***************
~Selene Nightvale's POV~
Two Centuries Ago
They used to say the moon only blessed men, that the beast in the blood bowed only to them.
They forgot she was a woman first.
I bled beneath her gaze, bare knees pressed into a circle of shattered bone and scorched earth, my body ruined and yearning to be reborn in the same breath.
The stench of what they'd done still clung to my skin—bitter with sweat, soaked in betrayal. I could still feel them. The weight of their hands. The mockery in their laughter. Most of them were dead now. The rest would wish they were soon.
The chains lay broken around me, twisted and bent like melted iron. The air reeked of blood, copper-rich and steaming against the cold night wind.
I looked down at myself—skin smeared with crimson, hair matted to my face, ribs bruised from the struggle—and I didn't flinch. The pain no longer belonged to me.
It belonged to them.
I had warned them. Gods, I had begged him, my mate. My chosen. The one who told me I was born under the sacred light. That I was his moonborn queen. Untouchable.
And still, he drugged me.
He wrapped silver around my wrists and handed me over like a gift they could unwrap.
Not a queen. Not even a woman. Just a warm, strong body they could use until it gave them what they wanted.
My womb, my power, to be bred like a bitch in heat.
They called it legacy. Called it fate.
They didn't know they were feeding a curse older than their lineages. They didn't know that the moon—my mother, my mirror—was watching.
I stood slowly. My bones snapped as they set themselves, one by one, the sharp cracks echoing across the broken ritual site.
Silver light draped across my shoulders like armor against skin that had been beaten raw.
Around me, the stones lay in ruin, sacred carvings now blackened with ash. Blood lapped at my ankles—thick, dark, and not mine.
Not anymore.
Above, the full moon loomed. Not soft. Not forgiving. She watched with a gaze colder than judgment, hotter than vengeance.
I lifted my hands toward her and I spoke the words I had waited lifetimes to say.
"Let those who breed without love lose the womb of their kind."
Thunder clapped, but it only fueled my rage.
"Let insane desire birth only death."
The wind surged, shrieking through the ruined grove.
"Let them hunger for daughters they will never have."
The ground trembled beneath my feet. The trees twisted, their roots writhing as if trying to escape the curse now bleeding into the soil.
It took hold like wildfire, anchoring itself in bone and blood and time. It would outlive me. Outlive them all.
In every heir born from this moment forward.
And with it, I ensured this world would not know another she-wolf like me, not for a hundred years.
Not until the line was strong enough. Not until the blood was pure enough and one of them was born to break me.
I tilted my head back, lips split and bleeding, and smiled up at the stars.
"Find me, little wolves," I whispered. "I'll be waiting."