Prologue
The final bell rings softly and clearly. The classroom, which had been quiet and orderly moments ago, fractures into a restless tide of movement.
Unlike other high schoolers who are busy enjoying those last moments before freedom, going home, back to my gilded cage, isn't freedom for me. So I sit still.
A sharp, bloodcurdling scream slices through the air, rattling the room.
The chatter in the classroom dies instantly, swallowed by a harrowing silence. Everyone turns toward the doorway.
We all know what that signifies. What it reminds us of.
Public murder of a wolf!
Or something close enough.
A girl stumbles inside, covered in her own blood. She's trembling so hard she can barely stand, tears carving paths down her blood-stained face. She clings to the doorframe, gasping for air.
No one moves.
But I do. Terrified and confused as I am, I spring up. Even with the blood on her face, I recognize her.
My best friend.
"Scarlett!" she screams, voice shredded with fury and heartbreak.
She drags herself toward me, limping, every step looking like agony. She's running only on pure will.
"How dare you!" she cries, grabbing my collar with both hands, fingers locking like iron despite her injuries. "Why did you do this to me, Scarlett? Why did you tell them I was mated to a wolf? Why did you say I was marked?"
Her blood-smeared eyes glisten with pain, with disbelief… with betrayal, tears mixing with the blood on her cheeks.
"Avery, I—"
"You were supposed to be my best fr—"
In one swift motion, a boy slices her throat from behind. Blood bursts forth, spraying across my face as she chokes, collapses, and crumples at my feet.
No one reacts.
Not a scream.
Not even a flinch.
We all watch in silence as she dies, her blood spreading across the white marble floor like shattered red glass.
The killer, if you can even call him that, smirks, as if admiring a masterpiece only he can appreciate. He knows he won't be punished. After all, he only killed a mated human.
I stare at her lifeless body in fear, terror flooding my veins as my heart pounds violently. This is how it will end for me… the moment the world finds out I'm mated to Killian.
****
The were-human era.
The era into which I was born.
A cursed era where humans and werewolves existed side by side, bound by fear and hatred. An era that nearly ended with the extinction of werewolves at the hands of humans.
History has it that humans were only a breath away from erasing the existence of the were-kind when the Accursed Alpha King Hideon Stoneharte (Killian), rose to power 540 years ago and turned their war back on them. He drowned the cities with blood and rewrote the balance of power.
400 years ago, when the were-kind outnumbered humans and extinction loomed for humanity, a peace treaty was signed.
They called it peace.
But peace, I've learned, is just another lie humans tell themselves to sleep at night.
Because even now, in my time, nothing has changed.
Werewolves hate humans.
Humans fear and hate wolves.
And both species reserve their deepest hatred for humans foolish or cursed enough to be mated to wolves.
They call us the Outcasts.
In public, no one touches us. No one defends us. No one even looks too closely. Caring for us is dangerous. Sympathy is mistaken for allegiance, and allegiance is punishable by death.
You don't need to witness a killing to understand the rules of my world. You just need to see how people step aside when an Outcast walks past. How doors close. How names vanish from attendance lists overnight. How bloodstains are scrubbed clean before morning and no one asks who spilled them.
Once you're mated to a wolf, you become a walking target, alone in the cold world, unwanted by your kind, marked for death. No one cares what happens to you. No one will save you.
To humans, you're a traitor.
To werewolves you're an enemy.
To everyone, you're a threat that must disappear.