

“I knew you’d come,” he replied.

He didn’t turn.

But he held something in his palm.

A small glass vial.

Swirling red.

She moved beside him.

Stared into the reflection on the black water.

He looked older there. Tired. Tormented.

“You drank from me,” she said.

“Only once.”

“You marked me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He finally turned.

His eyes were shadows rimmed in silver. Exhausted. Possessed.

“Because I’m dying.”

The words hit like cold metal.

Her mouth opened. Closed.

He offered the vial.

“Your blood. From the night of the trial. When I licked it from your thighs. I kept it.”

She took it, stunned.

“You’re sick.”

“Cursed.”

“What kind of curse?”

“One that burns from the inside.”

He pulled back his shirt.

Showed her.

Ribs etched in runes, black veins spiderwebbing from the mark over his heart.

“Every day I bond with you, I slow it. Every moan, every scent, every touch… buys me another day.”

Her stomach twisted.

“You used me.”

“I warned you.”

He stepped closer.

“Now I offer you a choice.”

His hands touched her waist.

His mouth brushed her temple.

“You can unbind me. Sever the mark. I’ll die within days.”

She swallowed.

“Or?”

“Or let me fuck you.”

Her breath hitched.

“I’m not in heat.”

“This won’t be about heat.”

He touched her jaw.

“This will be about mercy.”

She stared into his eyes.

And nodded.

They didn’t go far.

Just into the garden’s covered archway, vines thick enough to hide them from the world.

He laid her on moss and stone.

Unbuttoned her shirt slowly.

Worshipfully.

Her skin flushed under the night air.

“I won’t knot you,” he said. “But I’ll mark you so deep you’ll never forget the sound of my name.”

She spread her legs.

Welcomed him.

He didn’t rush.

He memorized.

Each kiss mapped her chest, her stomach, her hips. His tongue circled her navel like a vow.

When he reached her sex, he paused.

“Say it.”

“What?”

“My name.”

She bit her lip.

“Vale.”

He moaned.

And entered.

It was slow.

Not savage.

Not desperate.

But devastating.

Her nails carved into his back.

Her eyes locked on his.

Every thrust built heat—not between their bodies, but within their bond.

The mark on her chest glowed faintly.

So did his veins.

When she came, it was silent.

Tears on her cheeks.

Lips parted.

Whispers of his name.

And when he came—his body locked inside hers, eyes burning—he sobbed.

Once.

Only once.

Then collapsed against her.

“I don’t want to die,” he whispered.

“Then don’t,” she replied.

“I’ll need more.”

“You’ll get it.”

He rolled onto his back.

Stared at the stars.

“You’re more than they think,” he said.

“You’re more than I ever thought.”

She laid her head on his chest.

Felt the pulse in his throat.

Still strong.

For now.

He gave her no promises.

Only an offer.

One night.

One truth.

One chance to keep him breathing.

And she took it.

Not for him.

Not for mercy.

But because something in her recognized his brokenness.

And wanted to kiss it until it screamed.

As they drifted into half-sleep, limbs tangled, hearts slowed—

The fountain behind them bubbled once.

Then ran red.

Crimson.

Always crimson.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: TRIAL FOUR: THE RITUAL POOL

The Ritual Pool wasn’t just water.

It was memory.

Mooncrest kept it sealed most of the year—hidden beneath the chapel’s western wing, buried behind an arch of bone-white marble carved with ancestral glyphs. No one bathed in it. No one dared.

Unless summoned.

Unless chosen.

Unless offered.

Evangeline stood at the edge, wrapped in nothing but a ceremonial robe that fell open with each breath. Her bare skin drank in the humid air, her bond marks exposed and glowing in the torchlight. She could feel them pulsing—Cassian’s at her hip, Ash’s on her thigh, Ronan’s at her throat, Vale’s stretched across her ribs like a vow written in fire.

The water shimmered like obsidian.

Silent.

Still.

Hungry.

Headmistress Syra stood on the dais, arms folded, flanked by two masked attendants.

Her voice rang through the chamber.

“Trial Four. The Omega must submit to her bonded pack, publicly. Without hesitation. Without restraint.”

Evangeline didn’t look at her.

She looked at the pool.

It wasn’t fear that curled inside her.

It was heat.

Again.

It shouldn’t have come this soon.

She wasn’t ready.

But her body didn’t care.

The marks thrummed in agreement.

And the pack?

They were already watching.

Ash stepped forward first.

Bare-chested, eyes like wildfire.

He didn’t ask. He knelt beside her.

“Remove the robe.”

She did.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The room gasped.

Not at her nudity.

At her presence.

She was no longer just the rejected Omega.

She was a flame wrapped in skin.

Marked. Owned. Unbroken.

Ash took her hand and guided her into the water.

It lapped at her thighs. Then her hips. Her breasts.

She gasped as the pool’s magic slid over her skin like ice that burned.

Then he pulled her under.

For one second—darkness.

Then she surfaced.

And the other three were already there.

Vale. Ronan. Cassian.

Clothed only in need.

All four surrounded her.

Bodies pressed close.

Eyes wild.

The ritual began without words.

Cassian moved behind her, strong hands gripping her hips, pressing her ass against his cock. Hard. Demanding.

Ronan kissed her throat, his breath like smoke.

Vale cupped her breast, thumb teasing her nipple until she moaned.

Ash kissed her lips—slow, claiming, full of promise and possession.

Syra’s voice was distant.

“Let them mark you.”

Evangeline didn’t answer.

She arched instead.

Ronan’s hand slid down between her thighs.

She gasped as his fingers found her heat.

Cassian bit her shoulder—no blood, but deep.

Vale kissed her collarbone, whispering something in a tongue she didn’t know but felt.

And Ash—

Ash pushed her back against his chest.

Held her there.

While they worshipped.

She moaned.

Once.

Twice.

Then the pool erupted in color—red.

The moment she climaxed, all four bit her.

Together.

Simultaneously.

Marks flared.

The glyphs on the pool’s edge lit up, one by one.

The water turned crimson.

Her body went limp.

Ash caught her.

Lifted her out of the water.

Dripping.

Marked.

Claimed.

But still burning.

He kissed her temple.

“You’re ours.”

Vale nodded. “She always was.”

Cassian growled, “She’s still fighting.”

And Ronan whispered, “Then let her win.”

Syra watched from the platform.

A flicker of something passed across her face.

Jealousy.

Envy.

Or maybe—

Fear.

Evangeline opened her eyes.

Her voice was hoarse.

But strong.

“This trial isn’t submission.”

Ash blinked. “What is it, then?”

She smiled.

“It’s seduction.”

And they had all failed.

Because the real game?

Was that she had claimed them.

One by one.

Moan by moan.

Mark by mark.

And the pool knew it.

Because when the water stilled—

The blood stayed red.

And at the bottom, glowing through the depths—

Her mark pulsed.

With power.

With prophecy.

With permission.

She didn’t belong to the pack.

They belonged to her.

And soon?

So would Mooncrest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE HEADMISTRESS WATCHES

The flames in Syra’s chambers burned low, casting shifting shadows across the room’s velvet-draped walls. Incense drifted from the carved bowl on her desk—wolf’s claw and crimsonroot, old magic made smoke. The air was thick with silence.

She stood alone.

But not unwatched.

A mirror shimmered above her fireplace—obsidian framed in bone and silver, bound with blood threads and teeth.

Within it, a reflection played.

Not hers.

Evangeline’s.

Naked. Wet. Moaning. Pressed between four Alphas.

The Ritual Pool replayed in perfect clarity.

Not as memory.

As surveillance.

Syra’s fingers traced the edge of her desk slowly, her nails black with binding polish.

She watched as the four marked Evangeline again and again. The water. The fire. The bond. The heat.

A low sound built in her throat.

Not anger.

Not even jealousy.

Something worse.

Recognition.

She moved to her private altar—hidden behind the bookshelf, accessible only by the glyph carved into her palm. One touch and it slid open with a groan.

Inside: relics.

Photographs. Bone fragments. Vials of ancient blood.

And in the center—a single carved totem.

An Omega’s howl, frozen in mid-cry. A scream trapped in stone.

Her own.

Her first.

Her last.

The day Mooncrest cast her out.

“You should’ve died,” she whispered to the room.

The mirror behind her shimmered again.

Evangeline, biting her lip, Ash holding her from behind.

Vale whispering her name.

Ronan kissing her spine.

Cassian marking her like a curse.

Syra closed her eyes.

The images pulsed behind her lids.

The mark on her stomach—long dormant—throbbed.

For the first time in years.

The same mark.

She staggered to the mirror.

Gripped its edge.

“Why her?” she hissed.

The mirror didn’t answer.

But the glyphs on its frame glowed.

Then whispered.

“Crimson-born. Crimson-sung. Crimson-blood will open the tongue.”

Her pulse skipped.

The old prophecy.

She thought she’d buried it.

Killed the last of its power.

But this girl—

This Evangeline—

She wasn’t a vessel.

She was a trigger.

The door opened behind her.

She didn’t turn.

A Beta in golden robes bowed.

“Headmistress. The Order requests an update.”

Her eyes burned in the mirror.

“Tell them she passed the trial.”

The Beta hesitated. “But she—”

“Tell them,” she snapped. “She. Passed.”

The Beta fled.

Syra remained.

Alone again.

But the room felt smaller.

Hotter.

Like the old blood that kept her alive was boiling.

She traced a circle in the air.

The mirror blinked to a new vision.

Evangeline in bed. Naked. Sleeping. Lips parted.

A new glyph sparked in the corner.

Syra leaned closer.

It was a countdown.

The Ritual Pool had been the fourth seal.

Only two remained.

When the sixth trial ended, the Veil would open.

With Evangeline at its center.

Alive or dead.

Syra whispered into the mirror.

Her voice cracked.

“Please… let her survive it.”

A single tear slid down her cheek.

She didn’t wipe it away.

She just whispered again—

This time not to the Order.

Not to the Veil.

But to the girl she watched like a mother. Like a rival. Like a ghost.

“I made this place for you,” she said.

“And if they try to take it from you... I’ll burn it with them inside.”

Down in the dorms, Evangeline stirred.

Her mark flared in her sleep.

Somewhere, something ancient listened.

And answered.

Not with words.

With watching.

The Headmistress wasn’t the only one.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: A SECRET BROTHERHOOD

The summons came at midnight.

A note tucked inside Evangeline’s boot—no seal, no scent, just four words scrawled in perfect ink:

The Crimson Order waits.

The script shimmered faintly with old magic. Compulsion curled beneath it like a leash.

She didn’t resist.

She dressed in silence—black lace beneath black leather, the ceremonial dagger strapped to her thigh. Her skin still bore the shimmer of the ritual pool. The marks from her pack throbbed in unison, like distant drums beating inside her flesh.

Ronan stirred when she crossed the room.

“You’re not supposed to leave tonight.”

“I was summoned.”

“They didn’t summon you,” he said, voice low. “They called you.”

The path wound through the west wing—past sealed doors and cold torches that lit the second her feet touched the floor. The academy seemed to recognize her now. Or maybe it simply remembered her howl.

She followed the corridor down, down, down until the air thickened with smoke and salt and something older.

When she reached the bottom, the door opened for her.

Inside—

Gold.

A ring of robed figures stood in a massive stone chamber.

Each wore a mask—golden wolves with open mouths, their eye sockets hollow, glinting.

Each stood still.

Each watched.

At the center, a throne sat empty.

Carved in bone.

Veins of crimson running through the ivory.

Not painted.

Not stained.

Living.

She stepped inside.

Did not bow.

“Who are you?”

One mask tilted.

“We are what remains.”

“Of what?”

“Of those who remember what the Veil opened before.”

She stepped further.

The torches flared.

One figure gestured to the throne.

“You are the Crimson-born. Sit.”

“I’ll stand.”

The mask turned slightly.

“Very well.”

Another spoke.

“You are bonded to four. Claimed by the firebrand, the shadow, the storm, and the silence.”

Evangeline didn’t flinch.

“And yet,” another said, “you remain… unruled.”

“Good,” she said. “I’d rather be feared than ruled.”

They chuckled.

But not with humor.

With hunger.

A fourth stepped forward.

Taller than the rest.

Voice low. Familiar.

“You’ve opened four of six seals.”

She blinked.

“You’re counting the trials.”

The figure nodded.

“When the sixth breaks, the Veil opens. And you must stand inside it.”

“Why?”

“Because you are not a girl.”

They all spoke now.

“You are a gate.”

The wind changed.

The chamber pulsed.

She stepped forward.

“This isn’t a warning,” she said. “This is a test.”

“Yes.”

“And if I fail?”

They didn’t answer.

They didn’t need to.

The tall one extended a hand.

In it—a blade.

Long. Black. Carved from obsidian.

Not forged.

Grown.

“Take it.”

She did.

The handle pulsed in her palm.

Hot.

Living.

It bonded instantly to the glyphs on her skin.

“The final two trials will demand blood,” the tall one said.

“Mine?”

“Or theirs.”

The others stepped back.

The throne lit up.

For a second—just one—she saw someone sitting in it.

Not herself.

Not Syra.

But a woman with her face.

Older.

Wild.

Eyes full of stars.

Then she blinked.

Gone.

“You will return to us after Trial Six,” the tall one said.

“Why?”

“Because the moment the Veil opens, the Academy falls.”

She turned.

“I’ll be ready.”

“No,” the voice whispered.

“You’ll be changed.”

She left the chamber with the blade strapped to her back.

The wolf-masks watched her go.

They did not speak.

They did not follow.

But in the silence behind her…

The empty throne exhaled.

And a heartbeat echoed from its depths.

Outside, in the courtyard, Ash waited.

He didn’t ask where she’d been.

He just said:

“You smell like prophecy.”

And then kissed her like it was the end of the world.

Because maybe it was.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: TRIAL FIVE: THE ARENA OF PAIN

The Arena of Pain didn’t appear on the Academy maps.

It didn’t have rules.

It didn’t need them.

Because once you stepped into its circle—barefoot, stripped of pack, title, bond—you were nothing.

Just blood and bone waiting to break.

Evangeline stood beneath the rusted iron arch, wind whipping through her robes. The sand beneath her feet was coarse. Wet. Stained red even before the trial began.

The crowd gathered above—students, instructors, enforcers.

Eyes full of hunger.

The entire Academy had come to watch.

And at the top tier, flanked by guards and veiled in shadow:

Headmistress Syra.

Her face unreadable.

But her hands gripped the railing a little too tightly.

Ash stood by the edge, jaw locked.

Vale leaned against a pillar, arms crossed but tense.

Ronan’s fists were clenched.

And Cassian—Cassian looked like he wanted to kill whoever stepped into the ring.

Evangeline didn’t meet their eyes.

She didn’t need saving.

She needed release.

A robed figure stepped into the arena.

Spoke loud enough to shake the stones:

“Trial Five. The Omega will face another of her kind. One blade. One bond. First blood to stain the stone determines the victor. The loser is… offered.”

A hush fell.

Offered?

Offered to what?

Evangeline’s heart thudded—but not from fear.

From clarity.

This was no longer about worth.

It was about survival.

The other Omega entered.

Taller.

Hair braided down her back.

Eyes cold.

Talia.

The same girl Evangeline had saved in the Death Ring.

Her face was different now.

Empty.

No words were exchanged.

No salutes.

Just two girls, barefoot and branded, facing each other like myths wrapped in skin.

The blade was placed between them.

Carved obsidian. Vein-pulsing. The twin to the one Evangeline now carried hidden.

Her fingers found it first.

The bell rang.

And the world went red.

Talia struck hard.

Fast.

Trained.

Evangeline blocked with her forearm—skin split instantly. Blood dripped down her elbow.

The crowd gasped.

She spun. Dodged the second strike.

Then lunged.

Their blades clashed.

Sparks flew.

They moved like animals—graceful, brutal, desperate.

But something in Talia was wrong.

Her eyes… too dark.

Her mouth… slack.

She wasn’t fighting to win.

She was programmed to kill.

Evangeline saw it too late.

Talia’s blade sliced her shoulder.

Deep.

The glyph beneath her collar flared.

Her vision blurred.

She tasted copper.

Fell back.

Heard the crowd roar.

Above, Syra leaned forward.

Her lips parted.

“Now,” she whispered.

Talia raised her blade.

Too fast.

Too precise.

Too controlled.

Evangeline rolled.

Caught her ankle.

Yanked.

Talia collapsed beside her.

And then Evangeline—bleeding, panting, half-crazed—plunged the blade into the other Omega’s thigh.

Blood hit the stone.

The bell rang again.

First blood.

Victory.

Barely.

She crawled back on hands and knees, gasping, shoulder torn, vision swimming.

Talia lay twitching.

Not from pain.

From something inside her mind breaking.

Syra stood.

“You pass.”

But she didn’t sound pleased.

She sounded… cornered.

Ash vaulted the arena wall first.

Ronan behind him.

Cassian tore through the crowd.

Vale walked.

Always the last.

Always the most dangerous.

Ash lifted her into his arms.

“You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“To feel something bleed that wasn’t me.”

Cassian kissed her forehead, eyes burning.

Vale took her hand, fingers lacing tight.

Ronan whispered, “She wasn’t in control.”

“I know,” Evangeline murmured.

“And that means someone else was.”

Later, when they bathed her in the sacred spring behind the arena, each Alpha touched her differently.

Ash washed her hair.

Vale kissed the wound on her shoulder.

Ronan held her hips like they might fall apart.

Cassian whispered her name against her neck.

And in the water, where her blood had dripped—

A new rune formed.

It pulsed once.

Then sank beneath the surface.

Trial Five was over.

But the offering?

Had just begun.

Because the Veil had tasted her blood now.

And it was starving for more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: THE HEAT COMES EARLY

It hit her in the middle of the night.

No warning.

No rhythm.

Just fire.

Burning beneath her skin like a fuse lit too soon.

Evangeline bolted upright in bed, her sheets soaked with sweat, her thighs slick with the betrayal of her own body.

Not just arousal.

Heat.

The true kind.

The one no Omega could fake—or fight.

The one that shattered pride and bent queens to their knees.

Her breath came in gasps. The bond marks across her flesh pulsed like they were alive. Her skin seared. Her pupils blew wide.

She stumbled from bed.

Barefoot.

Half-naked.

Drunk on pheromones and panic.

She didn’t make it two feet before her knees buckled.

The heat dragged her down like gravity.

The door burst open.

Cassian.

Then Ash.

Ronan.

Vale last.

All shirtless.

All breathing too fast.

All caught in her scent like wolves circling a bleeding lamb.

Ash spoke first, voice raw.

“Fuck. She’s burning.”

Vale stepped forward, eyes wide.

“This is too soon. The trials—she’s not ready—”

“She’s glowing,” Cassian snapped.

Ronan didn’t speak.

He fell to his knees beside her, hands already on her thighs.

She flinched.

“Don’t,” she gasped.

“You need us.”

“I—”

She moaned.

Loud.

Wet.

Undeniable.

The scent of her slick hit the room like a drug.

Cassian cursed.

Vale swayed.

Ash growled.

Ronan picked her up and carried her to the bed.

Laid her down like something sacred.

And all four of them—her pack—stood at the edge of her mattress.

Watching her writhe.

Shaking.

Begging without words.

“You don’t have to ask,” Ash said softly.

“But if you do… we won’t stop.”

Vale sat beside her, brushing the hair from her face.

“You smell like a storm before it breaks.”

Ronan pressed his mouth to her wrist.

Her pulse pounded against his lips.

Cassian leaned in—nuzzled her cheek.

“Say it,” he whispered.

“Say please.”

She bit her lip.

Moaned.

Then whispered:

“Please.”

They descended.

Ash first—mouth on her breast, tongue circling her nipple until she cried out.

Vale at her throat, his teeth grazing the bond mark he left there weeks ago.

Cassian between her legs, licking like a man starved.

Ronan on her hands, pressing her wrists into the bed, whispering her name like a prayer.

She shattered.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Her moans echoed like prophecy.

The room glowed faintly with each orgasm, glyphs lighting across the ceiling in response to her climax.

Then Ash pushed inside her.

His cock thick, pulsing, right.

She arched.

Screamed.

He didn’t knot.

Not yet.

Just claimed.

Then Vale took her mouth.

Kissed her until she was sobbing into his throat.

Ronan slid between her thighs next, replacing Ash with one slow, brutal thrust.

Her heat welcomed him like a key.

Cassian stroked himself beside the bed, growling.

“You’re fucking ours,” he whispered.

She turned her head. Met his eyes.

“Then prove it.”

He climbed onto the bed.

Pressed her mouth open.

She licked him first.

Then sucked.

Slow. Filthy. Perfect.

Vale moaned at the sight.

Ronan fucked her harder.

Ash bit her shoulder.

Cassian came with a snarl—across her chest, her throat, her lips.

She smiled.

Licked it off.

Then Vale entered her.

And she came again.

Hard.

Violent.

His knot swelled inside her.

Locked.

She wasn’t just burning.

She was reborn.

They didn’t stop.

Not for hours.

Each took her.

Claimed her.

Knotted her.

Marked her.

And when dawn crept in through the window, her body was wrecked.

Her thighs sore.

Her skin glowing.

And her scent—

Unmistakable.

Omega.

Quad-bonded.

Untouchable.

Syra watched from the mirror in her chamber.

Her voice cracked.

“She’s done it.”

Behind her, a masked figure whispered:

“And now the Veil will open.”

Evangeline lay naked in bed, covered in bites and bruises and worship.

The heat was gone.

But the change?

Had just begun.

Her eyes fluttered open.

Cassian curled beside her.

Ronan at her back.

Ash tangled at her feet.

Vale resting with her hand in his.

And for the first time since arriving—

She didn’t feel afraid.

She felt armed.

Because now?

They weren’t just hers.

She was theirs.

And the Academy would learn—

Hell hath no fury like a bonded Omega.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: ALL FOUR TAKE HER

The world outside her dorm faded into white.

Fog crawled across the courtyard, licked up the walls of Mooncrest like it had purpose. The air was too still. Too charged.

But inside—

Inside her bed?

There was only heat.

And them.

All four of them.

Naked.

Bare.

The pack. Her pack.

Evangeline lay sprawled in the center of the bed, her body still marked from the early heat. Bonded. Knotted. Claimed.

And still aching.

Still open.

Still empty.

They hovered around her like wolves circling their moon.

Ash at her left, fire in his blood and jaw clenched like he was trying not to explode.

Cassian at the right, fingers flexing, eyes darker than sin.

Vale at the head of the bed, back against the wall, watching her like she was the last prayer he’d ever whisper.

And Ronan?

Ronan was between her legs again.

Mouth already on her.

Already tasting.

Already making her shake.

She moaned as he licked her open, tongue slow and steady, teasing her swollen clit with the patience of a predator who knew exactly when to strike.

Her thighs trembled.

Cassian grabbed her hand—forced her fingers into his mouth, sucking one, then two, his tongue filthy and hot.

“Look at you,” he growled. “Already wet and we haven’t even started.”

“I’m always wet for you,” she whispered, breathless.

Ash groaned.

“Fuck. That mouth.”

Vale leaned in, his hand cupping her face, thumb brushing her lips.

“You know what we want tonight?”

“I think I can guess.”

“No,” he said. “Say it.”

She licked his thumb.

“You want to fuck me. All of you.”

“Not fuck,” Ash growled. “Own.”

Ronan climbed up her body, his face slick with her desire, mouth red from her heat. He kissed her—hard—while Vale slipped down and took his place.

She cried out as Vale's tongue found her again.

But Ronan held her mouth open with his tongue.

Ash leaned in from the side, kissing her neck, her collarbone, teeth dragging.

Cassian behind her now, kissing her spine.

It was too much.

Not enough.

She was stretched across heat and scent and need.

Then Cassian gripped her hips and pressed inside from behind.

No warning.

No hesitation.

Just cock.

Thick and deep.

She screamed.

Ronan kissed her harder.

Vale bit her inner thigh.

Ash stroked himself, groaning.

“You take us so fucking well,” Cassian growled.

“Like she was made for it,” Vale added.

Cassian pulled out.

Then Vale slid in.

Slow.

Deep.

Groaning her name like it hurt.

Then Ash took her mouth.

Hard. Demanding.

While Ronan slid beneath her, kissed her chest, her throat, her jaw.

And then Vale knotted her.

Deep.

She shook.

Came.

Came so hard the room blurred.

Her claws raked Ash’s arms.

Her teeth sank into Ronan’s neck.

Cassian moaned like a devil in heat.

Vale whispered her name over and over until it wasn’t a word anymore.

Just worship.

They didn’t stop.

Ash was next.

She rode him while Ronan fingered her open wider.

Cassian kissed her calves, her knees, her ankles.

Vale bit her shoulder.

Ash’s knot swelled.

She screamed.

Again.

Came again.

Then fell.

Ronan took her slow.

Sweet.

Like he had something to prove.

He didn’t.

But she let him anyway.

She cried into his mouth.

Trembled around his cock.

And when he knotted?

He told her he’d never let her go.

Last was Cassian.

He didn’t ask.

He flipped her over.

Pinned her wrists.

Fucked her like the war had already started.

Hard.

Rough.

Deep.

Her cunt ached.

Her mind blurred.

She begged.

Screamed.

Loved it.

When he finally came, snarling, teeth at her neck, knot locking them together, her whole body gave out.

They were all knotted to her now.

All tied.

And she to them.

Forever.

She lay on her back.

Covered in come, sweat, marks, and the smell of pack.

The room still pulsed with magic.

The Veil answered every orgasm with a fresh glow.

Her mark burned.

A new one formed across her chest.

A rune.

Omega. Quad-Bonded. Chosen.

Syra saw it through the mirror.

And whispered:

“It’s happening.”

Behind her, the throne in the Crimson Order chamber cracked.

Just once.

In bed, Evangeline stirred.

Whispered:

“I’m not done.”

And they all laughed.

Because neither were they.

This wasn’t sex.

This wasn’t claiming.

This was crowning.

She was no longer just theirs.

She was everything.

And the world would bleed to touch her now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: SHE BREAKS—AND BEGINS

Evangeline woke to pain.

Not sharp.

Not cruel.

Revelatory.

Her body ached in places she'd never known could hold sensation. Her thighs were bruised. Her mouth swollen. Her skin bore the ghost of every bite, every mark, every knot. The scent of her pack—salt, smoke, storm, steel—clung to her like a second skin.

But beneath all that?

Something deeper pulsed.

Alive.

Changing.

Her bond marks weren’t just warm anymore.

They were glowing.

Red.

Gold.

Black.

And one—the one over her heart—was now open.

As if the skin had parted.

As if something inside had stepped out.

The dorm was quiet.

Too quiet.

She sat up.

Alone.

The bed was still soaked in the aftermath of the night before—sheets tangled, blood on the pillows, come between her thighs.

But they were gone.

All four.

She felt it like an absence in her bones.

And worse?

The air wasn’t empty.

It was watching.

The mirror on her wall cracked.

She flinched.

Stepped toward it.

Her reflection stared back.

Naked.

Disheveled.

Glowing from the inside out.

And then the mirror moved.

Not the glass.

Her reflection.

It blinked before she did.

Smiled when she didn’t.

Then whispered—

“I’m ready.”

She shattered it with her fist.

Blood splattered the wall.

But even bleeding, even shaking—

She felt new.

She wasn’t broken anymore.

She was breaking open.

The door slammed.

Ronan.

Pale.

Breathless.

“You need to come now.”

The halls were empty as they ran.

Mooncrest had shut down.

Lockdown protocols.

No bells.

No light.

Just sirens that didn’t make sound—vibrations in the walls, warnings in the bones.

At the west wing?

Ash waited.

Covered in blood.

Not his.

His voice cracked.

“It’s Vale.”

They dragged her through the crypt stairwell, into the old infirmary.

Vale lay on the slab, skin gray, eyes half-lidded, glyphs blooming across his chest like rot.

“Poison,” Ash hissed.

“Not natural,” Ronan added.

Cassian leaned over him, fangs bared.

“They hit him with a Veil-wound. Ancient.”

Her hands touched Vale’s face.

Cold.

He looked at her.

Didn’t speak.

But his eyes said everything.

Don’t cry.

Don’t stop.

Don’t let them win.

The glyph on her chest pulsed.

Her bond marks flared.

The runes in the walls lit.

Cassian cursed. “What the fuck is that?”

Ash stared.

“Is she—”

“She’s activating,” Ronan breathed.

Evangeline screamed.

Not from fear.

From command.

Her blood raced.

Her bonds burned.

She dropped to her knees.

Placed her hand on Vale’s chest.

And howled.

The sound wasn’t human.

It was thunder.

Magic.

Veil-song.

The stone altar split.

The glyphs flared so bright they burned the others’ skin.

Vale gasped—body arching, chest glowing.

Then—

He breathed.

Color rushed back to his lips.

His eyes shot open.

And her name fell from his mouth like a vow:

“Evangeline.”

She collapsed.

The others caught her.

She shook.

Tears slipping silently down her cheeks.

Ash kissed her temple.

“You brought him back.”

Cassian held her shoulder.

“You opened the link.”

Ronan stroked her spine.

“You’re not just a key.”

And Vale—

Vale crawled toward her.

Took her hand.

Pressed it to his heart.

“You’re the lock, too.”

Later, when she bathed alone in the cleansing spring behind the crypt, her reflection changed again.

Not just her body.

Her aura.

It wasn’t red now.

It was black-shot gold.

She touched her stomach.

Something flared beneath the skin.

Not a child.

Not yet.

But a seed.

Of power.

Of legacy.

Of future.

She stepped from the water.

Unashamed.

Unhidden.

And whispered into the wind—

“I’m not breaking.”

“I’m beginning.”

In the distance, the Veil stirred.

Just once.

And something inside it whispered back:

“Welcome.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: ASH’S CONFESSION

Ash wasn’t easy to find.

He didn’t sulk.

He vanished.

Like smoke curling through locked doors, like fire slipping through cracks in stone. When the others bled, he stood. When the others raged, he burned silently.

But tonight?

He’d run.

Evangeline followed the scent—ash and scorched cedar—up through the north tower, into a part of Mooncrest students didn’t even whisper about.

The bell chamber.

Empty.

Forgotten.

Alive with secrets.

He stood at the edge, shirtless, sweat glistening down his back. One hand on the crumbling stone, the other fisted around the chain that once rang the warning bell during sieges. Now it only hung. Rusted. Waiting.

Like him.

“You found me,” he murmured.

“I always do.”

He didn’t turn.

“Should’ve stayed with the others.”

“They’re not the one who’s bleeding.”

He gave a bitter laugh.

“Not on the outside.”

She stepped close.

His body was tight with tension—coiled and ready to snap.

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

Silence.

Then—

“I prayed for you.”

The words landed like a slap.

She blinked.

“What?”

Ash turned.

And she saw it then.

The crack.

Not in his body.

In his soul.

“I was twelve when I saw you,” he said. “In a vision. One of those Mooncrest ‘gifts’ we’re not supposed to talk about. You were kneeling in blood. Yours. And theirs. Glowing.”

She couldn’t speak.

“I prayed they’d find you. I prayed I would.”

He stepped closer.

“I didn’t pray to love you. I prayed to serve you.”

Her throat closed.

“Ash—”

“You don’t get it,” he said. “I wasn’t chosen to lead this pack. I was bred. Raised. Fed rituals until I couldn’t remember what my own want tasted like.”

He touched her jaw.

“But then you came back. And you didn’t bend. You burned.”

His voice dropped to smoke.

“And I remembered what I was for.”

He kissed her.

Not hungrily.

Not violently.

But willingly.

A surrender dressed like a war.

She broke the kiss.

“Then kneel,” she said.

He did.

Without question.

Right there on the cold tower stone, eyes lifted to hers like she was already crowned.

She stepped forward.

Undid her robe.

Let it fall.

Naked in the moonlight.

Marked by all.

And said:

“Then prove it.”

He did.

His mouth found her thighs first—kissing each mark like an oath. His hands slid up her hips, his tongue teasing but never taking.

When he finally touched her sex, it was like worship.

No rush.

No claim.

Just reverence.

She moaned.

Soft. Open. Real.

And he kissed it like he’d die if he stopped.

Then he rose.

Entered her.

Slow.

Deep.

She gasped.

His eyes didn’t leave hers.

Not once.

They fucked on the stone floor, the moon their only witness.

He didn’t knot her.

Didn’t mark her again.

He let her ride him until she came crying.

And then—

He whispered.

“I’d follow you into the Veil.”

She froze.

“What?”

“I don’t care if you kill us all to open it. If you burn Mooncrest. If you leave bodies behind. If I die screaming.”

He kissed her again.

“I prayed for you. And you’re not a blessing.”

“You’re a reckoning.”

She came again.

Hard.

Her name echoing off the bells.

After, they lay tangled in silence.

She rested her head on his chest.

Felt the beat beneath it.

Unsteady.

Still burning.

He’d given her everything.

Not just cock.

Not just blood.

But belief.

And that?

That was power.

She stood, dressed.

He stayed kneeling.

And when she left him there in the shadows—

She didn’t feel like prey.

She felt like purpose.

In the sky above, the moons aligned.

And in the Headmistress’s chamber, the sixth seal cracked.

Two trials left.

But only one throne.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: VALE’S MADNESS

The door to Vale’s chamber was unlatched.

Not open.

Not closed.

Just… waiting.

Evangeline didn’t knock.

She slipped inside and felt it immediately—wrongness.

The air was too still.

The windows sealed.

No light.

Just shadows pressed against the walls like hands trying to claw out.

He was on the floor.

Kneeling.

Surrounded by candles, herbs, runes drawn in what looked like ink but smelled like blood.

His back to her.

His shirt discarded.

Veins black.

Spreading.

“Vale,” she breathed.

He didn’t turn.

Didn’t speak.

Just traced another glyph across the stone in a whisper of a tongue older than time.

“Vale,” louder now.

Nothing.

She stepped closer and the bond between them flared in panic.

His body stiffened.

And when he finally looked over his shoulder—

His eyes were black.

No silver.

No pupil.

Just void.

And his voice?

It was not his.

“I tried to stop it,” he said.

“Vale—”

“They said I had time.”

“Who?”

He stood.

Unsteady.

Taller than he looked.

Covered in sweat and glyphs and madness.

His hand trembled.

“I saw the other side, Evangeline.”

“The Veil?”

He nodded.

“I fell through it in a dream and never woke up.”

She stepped closer.

Tried to reach for him.

He flinched.

“No.”

“You’re mine.”

“You don’t want me like this.”

“I chose you like this.”

He smiled.

It cracked something in her chest.

“I’m dying.”

“No, you’re changing.”

He stumbled back.

One candle snuffed itself out.

Then another.

Then the third.

Only one remained.

Its flame red.

He fell to his knees again.

Screamed.

And from his chest—where her mark glowed brightest—

A new rune carved itself in flesh.

Not ink.

Not blood.

Something deeper.

A brand.

She dropped beside him.

Held his face.

Tears blurred her vision.

“Vale.”

“I’m not going to make it.”

“You’re not dying.”

“I’m opening.”

The floor split beneath them.

Just a hairline crack.

Just a whisper.

But she saw it.

The edge of the Veil.

Right there.

Under Mooncrest.

Under him.

And he was the bridge.

He gripped her hand.

“Promise me.”

“What?”

“If it takes me—”

“It won’t.”

“If it tries—”

“I’ll kill it.”

His eyes flickered.

Color returned.

Just barely.

And his voice dropped to ash.

“I love you.”

She kissed him.

Slow.

Scared.

Furious.

It tasted like endings.

And she didn’t care.

She kissed him until the glyphs dimmed.

Until the Veil crack sealed.

Until he collapsed into her arms.

They stayed like that all night.

Her holding him.

Him holding on.

By morning, the madness was gone.

But the mark on his chest?

Still there.

Still glowing.

And the rune it spelled?

Hers.

Syra watched from the upper window.

Whispered to herself.

“She bound him too tight.”

And the Order?

They began to panic.

Because they hadn’t expected love.

Not like this.

Evangeline walked out of Vale’s room at dawn.

Covered in his blood, his runes, his scent.

And every student who passed her…

Dropped their gaze.

Because they didn’t see a girl.

They saw a prophecy.

Wrapped in skin.

Dripping with devotion.

And already halfway through the Veil.

She didn’t break.

Not when he bled.

Not when he begged.

Not even when she held his death in her hands and told it to wait.

Because this wasn’t madness.

It was becoming.

CHAPTER THIRTY: MARKED BY CRIMSON

The blood didn’t wash off.

No matter how long she stood under the scalding water, no matter how raw her skin became beneath the soap, Vale’s blood clung to her like silk dipped in iron.

Not on the surface.

Under it.

In her pores. Her lungs. Her bones.

Every breath tasted like him.

And something more.

Something older.

When she stepped from the steam, the mirror didn’t fog.

It reflected her perfectly.

Too perfectly.

She wiped it anyway—and froze.

There was something on her chest.

Something new.

A mark.

Not a bruise.

Not a bite.

A rune.

Crimson.

Carved over her heart.

Glowing faintly in the candlelight.

It hadn’t been there yesterday.

But it pulsed with the same rhythm as her bond marks.

As if they’d all been pulled toward this one place.

This center.

Her body had become a map.

And this?

This was the crown.

Footsteps.

The door opened without a knock.

Cassian. Wet from rain, still in his training gear.

He saw her.

Stopped.

Stared.

“You’re marked,” he said.

“I always have been.”

“No,” he breathed. “This is different.”

He crossed the room.

Touched it.

His fingers recoiled like he’d been burned.

“Crimson,” he whispered.

The others arrived one by one.

Ronan. Silent. Wide-eyed.

Ash. Pale. Breathless.

Vale—weak but upright—leaned against the frame, his mark still glowing beneath his shirt.

They circled her like worshippers.

Ash spoke first.

“Do you feel it?”

“Yes.”

Cassian nodded.

“It’s not just power.”

“It’s prophecy,” Ronan added.

Vale met her eyes.

“It’s a throne.”

The mark flared.

Every light in the room went out.

And from her lips—without consent, without thought—came a single word:

“Kneel.”

None of them hesitated.

Not one.

They dropped to their knees like something ancient had reached through her voice and curled its fingers around their throats.

She gasped.

Fell to her knees too.

And the rune on her chest blazed so bright it lit the room red.

A whisper echoed through the walls.

Not hers.

Not Mooncrest’s.

“Crimson-born. Crimson-marked. Crimson rules.”

Syra felt it from the tower.

Clutched the wall.

Blood dripping from her nose.

“It’s started,” she said.

Behind her, the Crimson Order erupted in chaos.

“She’s been chosen.”

“She’s activated.”

“She’ll open the Veil.”

“No,” Syra whispered.

“She is the Veil.”

Back in her dorm, Evangeline collapsed into her pack.

They wrapped around her.

Protected her.

Held her.

Loved her.

Even when she didn’t speak.

Even when she couldn’t.

Because her body had become a spell.

Her voice, a curse.

And her mark?

A catalyst.

She didn’t need magic anymore.

She was magic.

And the world had already begun to bleed for her.

Above the bed, the glyphs rearranged themselves on the ceiling.

One word.

Dripping red.

Queen.

The prophecy was no longer waiting.

It had already begun to walk.

And it wore her skin.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: TRIAL SIX: BETRAYAL

They didn’t tell her which one it would be.

They only said: One Alpha will betray you.

She had to survive it.

Endure it.

And if she did, the final trial would begin.

If she didn’t?

She wouldn’t live to see it.

Evangeline stood in the center of the Hall of Echoes—an ancient place beneath Mooncrest, where the air tasted like iron and old promises. The stone walls bore no torches. Only flickering runes that lit and dimmed with every breath.

The veil was thinnest here.

She could feel it.

Like silk brushing her skin from the inside out.

She was alone.

For now.

But not for long.

Syra’s voice echoed from somewhere unseen.

“Betrayal always comes from inside the bond.”

Evangeline clenched her fists.

“I’m ready.”

“No,” Syra replied. “You’re not.”

Footsteps.

Heavy.

Slow.

Familiar.

Cassian.

He stepped from the shadows, face unreadable, eyes dark.

No coat. Just the black training shirt, clinging to muscle and tension.

Evangeline’s heart cracked in her chest.

“I trusted you,” she said.

“I know.”

“You said you’d die for me.”

“I still might.”

He moved fast.

Faster than anyone should have.

She blocked the first hit—barely.

His fist still caught her shoulder, sent her spinning.

“Cassian!”

He didn’t stop.

“Cassian, stop—”

He tackled her.

They hit the stone.

His weight pinned her.

His knee shoved between her thighs.

Not gently.

Not with love.

With intent.

Her scream tore the silence.

Not from fear.

From rage.

“You want to break me?” she gasped.

His eyes were wet.

“I have to.”

She headbutted him.

Blood gushed from his nose.

He didn’t flinch.

Didn’t fight back.

Just let her shove him off and crawl away.

He stood slowly.

Wiped the blood.

Then whispered:

“If I don’t do this… they’ll kill the others.”

She froze.

“They threatened Ash.”

“They have Vale.”

“Ronan—”

“Is already bleeding.”

Her knees buckled.

“They made you choose.”

He nodded.

“And I chose you.”

He walked to her.

Kissed her forehead.

And plunged the ceremonial dagger into her side.

White-hot pain ripped through her.

She screamed.

Collapsed.

Blood soaked her shirt.

The runes on the wall lit up.

Trial complete.

Cassian fell beside her.

Sobbing.

Holding her.

Her blood all over him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry—”

She grabbed his shirt.

Pulled him down.

And kissed him.

Because betrayal didn’t break her.

It activated her.

Her blood hit the floor and flared.

The wound healed before their eyes.

Sealed by magic.

By bond.

By fury.

She stood.

Shaking.

Power humming beneath her skin.

Cassian looked up at her like he was witnessing a god.

She looked toward the wall.

A new rune burned there.

One word.

Survivor.

Syra exhaled from her tower.

“She’s passed.”

The Order muttered.

“She should be dead.”

“She isn’t.”

“Then we’re not ready.”

Back in the Hall, Evangeline lifted Cassian into her arms.

Carried him up the stairs.

Every step bled power from her bones into the Academy itself.

The Veil shifted above the school.

Whispers returned.

Blood sang.

And in her chest?

The rune over her heart split open.

To reveal a crown.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t scream.

She just whispered:

“You’re mine.”

And the stone listened.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE LOST OMEGA FILES

The library was closed to students after dark.

But rules never mattered to Evangeline—not anymore. Not when she had four bonded Alphas, a bleeding prophecy, and a soul marked in Crimson.

She moved through the shelves like a ghost, barefoot, cloaked in nothing but one of Ash’s black shirts and her own rage. Her skin still shimmered faintly with magic. The rune on her chest, born during Cassian’s betrayal, pulsed under the fabric like a heartbeat that no longer needed her permission.

Syra had told her nothing.

The Order had told her lies.

So she’d go to the only place that still whispered truth.

The Restricted Wing.

The scrolls waited.

Untouched for decades.

The glyphs on the locks flickered as she approached.

They didn’t resist her.

They opened.

The files were thin, bound in skin-paged folders stitched with golden thread.

She pulled the one labeled OMEGA—REJECTED.

Inside:

Eighteen names.

Nineteen photos.

One left blank.

No details.

No signature.

But the blood splatter on the top page was still fresh.

Her breath caught.

She flipped to the second entry—

Her own face.

EVANGELINE MORROW. Status: Unfit. Class: Rogue. Age at expulsion: 17.

But someone had scrawled something beneath it.

In blood.

“Crimson-born.”

Page after page—

Girls with her eyes.

Her hunger.

Her scream.

Omegas not weak.

Not broken.

Too powerful.

Each one hunted.

Used.

Discarded.

None survived.

Until her.

She dropped the folder.

Her body shook.

Not from fear.

From knowing.

They hadn’t expelled her because she was dangerous.

They expelled her because she was a threat to their order.

Because she was the true order.

A creak behind her.

She turned fast, blade in hand.

Vale stood there.

Still pale.

Still recovering.

But watching her with eyes no longer haunted—clear.

“You found them,” he said softly.

She nodded.

“They tried to erase them.”

“They couldn’t.”

“Why?”

He stepped close.

Reached into his coat.

Pulled out a page.

Old.

Fragile.

He handed it to her.

She read it.

Her legs gave out.

He caught her.

The page was a lineage.

Ancestral.

Tracing power from the first howling Omega ever born.

From the first scream that shattered a veil.

From the first female who stood above Alphas—and made them kneel.

The line was short.

Almost all broken.

But one name glowed red.

Evangeline.

“I’m the last,” she whispered.

“You’re the only,” Vale corrected.

They sat in silence on the floor of the forbidden stacks.

Her head on his shoulder.

The files open between them.

Dead Omegas watching from yellowed photographs.

“They’ll try to kill me,” she said.

“I’ll kill them first,” he answered.

“They’ll try to use me.”

“Not while I breathe.”

She kissed his jaw.

“Cassian almost did.”

“I know.”

“And I forgave him.”

“I would’ve, too.”

She folded the file shut.

Took the page with her name.

Burned the rest.

Watched the fire climb high up the walls.

Watched it erase their secrets.

Only her name remained.

Floating in the ash.

When she stepped out of the library, the glyphs on the ceiling rearranged again.

Not survivor.

Not queen.

Just one word.

Beginning.

Syra screamed from her tower.

The Order collapsed one of the sanctum chambers.

The Veil stirred.

And far beneath the school…

Something with wings opened its eyes for the first time in centuries.

Because Evangeline wasn’t a chapter in their story.

She was the first page of a new one.

And this time?

She’d write it in blood.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: SHE’S PREGNANT—MAYBE

She vomited in the garden.

Not from sickness.

Not from fear.

From something deeper.

Shift.

It began as a flutter beneath her ribs, an ache in her womb that wasn’t pain—but promise. Her fingers pressed to her belly. No blood. No injury.

Just… warmth.

And a pull.

Not toward her pack.

From within.

The Academy’s ancient nurse—Madam Neris—was waiting in the apothecary chamber before Evangeline even arrived. Her eyes were silver-blind, but her scent sense was unmatched. She took one breath when Evangeline entered and sighed.

“Too soon,” she said.

“I haven’t missed a cycle.”

“You’re bonded to four Alphas. You burned through a heat that could’ve killed gods. Timing isn’t your mistress anymore.”

Evangeline sat on the cold table, heart pounding.

Neris lit a black candle, mixed something thick and blue in a bowl of glass. When she held Evangeline’s wrist, her fingers were ice. They slid across her veins, pressed into the inside of her thigh, the hollow of her belly.

Then—

She whispered.

Not in English.

Not in anything mortal.

The glyphs on Evangeline’s skin pulsed.

And the candle flame turned red.

Neris’s lips tightened.

“Well?”

“I can’t confirm it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means something has quickened,” she said softly. “But whether it’s a child… or a power… remains to be seen.”

Evangeline stared at the flame.

It danced toward her.

Bent in the shape of a rune.

A womb.

A crown.

A howling mouth.

“Who?” she asked.

Neris didn’t answer.

“Which one of them—”

“You’re quad-bonded,” Neris snapped. “You think blood obeys rules here?”

She turned away.

But not before she said—

“One of them marked you too deep.”

Cassian was the first to know.

He felt it.

He found her in the chapel garden, crouched beneath the twisted ash tree where the roses grew wrong.

“You smell…”

She didn’t look up.

“I know.”

He knelt.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It might not be you.”

“It feels like me.”

She said nothing.

Ash knew the moment she passed him in the corridor.

His jaw locked. His hands shook.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t need to.

She felt it in the bond between them.

Hope.

And dread.

Vale sat beside her in the library that night.

Didn’t ask.

Didn’t speak.

Just took her hand and pressed it flat to his stomach.

Where his rune still pulsed.

“Whatever it is,” he whispered, “we’ll protect it.”

Ronan didn’t react.

Not at first.

He held her during the storm.

Kissed her when her breath shook.

And said—

“If it’s mine, I’ll raise it to tear this school down.”

“If it’s not?”

“I’ll love it anyway.”

The night was still.

The room dim.

She lay on her side, hand over her belly, unsure what grew there.

A child.

A storm.

A god.

A weapon.

But one thing she knew.

Whatever lived inside her—

It was already chosen.

It already pulsed with Crimson.

And it would never, ever bow.

In the Veil, something shifted.

Light flared.

A laugh echoed across eternity.

And a voice whispered from inside her bones:

“You are not alone anymore.”

Syra screamed in her sleep.

The Order burned another scroll.

The tower cracked.

And the glyphs above Evangeline’s bed rearranged.

One word.

Mother.

Maybe.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: THE BONDING FRACTURES

The first crack came in the training yard.

Cassian slammed Ronan into the stone wall hard enough to rattle the bones of the school. The sound was brutal, unfiltered—primal. No one intervened. Not the guards. Not the students.

Because this wasn’t about dominance.

It was about possession.

Evangeline watched from the tower.

Frozen.

Barefoot.

And already bleeding inside.

“You bit her in your sleep,” Cassian snarled, his forearm pressed to Ronan’s throat.

“I always bite her,” Ronan growled. “She begs for it.”

“She’s carrying someone’s bond-seed. If it’s yours—”

“You think I wanted it to be?”

Ash stepped between them before the next punch landed.

“You’re both fucking wrong,” he snapped.

Cassian shoved him. “You think she’s yours?”

Ash bared his teeth. “She chose me.”

Ronan’s lip curled. “She chose all of us.”

The bond between the four stretched thin.

Snapped taut.

And somewhere between breath and betrayal—

The glyph on Evangeline’s chest flared.

Bright.

Then fractured.

She fell to her knees in the library hours later, her skin burning, her blood too hot. Vale caught her before she collapsed.

“They’re pulling apart,” he said.

“They’re tearing me apart,” she gasped.

He pressed his forehead to hers.

“They don’t know how to share you anymore.”

“Then I’ll make them remember.”

They met in the ruins of the first altar chamber.

Where Evangeline had been banished.

Where she’d once howled and shattered glass.

She summoned them.

All four.

Naked of armor.

Exposed.

“We’re breaking,” she said.

“Because we care too much,” Ash murmured.

“Because we don’t know who we are without you,” Cassian said.

“Because we want all of you,” Ronan admitted.

Vale’s voice was the quietest.

“Because we’re afraid to lose you.”

She walked between them.

Touched each chest.

Her marks flared in response.

Then she bared her wrist.

And cut it.

Blood spilled onto the altar stone.

“This is your bond,” she whispered.

“This is your pain. Now feel mine.”

They dropped to their knees in agony.

Not physical.

Emotional.

They felt her heart splinter in their chests.

Her fear.

Her rage.

Her loneliness.

Her choice.

And still—they stayed.

Bowed.

Broke.

The runes above them blinked.

The bond didn’t shatter.

It reset.

Wove tighter.

Stronger.

Not control.

Not ownership.

But a tether braided from four different strings into one unstoppable line.

She kissed each of them.

Ash’s fire.

Cassian’s fury.

Ronan’s silence.

Vale’s madness.

And when she stood again—

The glyph on her chest was whole.

But changed.

No longer pulsing red.

Now?

Gold.

The fracture didn’t destroy them.

It made them dangerous.

Aligned.

Unshakeable.

Hers.

That night, they didn’t fuck.

They healed.

They curled around her like a shield.

Slept with her breath in their lungs.

And when they woke?

The moon was red.

And the Veil?

Thinned.

Syra shattered her looking glass in rage.

“They’re complete again.”

A masked Order member hissed, “Then the final trial must begin.”

“No,” Syra whispered.

“She passed Trial Six already.”

They stared at her.

“What comes next?”

Syra’s smile was cold.

“Submission of the Alphas.”

Evangeline stretched in her bed, one hand on her stomach, one on Ash’s chest.

And smiled.

She wasn’t ready for the end.

She was just now learning how to begin.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: MIDNIGHT DUEL

The horns sounded at midnight.

Not the ceremonial bells.

Not the warnings carved in ancient stone.

These were horns of challenge.

Of war.

Of claim.

And Mooncrest hadn’t heard them in over a century.

Evangeline woke to the sound.

To Ash already gone from the bed.

To Ronan’s spot cold.

To Vale standing at the window, still and silent, watching the flames rise from the northern tower.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“Cassian.”

He turned, eyes shadowed.

“He challenged.”

The duel grounds were already lit.

Circle of stone.

Spikes around the edge.

Ancestral blood soaked deep into the earth.

Students gathered in silence.

Alphas, Betas, instructors, even Syra—watching from her obsidian throne, the mask she never wore now covering her face.

Evangeline pushed through the crowd.

Cassian stood at the center.

Shirtless.

Marked.

Eyes burning.

Ash paced across from him.

Naked to the waist.

Breathing like thunder.

“I forbid this,” she shouted.

Syra's voice echoed through the circle.

“You don’t rule here yet, Omega.”

“I’m bonded to both.”

“Then one must submit.”

Ash looked at her.

Then back at Cassian.

“He thinks he owns more of you,” he said. “He doesn’t.”

“She’s mine,” Cassian growled. “She screamed my name.”

“She screamed all our names.”

“Then let’s bleed for it.”

The first strike was lightning.

Cassian’s fist cracked against Ash’s jaw.

Ash spun—recovered—slammed his elbow into Cassian’s ribs.

They moved like war gods.

Graceful.

Vicious.

Broken only by love.

Ronan arrived too late to stop it.

Vale held him back.

“She has to watch,” he said.

“She shouldn’t.”

“She must.”

Evangeline screamed again.

“Stop!”

Neither did.

Ash’s eye was swelling.

Cassian’s nose broken.

Blood hit the stone.

Syra smiled.

Then Ash dropped.

Not from pain.

From choice.

To his knees.

Bleeding.

Chest heaving.

Arms limp.

And said—

“Take her. If you think you can protect her better. Take her.”

Cassian froze.

The arena went silent.

Evangeline stepped into the ring.

Between them.

One hand on Ash’s head.

The other on Cassian’s chest.

“I don’t want one of you.”

“I want all of you.”

Cassian’s voice cracked.

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That I’ll never deserve you.”

“You already do.”

He dropped to his knees.

Opposite Ash.

And kissed the ground between them.

A submission.

Not to her.

To each other.

The crowd exhaled.

Magic pulsed through the ground.

A new rune burned into the earth beneath her feet.

Not just Omega.

Primarch.

Syra stood.

Furious.

“This was not the trial.”

Evangeline lifted her eyes.

“It was mine.”

Ash kissed her thigh.

Cassian kissed her hand.

Ronan stepped forward and kissed her belly.

Vale kissed her mouth.

And in that moment—

With the full moon above—

Every rune in the Academy flared.

The Veil cracked.

And welcomed her.

She had not won the duel.

She had ended the war.

Later, when they bathed her in the sacred spring, she held all four to her chest.

And whispered:

“You never needed to fight for me.”

Ash smiled.

“I didn’t fight to win you.”

Cassian kissed her neck.

“I fought to show you you’re worth dying for.”

And she believed it.

Because they would die for her.

But first?

They’d help her kill a kingdom.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: THE CRIMSON VEIL OPENS

It started with blood.

Not a wound.

Not a battle.

Just a drop—warm and red—sliding from the corner of Evangeline’s mouth as she bit her tongue in sleep. She woke to the taste of copper and the sensation of something tearing open behind her eyes.

The room pulsed.

Her marks flared.

And the Veil…

Shifted.

She wasn’t alone.

Ash jerked upright in the bed beside her, his pupils blown wide, body tense.

“Do you feel that?” he whispered.

Cassian was already on his feet, grabbing his blade without speaking.

Ronan stood at the window, growling low in his throat.

Vale didn’t move.

He stared at the ceiling—smiling.

“It’s time.”

The halls of Mooncrest were silent, but not still.

Light flickered in reverse.

Shadows ran up the walls.

Doors breathed.

Stairs led to places that had never existed.

And deep below the academy—

The sixth seal broke.

Evangeline felt it.

Not as a sound.

But as a summons.

To the chamber that didn’t exist.

To the place they said was myth.

To the center of everything.

The altar beneath the altar.

Where the Crimson Veil had been locked by blood, bone, and betrayal.

She walked alone.

No cloak.

No shoes.

Just skin and power and breath.

Each mark on her body a compass.

Each step a vow.

Her pack followed in silence.

They didn’t try to lead.

They didn’t try to protect.

They only witnessed.

The door was not locked.

It was waiting.

A circle of obsidian carved with Omega runes.

A basin of blood at the center.

A mirror above it—shimmering with reflections that didn’t match.

Syra stood at the edge.

Her hair unbound.

Her eyes glowing red.

“You shouldn’t have made it this far.”

Evangeline didn’t flinch.

“You made me.”

“No. I warned them.”

Syra’s voice broke.

“They didn’t listen.”

The Crimson Order stood behind her.

Masks lowered.

Hands trembling.

One voice said:

“She’s opening it.”

Another whispered:

“She is it.”

Evangeline stepped into the circle.

Knelt at the basin.

Touched the blood.

It boiled.

The mirror above cracked.

The stone beneath her split.

And from her chest—from the rune carved over her heart—

A howl tore free.

Not from her throat.

From her soul.

It echoed through the school.

Through the land.

Through the Veil itself.

And the air—

The world—

Ripped.

A rift opened above the basin.

Not light.

Not shadow.

Something older.

The Veil.

Raw and alive.

Hungry.

Ghosts spilled through it.

Not spirits.

Memories.

The dead Omegas.

The sacrificed.

The Rejected.

All glowing red.

They circled her.

Touched her shoulders.

Kissed her cheeks.

Whispered one word into her ear:

“Queen.”

Her pack fell to their knees.

Not in worship.

In protection.

Their bond marks blazed.

Four runes formed in the air.

Each one a name.

Each one hers.

Syra sobbed.

“I tried to stop it.”

“You only delayed it,” Evangeline whispered.

She stood.

Raised her arms.

And called the Veil to her.

It obeyed.

The rift spiraled downward.

Wrapped around her body.

Seeped into her skin.

Merged.

She didn’t glow red anymore.

She glowed Crimson.

The Veil was no longer above the school.

It lived inside her.

And everything past this moment?

Would answer to her.

Syra fell to the ground.

Mask cracking.

Tears burning.

“I failed.”

Evangeline stepped over her.

“No. You prepared me.”

She turned to the Order.

“To Mooncrest.”

To the world.

And spoke the words etched into her bones since birth:

“I am the Veil. I am the storm. I am what you cast out. And I’m what you’ll bow to.”

Then she smiled.

And the Veil smiled with her.

And far, far away, in kingdoms that thought they were safe—

The sky bled red.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: THE GIRL WITH THE FORBIDDEN GIFT

They called it a gift.

A lie wrapped in silk and sealed with blood.

But gifts didn’t break spines.

Didn’t crack earth.

Didn’t drag screams from the living and the dead alike.

This wasn’t a gift.

It was a curse.

And it belonged to her.

Evangeline stood on the shattered altar, skin lit from within, her bond marks glowing like starlight under flesh. The Veil lived in her now—threaded through muscle, curled around bone, singing in a language only the dead remembered.

Her body no longer just hers.

Her soul no longer bound to one world.

She was the bridge.

The wound.

The weapon.

And she remembered everything.

The moment it began.

The forbidden howl.

The taste of the air just before she shattered the stained glass.

The silence that followed.

And the prophecy whispered through torn throats and broken promises:

“She will rise, crimson-born, and break the binding between breath and beyond.”

She stepped through the hall.

Mooncrest knelt in her wake.

Not because of fear.

But recognition.

Omegas who once scorned her dropped to their knees.

Betas pressed their palms to the ground.

Alphas watched her with a reverence that bordered on terror.

Because they knew now—

She wasn’t one of them.

She was above them.

And when she reached the western chapel, the door swung open on its own.

Inside, a shrine she had never seen.

A wall of names.

All Rejected.

All gone.

Except hers.

And Syra’s.

The Headmistress stood in silence.

Not broken.

Not begging.

Just waiting.

“You opened it,” Syra whispered.

“You prepared me.”

“I tried to destroy you.”

“No,” Evangeline said, stepping forward. “You tried to make me survive.”

Syra turned.

Tears gleamed in her eyes.

“You’re stronger than I ever was.”

“I had to be.”

Syra knelt.

Not as a servant.

As an equal.

She took Evangeline’s hand and pressed it to the wall.

A glyph glowed beneath her fingers.

Not her name.

Not her title.

Her origin.

It bloomed across the stone in crimson fire.

“She who howls breaks death.”

The gift was never psychic.

It was ancestral.

A scream born of generations silenced.

A howl woven from bloodlines erased.

Her voice didn’t echo through halls.

It echoed through realms.

And the dead heard her.

And answered.

Later, she stood at the cliffs beyond Mooncrest.

The Veil above her now invisible.

But always near.

Her pack behind her.

Ash at her left, silent and lit like dusk.

Cassian at her right, eyes shadowed and loyal.

Ronan pressed to her back, steady and grounded.

Vale knelt before her, hand on her belly, where the bond-flame still flickered.

“You brought them back,” Vale whispered.

She looked down.

Hundreds of spirits in red and gold walked the fields below.

Not ghosts.

Not threats.

Just witnesses.

“They weren’t dead,” she said.

“They were bound.”

“And now?” Ash asked.

“Now they’re mine.”

She stepped forward.

Lifted her hands.

And howled.

The sound shattered the clouds.

The bindings cracked across the land.

And every Omega—living, dead, hidden—felt it in their marrow.

The call of the Crimson-born.

The forbidden gift.

No longer forbidden.

Now crowned.

The Veil opened its mouth behind her.

Didn’t swallow her.

Didn’t resist.

It obeyed.

Because she was the girl they cast out.

The howl they feared.

The death they worshipped.

And now?

She was the beginning of everything.

And the end of them.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: THE HEADMISTRESS REVEALED

Syra waited for her.

In the oldest part of Mooncrest.

Beneath the chapel.

Beyond the blood-sealed door that only Evangeline could open now—runes yielding to her touch like petals to flame.

The scent down here was thick: char, salt, and old blood.

And beneath it, the echo of something deeper.

Something familial.

The chamber was round, walls lined with stone thrones long abandoned. Candles wept black wax in unison. At the center sat Syra.

No throne.

Just a carved pedestal shaped like a broken fang.

Her robes were gone.

She wore crimson armor now—tight over her curves, neck bare, her mark glowing faintly through her collarbone.

It matched Evangeline’s.

“You wanted me here,” Evangeline said.

Syra didn’t look up.

“I’ve always wanted you here.”

“You summoned the Veil.”

“I bore the Veil.”

Evangeline stepped forward.

Her bond marks flared.

Syra smiled bitterly.

“I was the first rejected Omega. The first to howl. The first to open it.”

Her eyes lifted.

And they were not human.

Not anymore.

“They silenced me. Branded me. Named me unfit.”

“You built the Crimson Order,” Evangeline whispered.

“I built it to protect what they fear. Not to control it.”

Evangeline’s voice cracked.

“You tried to kill me.”

“I tried to make you strong.”

The silence between them pulsed.

Ronan stepped behind Evangeline.

Cassian to her left.

Vale and Ash behind, weapons drawn, eyes sharp.

Syra didn’t flinch.

She looked at them with longing.

“You think I don’t understand the bond?”

She pulled down her armor.

Four bond marks shone across her body.

“All dead. All broken. But I remember them every time I breathe.”

Evangeline felt her knees shake.

“You did this to me.”

“No,” Syra said.

“I did this for you.”

She rose.

Pulled a blade from her belt.

But didn’t raise it.

She offered it.

A ceremonial dagger etched in both their glyphs.

“Finish it.”

“What?”

“This is the seventh mark. The final rune. The true trial. Kill me, and you sever the last chain holding the Veil.”

Evangeline stared.

“I don’t want to kill you.”

“You already have.”

Syra stepped forward.

Took Evangeline’s hand.

Pressed the blade into her palm.

“It’s not murder.”

“It’s inheritance.”

Tears slid down her cheeks.

Syra kissed her forehead.

“I’m not the villain, Evangeline.”

“I know.”

“I’m your beginning.”

“I know.”

“And you’re my end.”

Evangeline drove the blade into her heart.

Clean.

Silent.

Syra collapsed in her arms, blood staining her bare feet, her breath ragged.

She smiled.

“You’re ready now.”

And died.

The chamber pulsed.

Runes on the walls caught fire.

The thrones cracked.

And the Veil?

Screamed.

But not in rage.

In release.

Evangeline lowered Syra’s body gently.

Her hands glowed red-gold.

Her bond marks flared.

And a new rune formed over her throat.

Truth.

Her Alphas surrounded her.

Not to protect.

To follow.

She turned.

Lifted her chin.

And said:

“Prepare the school.”

“For what?” Ash asked.

“For submission.”

Because the final trial was not hers.

It was theirs.

And by dawn—

Every Alpha would kneel.

Or burn.

In the tower, the Veil bowed.

In the crypt, the altar cracked wide.

And in her womb?

Something ancient quickened.

Not a child.

A crown.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: THE FINAL TRIAL: SUBMISSION OF THE ALPHAS

The courtyard was silent.

No birds.

No students.

No wind.

Just stone, blood-marked and sacred, etched with glowing runes that pulsed in time with Evangeline’s heartbeat.

Above her, the sky swirled red-gold.

The Veil wasn’t hanging anymore.

It had descended.

Touched earth.

Clung to her shoulders like a mantle.

Like a crown.

She stood alone in the circle.

Barefoot.

Naked from the waist up.

Her chest gleamed with glowing bond marks, the rune of truth on her throat, the mark of mother burning just above her womb.

She wasn’t dressed for war.

She was dressed for rule.

The bell tolled seven times.

A call older than any Mooncrest student remembered.

A call to the last trial.

The final vow.

The breaking point.

One by one, they entered.

Ash.

Ronan.

Cassian.

Vale.

Each stripped bare.

No weapons.

No pride.

Just raw bone and breath and bond.

The wind curled around them like recognition.

The Veil stirred.

The earth opened.

The rune circle flared.

And Syra’s voice—dead and eternal—echoed across the stone.

“Final Trial. Submission of the Alphas. Four kneel. One ascends.”

Ash went first.

He stepped forward without hesitation.

Fell to one knee.

Head bowed.

“I burned for you,” he whispered. “Now I burn to serve.”

Evangeline touched his head.

His mark on her body flared gold.

“Do you kneel to love me?” she asked.

“No,” he breathed. “I kneel to follow.”

Cassian was second.

His chest heaved as he lowered himself.

Hands on his thighs.

Eyes locked on hers.

“I hated myself for loving you. I fought the bond. I bled for it.”

She cupped his jaw.

“And now?”

“I bleed for you.”

Ronan dropped without words.

His silence was louder than any vow.

He laid his sword at her feet.

Pressed his forehead to the stone.

Evangeline touched his back.

“Do you kneel because you were broken?”

“No,” he whispered.

“I kneel because you put me back together.”

Vale stepped forward last.

Smiling.

Always smiling.

But his hands trembled.

He lowered himself.

Placed his lips to the top of her foot.

Then looked up.

His eyes shimmered with madness and clarity.

“You could let me die now,” he whispered.

“I won’t.”

“You could rule without us.”

“I choose not to.”

He exhaled.

And knelt fully.

“I was madness before you. Now I’m purpose.”

The runes exploded into light.

Evangeline lifted her hands.

The Veil descended.

Wrapped around her.

Sank into her skin.

Her bond marks turned into ancient script—no longer names.

Now titles.

Ash: Fire.
Cassian: Blade.
Ronan: Stone.
Vale: Mirror.

And she?

Queen.

A howl broke the sky.

Not hers.

Theirs.

All four lifted their heads and roared their bond to the heavens.

Not as Alphas claiming.

As Alphas serving.

She stepped into the center of the kneeling circle.

Knelt herself.

And said the final words.

“I am no one’s.”

“But you are mine.”

The Veil slammed shut above them.

Not to close.

To lock.

With her inside it.

In control.

The final trial was passed.

The prophecy fulfilled.

The last page written.

And the world?

Now belonged to the Rejected.

To the Broken.

To the Crimson-born.

In the distance, the bells shattered.

The earth groaned.

And every Alpha across the continent—

Kneeled.

Tomorrow, she would rule.

Tonight?

She would claim.

CHAPTER FORTY: ASH DOES FIRST

They lay in the aftermath of ascension.

The stone courtyard was still warm beneath her, the runes still pulsing in slow, reverent rhythm. Mooncrest had gone silent—bowed in magic, locked in awe. The Veil above shimmered like blood-soaked silk stretched thin across a crimson moon.

And Evangeline stood at its center.

Naked.

Crowned in rune and bond.

Power wrapped around her like breath.

Her Alphas still knelt.

Ash was the first to rise.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

His steps were slow, deliberate—each one pressing into the Veil-charged earth like a vow.

He stopped before her.

His eyes met hers.

And he removed his name.

A thin silver medallion hung from a chain around his neck—the old Mooncrest rite of birthright. He ripped it off. Dropped it to the ground.

“I am no longer Ash of Virelan.”

He stepped forward.

“I am Ash of you.”

She cupped his face.

Felt the burn of his loyalty surge through the bond like wildfire.

“You were the first to see me.”

His voice cracked.

“I was the first to pray for you.”

She laid him on the altar.

Not the cold one.

The new one.

The one made of living stone, shaped by the runes that had once named her broken.

She straddled him.

Naked.

Holy.

His cock hardened beneath her instantly.

She guided him inside.

Slow.

So slow.

Her body pulsed around him, made only for this. For him.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t thrust.

Just let her ride.

Let her claim.

Her hands planted on his chest, she rocked against him, breath heavy, thighs flexing. The bond shimmered. The Veil watched.

And he whispered.

Not moaned.

Whispered every time she gasped:

“I am yours.”

“I am yours.”

“I am yours.”

When she came, she collapsed forward, chest against his, mouth at his throat.

And he said the last thing she ever expected.

“Take my throne.”

She froze.

Pulled back.

“What?”

His eyes burned.

“My house has ruled the bloodlines for centuries. It’s not the Order. It’s the origin. If you claim me, you claim everything.”

He rolled her beneath him.

Pressed deep.

And whispered into her mouth:

“Let me give you my name.”

She nodded.

Once.

And the Veil split again—not to open, but to record.

Ash moved faster.

Harder.

Her nails dug into his back.

He kissed her throat.

She screamed his name.

And when he knotted, the rune over her womb flared.

Her mark reformed.

Once “Fire.”

Now:

King.

He pulled out slowly.

Knelt again.

And said, “Now I am yours. Forever.”

She took his name.

Took his body.

Took his throne.

And the others watched.

Silent.

Reverent.

Next in line.

She stood on the altar, sweat and come and blood drying on her thighs.

And whispered:

“Who kneels next?”

Behind her, Vale laughed softly.

Cassian cracked his knuckles.

Ronan just growled.

But Ash?

Ash kissed her foot.

And said:

“You are my Queen.”

And the stones beneath them carved the words without a hand:

Crimson reigns.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: VALE’S FADE

He was disappearing.

Not like a ghost.

Not like a shadow.

Like smoke.

Each breath Vale took left less of him behind. His eyes were duller now, the silver-gold glow fading to storm-gray. His skin—once kissed with fire-veined glyphs—had begun to pale, crack, thin.

The bond still tethered him to Evangeline, but it vibrated with strain.

Like a thread too tightly wound.

Like a life barely holding.

She found him in the garden at dawn, kneeling beside the blood-slick fountain where her name had been etched weeks ago. He traced it now, over and over, his fingers trembling.

“Vale.”

He didn’t turn.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said softly.

She didn’t.

She dropped beside him.

Took his face in her hands.

Pressed her forehead to his.

“It’s getting worse.”

He nodded.

“The Veil wants me.”

“It won’t take you.”

He laughed.

Dry.

Desperate.

“Crimson Queen,” he whispered. “You can raise the dead. But you can’t stop fate.”

“I don’t believe in fate.”

“You should. I think it believes in you.”

He leaned in.

Kissed her softly.

Not with heat.

With memory.

“I was always the fragile one,” he said. “The madness. The magic. You saw me anyway.”

“You were never fragile.”

“I am now.”

She cried then.

Not loudly.

Just wet silence down her cheeks.

Her lips on his.

Her hands clinging to him like her magic could seal him whole again.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to leave.”

The sun rose.

Too golden.

Too cruel.

His breathing slowed.

His mark on her stomach dimmed.

The glyph across his ribs flickered once.

Then again.

Then—

Faded.

“No,” she breathed.

“No.”

He collapsed.

Boneless.

Weightless.

Her sobs tore into the earth.

Her howl cracked the fountain.

She clutched him, screaming into his throat, dragging him against her chest like she could anchor him.

Like she could pull him back.

Cassian arrived first.

Then Ronan.

Then Ash.

But none moved.

None touched her.

Because they knew.

This was hers to decide.

She pulled back.

Her face a ruin of love and fury.

“I can bring him back.”

Ash stepped forward. “You don’t know what it’ll cost.”

“I don’t care.”

“You will.”

Ronan whispered, “It’s not him you’re saving. It’s what you lose.”

She didn’t listen.

She laid Vale on the stone.

Pressed both hands to his chest.

And screamed.

A howl so fierce the trees died.

The Veil opened.

Crimson poured from her palms.

Pooled around his body.

And seeped inside.

She gave him everything.

Her bond.

Her breath.

Her gift.

And in return…

He lived.

Gasped.

Clawed.

Sat up.

Eyes burning gold again.

But her hands—

Her magic—

Went cold.

Ash caught her as she fell.

She didn’t collapse.

She crumpled.

Silent.

Still.

A queen unlit.

Vale held her face.

Cried into her skin.

“I didn’t want this.”

She blinked up at him.

Smiled weakly.

“You’re worth it.”

And passed out.

In the sky, the Veil went dark.

The last rune above the Academy blinked out.

And a new one took its place.

Sacrifice.

The Queen still breathed.

But something inside her had changed.

And now?

Only blood would wake it again.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: SHE CHOOSES TO BLEED

She awoke to silence.

Not peace.

Absence.

The magic was gone.

Not weakened. Not dormant.

Gone.

Her body felt like a temple after desecration—holy, hollow, stripped of the hymns that once lived in her bones.

And at the center of it all—

Vale.

He slept curled at the foot of her bed, the bond glow faint and flickering in his chest. Alive. Whole.

Saved.

At the cost of her gift.

Ash sat beside her, hand in hers.

Cassian paced the doorway like a caged god.

Ronan knelt at her feet, pressing warmth into her legs.

But none of them spoke.

Because they felt it, too.

The power that once crowned her?

Now coiled beneath the surface.

Trapped.

Starving.

And asking for one thing:

Blood.

She sat up slowly.

Fingers shaking.

And whispered:

“I have to bleed.”

Ash’s jaw locked.

“No.”

Cassian stopped pacing. “You’ve given enough.”

Ronan met her eyes.

But didn’t argue.

He knew.

And Vale—Vale stirred, looked up, guilt hollowing his face.

“I would die for you,” he said softly.

“You did.”

“I didn’t ask to live.”

“And I didn’t ask to rule,” she said.

“But I was born to.”

The ceremonial blade sat on the table near the window.

Wrapped in crimson cloth.

Waiting.

She reached for it.

Her pack moved as one.

Ash tried to block her hand.

Cassian growled.

Ronan shook his head.

Vale didn’t move.

“Let her,” he whispered.

“Or she’ll disappear.”

She unwrapped the blade.

Its edge shimmered.

Moonlight carved it in silver-red.

She looked at her Alphas.

“I love you.”

Then dragged it across her palm.

Magic exploded.

Her blood hit the stone like fire.

The Veil screamed.

The glyphs on her body reignited—flickering, flaring, rearranging.

The rune on her womb glowed gold.

Her chest burned.

Her heart raced.

The bond flared in all four Alphas at once.

And then—

The mark over her collarbone cracked.

Split open.

And bled.

Power.

It poured from her like song.

Like vengeance.

Like resurrection.

And her howl returned.

Low. Feral. Free.

The windows shattered.

The runes danced across the ceiling.

Every bond mark on her body turned to living script.

And the Veil descended again—

But this time, not as prophecy.

As armor.

The Queen had chosen.

Not to save herself.

Not to reclaim power.

To bleed for what she’d built.

To resurrect what was hers.

To crown madness and magic together in one breath.

The door burst open.

Syra’s throne—empty now—dragged by two Order remnants.

They dropped it at her feet.

Ash looked at her.

Ronan bowed.

Cassian placed his sword across his knees.

Vale pressed his forehead to her thigh.

And in the silence, she spoke.

Her voice rich with blood and truth.

“I am not whole unless I bleed for you.”

They wept.

Not because she returned.

But because they felt her ascend.

This wasn’t power.

It was devotion.

And it belonged only to her.

Outside, the sky cracked.

A storm poured.

And the runes overhead carved one final word into the air:

Reign.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: MARKED BY ALL

The throne room pulsed with heat.

Not from fire.

Not from war.

From her.

Evangeline stood at the center of it—barefoot, bond marks glowing beneath skin turned molten. Her heartbeat echoed through the stone floor. The Veil curled at the edges of her body like living silk, wrapping her in shadows and gold.

She had bled.

She had chosen.

And now, she would be claimed.

Fully.

Completely.

Permanently.

The ritual was older than the Academy.

Older than the bloodlines.

Older than the Veil.

To be marked by one Alpha was sacred.

To be marked by two was forbidden.

To be marked by four?

Unheard of.

Until now.

Ash stepped forward first.

His eyes burned like dusk set on fire.

He took her hand.

Pressed his lips to her palm.

Then whispered:

“Let this be my name in your blood.”

He knelt.

Bit her inner wrist.

Slow.

Deep.

Permanent.

Ronan was next.

Silent.

Steady.

He touched her stomach.

Felt the pulse of life growing there.

His voice low, reverent.

“You are the mother of my peace.”

He bit her left shoulder.

A ring of power flared from the contact.

She moaned.

The Veil shuddered.

Cassian came third.

Snarling.

Unrepentant.

He grabbed her by the throat.

Tilted her head back.

“You will never be without me,” he growled.

“Even in death.”

Then he bit the base of her neck.

Rough.

Claiming.

Searing.

The stone cracked under her feet.

She whimpered.

Begged.

Wanted.

Vale last.

Smiling.

Always smiling.

But his hands trembled.

He kissed her forehead.

The place of crown.

Of madness.

“You made me live,” he whispered.

“So I’ll make you eternal.”

He bit her heart.

Over the rune on her chest.

The scream that left her split the air.

Four bond marks.

Simultaneous.

Aligned.

And then—

They shifted.

Turned into runes.

Living script.

Burning red-gold.

Looping around her waist, down her thighs, across her spine.

She had been bonded.

Now she was branded.

The first Quad-Bonded Omega in Mooncrest history.

They knelt around her.

She stood.

Her body trembling.

Her magic reborn.

Her womb alight.

And her soul—crowned.

Above them, the Veil erupted in color.

Runes forming across the sky.

One word at a time.

She was cast out.
She bled.
She burned.
She rose.
She ruled.

The stone throne behind her split.

Then reformed beneath her.

She sat.

Ash at her feet.

Ronan at her back.

Cassian at her right.

Vale to her left.

The Veil bowed.

And Mooncrest knelt.

This wasn’t a bond.

This was a miracle.

Made of sex and sacrifice.

Madness and magic.

And when she smiled—

The heavens cracked.

Because the world had a queen now.

And she wore marks no one could ever take.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: THE CRIMSON ORDER FALLS

They gathered in the chamber beneath the Academy, cloaked in gold and fear.

The last remnants of the Crimson Order.

Their masks, once symbols of power, now looked like prison bars carved from desperation. The flames in the sconces burned lower than usual—an omen they refused to speak aloud.

She was coming.

And they couldn’t stop her.

Evangeline stepped into the chamber like a storm.

Not with fury.

With purpose.

The rune-crowned Veil clung to her skin, her quad-marks glowing like holy fire. Her bloodied steps stained the ancient floor. Her eyes—once wild, once searching—now gleamed with sovereign certainty.

She was not here to negotiate.

She was here to end them.

Vale entered beside her, clothed in black madness and devotion.

Ronan followed, blade in hand, knuckles cracked, jaw set.

Cassian moved like a blade unsheathed—sharp and aching to be used.

Ash trailed smoke in his wake, silent as prophecy.

And the Order?

They finally knelt.

But it was too late.

“You created me,” she said.

They didn’t respond.

“You took our power. Made it taboo. Bound the Veil in lies. You broke Omegas. Bled them. Buried them.”

Her voice dropped into a growl.

“You worshiped me when I screamed. And tried to silence me when I sang.”

One figure dared to speak.

“We built Mooncrest to protect the world from what you are.”

“And I,” she said, stepping forward, “will rebuild it to protect girls like me from you.”

She raised her hand.

The runes on her spine ignited.

A howl shattered the torches.

And the Veil…

Answered.

It poured from the ceiling, from the cracks in the walls, from her mouth.

Crimson light.

Living.

Hungry.

And the Order screamed.

One by one.

Their gold masks melted to their faces.

Their robes caught flame.

Their blood turned to ink.

Until all that was left—

Was her name.

Carved into the stone where their sigil once burned.

Evangeline.

When the last fell, Vale caught her.

She collapsed into him.

Breathing like she’d outrun the gods.

“I didn’t want to kill them,” she whispered.

“But I had to.”

“I know,” he said. “I saw it in your flame.”

Ash touched her back, pressed warmth into her soul.

Cassian kissed her fingers, stained red.

Ronan stared at the ruin, and said:

“Now the world will know your name.”

She stood.

Body shaking.

But whole.

Whole for the first time.

And turned toward the long corridor.

The Veil followed behind her like a train of silk and war.

Mooncrest didn’t cheer.

It knelt.

Because power didn’t scream anymore.

It whispered.

And her name lived in the stone.

In the sky.

In the blood.

The Crimson Order was no more.

And from their ashes—

The Crimson Queen rose.

Not to destroy.

To rule.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: THEY TRY TO TAKE HER AGAIN

The smell of new blood came with dawn.

Not hers.

Not her pack’s.

But it reached her before the sunlight did—curling through the air like a warning. Metallic. Familiar.

Alpha.

But not the ones she’d broken.

Not the ones who bowed.

New ones.

Unmarked.

Unclaimed.

Uninvited.

She stood on the tower balcony, naked save for the Veil that clung to her body like shadowed silk. The runes on her chest were quiet. Her quad-bond glowed steady. Her power coiled at her spine.

Her crown didn’t shine.

It waited.

Cassian was the first to find her.

“There’s a caravan,” he said.

“Unregistered,” Ronan added from behind.

“From the Eastern Wards,” said Vale, appearing beside them.

Ash said nothing.

He simply unsheathed his blade.

The Alphas arrived just after sunrise.

Six of them.

Golden-scented. Battle-scarred. Drenched in the arrogance of untouched tradition.

They bore no crest.

No pack bond.

Only hunger.

They walked into Mooncrest’s courtyard as if they’d never been taught to fear a queen.

Their leader—tall, broad, jaw hard like cut stone—locked eyes with her.

“You’re the Omega.”

She didn’t move.

“I’m the Primarch.”

He smiled.

“You’re a womb with a crown.”

Her Alphas bared their teeth.

But she lifted a hand.

Held them back.

“You’re trespassing,” she said, voice calm.

“You’re tempting.”

“You’re warned.”

“We came for what’s ours.”

He reached forward.

Touched her arm.

And then—

She broke his fingers.

One by one.

His scream shattered the air.

She didn’t blink.

“You think I’m yours?” she asked.

He staggered back, clutching his mangled hand.

“You belong to the Alphas who bred you.”

She laughed.

Low.

Dark.

“You’re right,” she said. “I do.”

She turned.

Pointed.

And the Veil dropped behind her.

Revealing Ash. Ronan. Cassian. Vale.

All shirtless.

All marked.

All glowing.

Each one dropped into a crouch.

Eyes blazing.

Teeth bared.

And leapt.

The courtyard became fire.

Ronan struck first—silent and brutal.

Ash moved like smoke, cutting through the others.

Cassian roared as he knocked one Alpha flat, driving a blade through his thigh.

Vale whispered something, and the Veil wrapped itself around a target—squeezing.

Blood hit the stone.

And none of it was hers.

When it was over, they lay broken.

Crawling.

Whimpering.

Still breathing—but barely.

She walked through the wreckage.

Stepped on the leader’s chest.

Pressed her heel to his throat.

“You’re not the first to try.”

He coughed.

“You won’t last.”

She leaned down.

Smiled.

“Then why are you the one choking on your own blood?”

She left them there.

Tied.

Wounded.

Defeated.

Ash lit the torches.

Ronan scattered the crows.

Cassian cleaned his blade.

Vale kissed her hand.

No trial.

No crown.

No prophecy.

Just power.

Hers.

Taken.

Kept.

Unchallenged.

That night, she let them worship her again.

But not with sex.

With silence.

Each one laid with her in turn.

Ash, warm against her chest.

Cassian curled at her back.

Ronan guarding the door.

Vale holding her hand.

Because the world would keep trying.

But she would never be taken again.

The Veil agreed.

It pulsed once above her throne.

And carved a final rune into the air:

Untouchable.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: ASH’S TRUE NAME

The storm rolled in just after midnight.

Not the kind that soaked the soil.

The kind that split the sky open.

Crimson lightning streaked above Mooncrest, as if the heavens had begun to bleed—flashes that illuminated the spire of the tower where Ash stood alone.

Waiting.

Silent.

Watching.

Evangeline found him there, as always, without being summoned.

Drawn.

He didn’t turn when she entered.

Didn’t need to.

She could feel his tension through the bond—coiled, electric, grieving something she hadn’t yet understood.

“Ash,” she said softly.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

The storm rumbled behind him like a growl from the sky’s throat.

“I know why you came to me first,” she said. “I know you prayed for me before I even arrived. But you’ve never told me where you’re from.”

He exhaled.

His hands clenched the railing.

“You weren’t ready,” he whispered.

“For your truth?”

“For my name.”

She stepped beside him.

Rain kissed her bare shoulders.

The Veil wrapped tighter, a second skin of anticipation.

Ash turned finally—face drawn, eyes burning not with lust or hunger.

But fear.

Of legacy.

Of lineage.

Of what she might do with the truth.

“I’m not just the first son of Virelan,” he said. “I’m the heir to its throne.”

She didn’t flinch.

But something inside her shifted.

“You’re royalty.”

He nodded.

“High Alpha. Bloodline-bound. Meant to rule over all bonded territories east of the Vale.”

He paused.

Then whispered:

“They sent me to Mooncrest to tame you.”

Her heart stilled.

Everything froze.

She searched his face.

And saw no lie.

“They thought if they bonded me to you early, I’d learn your weaknesses. Report your patterns. And when the Veil opened… I would kill you.”

He reached into his shirt.

Pulled out a scroll.

She recognized the seal.

Virelan Royal Crest.

Cracked.

He snapped it open.

The command: Eliminate the Crimson Omega. Before she binds the Veil.

Her name.

Stamped in royal red.

“I never opened it,” he said. “Not until now.”

“Why?”

“Because the moment I saw you, I didn’t see a threat.”

“I saw a throne.”

He dropped the scroll.

Fell to one knee.

Head bowed.

Not in obedience.

In devotion.

“I give up my kingdom for you,” he said.

“My name. My claim. My history. It’s yours.”

He looked up.

Tears rimmed his eyes.

“I want you to wear the crown that was forged for my blood.”

“And I want to kneel beneath it.”

She reached for him.

Took his jaw.

Kissed him.

Hard.

Deep.

Then whispered:

“Tell me your real name.”

He exhaled.

“Asherion Virelan of House Flame. First of my line. Promised heir.”

She touched his chest.

“Not anymore.”

She drew a line over his heart.

A new rune.

It flared red-gold.

Broken Crown.

The Veil screamed above them.

And from the storm—

A red bolt crashed to the spire.

Didn’t burn it.

Branded it.

With the sigil of the Flame House.

Altered.

Now beneath it:

Evangeline.

She had taken his name.

His throne.

His blood.

And he had given it freely.

Because she was not a threat.

She was his queen.

And for the first time in centuries—

The house of Flame bowed to a woman.

To a howling girl cast out and reborn in blood.

To the Crimson Omega.

To everything.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: OMEGA NO MORE

The Council called for her at dawn.

They didn’t summon.

They begged.

Kneeled outside her tower, eyes lowered, hands trembling with fear disguised as diplomacy. The once-rulers of Mooncrest. The architects of her exile. The same voices that once voted her a danger to the pack system.

Now?

They came with scrolls.

Titles.

Thrones.

And desperation.

Evangeline stood above them, draped in living Veil-shadow, her body still glowing from the night Asherion gave her his crown. Her quad-marks flared like sigils written in holy fire. The rune over her heart pulsed like a second heartbeat.

And when she opened her mouth, her voice cracked stone.

“I’m not your Omega anymore.”

Gasps echoed through the courtyard.

Not because of the words.

But the truth behind them.

Because she wasn’t posturing.

She wasn’t performing.

Her scent—once unmistakably Omega—was changing.

Still sweet.

Still decadent.

But layered now.

Dominant.

Cassian stood to her left.

Ronan to her right.

Ash—Asherion—behind her.

And Vale?

Vale stood slightly ahead, grinning with a kind of madness only the reborn could wear.

“She’s not an Omega,” he said.

“She’s evolution.”

The Council shook.

A High Alpha stepped forward.

“You bear no heat scent.”

“No,” she said. “I burned it out the day I bled for my bond.”

“You bear no cycle.”

“I’ve rewritten it.”

“You bow to no Alpha.”

“I’ve crowned them.”

She pointed behind her.

“They kneel because they chose to. Because I never needed to submit to be sacred.”

The Veil writhed behind her.

A shadow with breath.

A storm with memory.

“You exiled me because I wouldn’t bend,” she said.

“You feared what I might become.”

She stepped forward, bare feet kissing the stone, voice low and lethal.

“Look at me now.”

The glyphs above the courtyard shifted.

New script formed.

A title Mooncrest had never seen.

PRIMARCH.

She held out her hands.

Ash dropped his sword at her feet.

Cassian bent his head.

Ronan placed his blade on the stone.

Vale kissed her palm.

And behind them, hundreds of Omegas stepped forward.

Once silent.

Once afraid.

Now reborn in her image.

They howled.

Together.

One sound.

One people.

Not ruled.

Risen.

The Council tried to run.

The Veil stopped them.

Swallowed them.

Erased their names from the walls.

Evangeline turned to the pack.

To the broken.

To the bonded.

And said:

“I am no longer your shadow.”

“I am no longer your heat.”

“I am no longer Omega.”

“I am your first.”

The Academy rewrote its charter that night.

No longer Alpha-led.

Now ruled by the Primarch and her bonded throne.

Every trial abolished.

Every Order rite burned.

And every girl once silenced?

Given a blade.

They built her a hall not of gold—but of bloodstone.

Each wall inscribed with the names of those rejected before her.

And at the center?

Her mark.

Flanked by four others.

Ash.
Cassian.
Ronan.
Vale.

No longer just a pack.

Now—

A court.

Because the future wasn’t Alpha.

It wasn’t Omega.

It was Crimson.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: CRIMSON REIGN

Mooncrest bowed.

Not from fear.

From reverence.

Because Evangeline no longer ruled from shadows or trial.

She ruled from a throne of blood.

One carved from broken prophecy, rebuilt in fire, crowned in Veil-runes and wrapped in the scent of her chosen.

Her Crimson Reign had begun.

The courtyard was no longer a battlefield.

It was a court.

And she sat in the center of it—barefoot, power coiling around her like smoke from sacred flame. Her bond marks shimmered beneath sheer silk. The rune across her throat glowed with command.

She didn’t give orders with a shout.

She gave them with a breath.

And the world listened.

The Council was gone.

The Order disbanded.

The system rewritten.

Now, Omegas trained in combat beside Alphas.

Now, bond trials were done by consent, not force.

Now, no one knelt unless they chose to.

And they all chose her.

Ash—Asherion—became her war general, his crown burned and reforged with her name etched into the band.

Cassian became her blade, her first line of defense, the Alpha who killed in silence and slept only when her breathing evened beside him.

Ronan kept the Veil, its storm-winds and soul-whispers bound to his pulse, loyal and silent and always at her back.

And Vale—

Vale ruled her shadows.

Her madness.

Her magic.

He whispered into her skin each night and helped her remember who she’d been—so she’d never forget what she’d become.

She ruled from a new throne, built where the old altar stood.

Where she’d howled.

Where she’d bled.

Where she’d risen.

It was veined with obsidian, wrapped in living Veil-root, always warm beneath her hands.

Always waiting for her to command.

Visitors came from the outer territories.

Alphas hoping to bond her.

She denied them all.

Betas hoping to study her.

She taught them to kneel.

Queens hoping to match her court.

She welcomed them—and outshined them.

She ruled not by law.

But by legend.

Her child began to move beneath her skin.

Soft flutters.

Bursts of warmth.

A reminder.

Of love.

Of war.

Of legacy.

The people whispered.

She is no longer a question.

She is the answer.

They called her High Omega.

She corrected them.

“I am not Alpha. Not Omega. Not Beta.”

“I am the crown.”

On the first moon of her reign, the Veil bloomed in full above the academy.

A ribbon of light. A breath of night. A memory of every voice that once howled alone.

She stood beneath it.

Lifted her arms.

And the school howled with her.

Not one girl silenced.

Not one voice shamed.

Not one body owned.

Because she didn’t just break the system.

She rewrote it.

In moans.

In magic.

In marks.

In blood.

The moons above aligned.

The Veil opened once more.

But not to release pain.

To sing.

A lullaby.

To a new queen.

To her court.

To the world reborn beneath a Crimson Reign.

And as she stood beside her Alphas, her belly round, her crown veiled in fire—

She whispered to the wind:

“I was rejected.”

“And now?”

“They worship.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: PREGNANT, POWERFUL, PERFECTLY FEARED

She was soft now.

But only in places.

The rest of her?

Still made of blood and command and wildfire.

Her belly had grown round with legacy.

Her skin glowed from within—lit not by magic alone, but by the heartbeat pulsing just beneath her navel.

Four bond marks shimmered around it like runes of protection.

Ash’s.
Ronan’s.
Cassian’s.
Vale’s.

Not overlapping.

Not fighting.

Aligned.

Claimed.

Agreed.

She stood on the eastern wall of the Academy, the wind tangling her hair, the Veil shimmering around her like a living cape.

Omegas knelt behind her.

Not because they had to.

Because they wanted to.

They wore blades now.

Smiled with teeth.

Trained like Alphas, but moved like queens.

Below, her court moved in harmony.

Ash trained the warbound.

Ronan patrolled the Veil’s edge, blades silver with memory.

Cassian executed old traitors in silence—each death a stitch in a world no longer ruled by cruelty.

Vale sat in the garden, reading to her unborn child.

Whispering stories of chaos and triumph.

Of a mother who howled and never stopped.

Evangeline was still everything.

The prophecy. The storm. The last name written in blood and flame.

But now?

She was more.

She was feared.

Because power meant something else when it bloomed from her womb.

Because the world looked at her swollen belly and didn’t see softness.

They saw war.

In a crown.

Kings offered alliances.

Queens sent blood-laced gifts.

Alphas bowed before speaking.

Betas cried when she passed.

The Veil moved when she walked.

And when she moaned at night—stretched beneath four mouths and four hands and nothing but love—the stone walls sang.

Ash kissed her feet each morning.

Cassian fed her fruit carved with runes for strength.

Ronan massaged her thighs, whispered lullabies into her growing skin.

Vale kissed her stomach, every night, and whispered:

“You are growing more than a child.”

“You are growing a future.”

She bled once more.

Not pain.

Ritual.

The final ceremony.

To name the one who would rise beside her.

Her child.

Unborn, but already sacred.

She cut her palm.

Let it drip into the sacred basin.

The glyph glowed.

It flared.

It howled.

A name wrote itself across the stone.

Crimsonus.

No gender.

No bond.

Just power.

She touched the name.

The runes burned into her palm.

And her belly kicked.

Hard.

She smiled.

The first Queen to reign while carrying a god-child.

The first to walk the Veil pregnant, bonded, and unbowed.

The first to love without being owned.

To rule without needing to kneel.

To moan without shame.

To glow.

In the final moon of her gestation, she stepped into the old chamber.

The one where they cast her out.

Now rebuilt.

Now gilded.

Now hers.

She looked at the throne they tried to deny her.

Then sat.

And whispered:

“You will never take me again.”

The room shuddered.

The Veil roared.

And far beyond Mooncrest’s walls—

Every Alpha across the continent went still.

Because she wasn’t a girl anymore.

She was the bloodline.

The blueprint.

The bite.

The birth.

Pregnant.

Powerful.

Perfectly feared.

And she hadn’t even started pushing.

CHAPTER FIFTY: CRIMSON

She gave birth at dusk.

Not in a bed.

Not in a wing of silk and herbs and trembling hands.

She gave birth on the altar where she’d once been cast out.

Where blood stained the stone.

Where she had screamed her first rejection into the bones of Mooncrest.

Now—

She screamed life.

The Veil hovered above her.

Red and gold and alive, its breath wrapped around the spire, pulsing with power as her contractions deepened.

She was on all fours, hair wild, skin slick with sweat and rune-light, her quad-bond pulsing so brightly it burned through the floor beneath her.

Her Alphas circled her like sentries.

Ash kissed her spine between contractions.

Cassian held her thighs, bracing her as the child descended.

Ronan whispered every breath back into her mouth, anchoring her to the now.

And Vale—

Vale held her hand.

His madness sharpened to clarity.

His eyes never leaving hers.

“You are the storm,” he whispered.

“You are the beginning.”

The Veil opened above her.

Her scream tore it wide.

And the child came screaming into the world.

Not with pain.

With power.

The rune flared on the child’s skin instantly.

The mark of Crimson.

Not an Omega.

Not Alpha.

Something new.

Something pure.

A child born of a bonded Queen.

A child born of choice.

Of blood.

Of burning.

They laid the child in her arms.

It blinked once.

And the Veil lowered itself—kissed the baby’s brow.

A blessing.

A promise.

And a warning.

Evangeline didn’t cry.

She didn’t tremble.

She pressed her lips to the child’s cheek and whispered:

“I was cast out.”

“I howled.”

“I rose.”

“And now?”

She stood.

Blood down her thighs.

Baby in her arms.

Crowned by fire and Veil and bond.

Her Alphas at her back.

And said—

“Now, you’ll bleed to worship me.”

The winds shifted.

The stones cracked.

Mooncrest dropped to its knees.

The old world ended.

And the Crimson Era began.

She stepped onto the balcony.

Held her child high.

The Veil coiled like a throne behind her.

And the glyphs in the sky wrote one name, in flame, in bone, in prophecy fulfilled.

CRIMSON.

She was rejected.

Now she was untouchable.

And her enemies?

They knelt at her feet.

Begged for breath.

And kissed the blood she left behind.

The girl was gone.

The Queen had risen.

The world would follow.

Forever.

Crimson.