Chapter 1

Every wolf in the Crescent Moon pack knows me and my mate are the unhappiest couple in pack history. They know it because he's the male I stole.

For eight years I called him my mate. For eight years I wore the Luna title and slept in the Beta's chambers and watched him flinch every time I tried to touch him. We poisoned each other's food. I hid silver pins under his pillow. He hid wolfsbane in my tea. Every single morning in that pack house started with one of us hissing *I hope you choke* across the breakfast table.

I told myself he'd come around. I told myself the bond would settle.

Then the rogues ambushed us at the border.

He pressed his bullet-proof vest into my hands and shoved me behind a rock. I thought — gods, I actually thought — *he's finally choosing me.*

"Rae, run!"

I ran. I ran like a stupid pup. And when I came back with the warriors, I found his body torn open by rogue claws, and Mira's body curled up next to his.

He'd died covering her.

His last words floated back to me later from the one warrior who'd survived long enough to hear them.

*"I'm coming, Mira. Next life — don't let her find me first. My heart only has room for you."*

I stood over his corpse and I didn't cry. I just walked back into rogue territory alone, took out their command post with my own claws, and bled out under their banner.

My name went on the pack memorial wall. One line. Nothing else.

Then I opened my eyes.

I'm staring at the ceiling of my old room in the Crescent Moon pack house. My hands are small again. The mating ceremony with Caden is ten days away. Mira is still alive, still sleeping two doors down, still plotting whatever she plotted that put us all in the ground.

I sit up slowly.

The moon goddess gave me a second chance. Fine. I know exactly what to do with it.

I get dressed. I walk straight to my father's war room. Alpha Quinn looks up from his maps, and I say it before I can think twice.

"Call off the mating ceremony. I'll take the undercover mission instead of Mira."

He stares at me.

"You want to replace your sister on the infiltration team. You. Are giving up Caden Wolfe."

"Yes."

"The whole pack knows you'd die before you let another she-wolf near him."

"Things change."

He keeps staring. He's waiting for the punchline. Every wolf in this pack thinks I'm a spoiled brat who clawed her way into a mating with the Beta heir — and they're not exactly wrong. Last life, when the lots fell on Mira and Caden begged my father to spare her, I dragged Caden home by the collar and forced the ceremony forward.

This life, I'm done.

"You always told me Mira lost her father young," I say flat. "You always told me I should step back for her. So I'm stepping back."

His face does something complicated. He's remembering my mother. The former Luna who took a rogue's claws to the throat so he could live. He's remembering how, after he married the widow with the small soft pup, he stopped looking at me the same way.

He signs the papers. The mating ceremony is off. Mira gets Caden. I get the mission.

I walk out of the war room and slam straight into a wall of muscle and rage.

Caden.

Last life he was already on his knees in front of my father, mud and blood streaked down his uniform, begging on behalf of Mira. Same desperate face. Same wild eyes.

I rub my shoulder and try to step around him.

He catches my arm.

"What did you just do."

His voice is low. His inner wolf is right at the surface — I can see the yellow bleeding into his irises.

"Drawing of lots is pack law," I say. "You know that."

"Give me a week. I'll find another way. We don't have to send a she-wolf into that brutal Alpha's bed —"

"We have a week's worth of warriors dying at the border every day, Caden. How many more do you want?"

His jaw locks.

"If you don't go stirring things up in front of the Alpha, there's still time —"

There it is. Not *don't go, Rae*. Not *I'm sorry*. Just — *don't make trouble for Mira*.

I peel his hand off my arm.

"It's done. The paperwork's in. You'll be very happy with how it turns out."

I walk past him. I don't look back.

In the courtyard, I let myself breathe. One breath. Just one.

*Caden Wolfe, last life you gave me your vest and went and died next to her. This life I'm giving you back to her. We're even.*