The rain mixed with my tears as Damien's words cut through me like silver claws. "You and that bastard child are no longer part of this pack." I clutched my three-day-old daughter closer to my chest. She was wrapped in the only blanket I owned. Her tiny whimpers broke my heart more than his rejection ever could. "Damien, please," I said. "She's yours. She's your daughter." He laughed. Cold. Cruel. Nothing like the man who'd whispered promises in my ear six months ago. "My daughter?" Damien said. "I don't think so, Sera. I know what you did. I know about you and Marcus." Marcus. His beta. His best friend. A man I'd never touched. Never even thought about. "That's a lie," I said. "I never—" "Enough!" His voice boomed across the pack grounds. Every wolf in the Silvercrest Pack was watching. Judging. "I, Damien Blackwood, Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack, hereby reject you, Sera Winters, as my mate and exile you from these lands." The bond snapped. I felt it tear through my chest like a physical wound. I gasped and fell to my knees in the mud. My daughter started crying. Really crying now. "You have until dawn to leave our territory," Damien said. "If you're still here when the sun rises, my warriors will hunt you down." He turned his back on me. Just like that. Three years together. Promises of forever. A child we'd made together. All of it meant nothing. I looked up at the pack house. At the wolves I'd called family. Not one of them met my eyes. Not one of them spoke up for me. Except one. Old Margaret stepped forward from the crowd. She was the pack's eldest member. Nearly ninety years old. "Alpha," Margaret said. "This is wrong. The girl—" "Silence," Damien said. "Unless you want to join her." Margaret's eyes found mine. There was something in her gaze. Something that looked almost like recognition. Like she knew something no one else did. She pressed a small pouch into my hand as I struggled to stand. "For the baby," Margaret whispered. "And Sera... your mother would be proud of who you're about to become." My mother? I wanted to ask what she meant. My mother had died when I was two. I barely remembered her. But Damien's warriors were already advancing. Their eyes glowed in the darkness. A warning. I ran. I ran into the forest with my newborn daughter screaming against my chest. I ran until my legs gave out. Until I couldn't hear the pack's howls anymore. I collapsed against a tree just as the sun started to rise. My daughter had finally quieted. She was looking up at me with eyes that seemed too aware for a three-day-old. Eyes that glowed faintly gold in the early morning light. Not the amber of regular wolves. Gold. Pure gold. I opened the pouch Margaret had given me. Inside was money. More money than I'd ever seen. And a note. The note had only five words: "You are more than this." I didn't understand. I was nothing. An omega. The lowest rank in any pack. I'd been lucky that an Alpha had even looked at me. That's what everyone had always told me. But as I sat there in the forest, my daughter's golden eyes staring up at me, something stirred in my blood. Something ancient. Something powerful. Something that whispered I was never meant to be on my knees. I looked down at my daughter. At the tiny miracle I'd created. "I promise you," I said to her. "I promise you that we will never bow to anyone again." She grabbed my finger with her tiny hand. And for just a moment, I swear I felt power surge through both of us. Power that made the trees around us tremble. Power that Damien Blackwood would one day regret awakening.