Born beneath an omen-lit sky, Layla is no ordinary wolf. She is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy—a child blessed by the Moon Goddess with the power to heal, resurrect, and stand undefeated. But such power comes at a cost.  

Her birth shakes the foundations of the White Shen Pack, a territory ruled by treachery. Her father, Alpha Rhys, and his lover, Luna Catherine, fear what she might become. To protect their rule, they orchestrate the massacre of those who know the prophecy, leaving Layla’s mother, Maelis, cursed with a wasting sickness. Thought dead at birth, Layla is hidden away, cast into a life of cruelty and deception.  

Years later, she is nothing more than a shadow in her own pack—a girl ridiculed for her inability to shift, despised by the very people who should have protected her. The only light in her world is Kain, the Beta’s son, her first love and the boy who once saved her from years of torment. But love, too, becomes a weapon when Kain betrays her in the worst way—murdering her siblings and delivering her to her enemies.  

As punishment for crimes she did not commit, Layla is thrown into darkness, her fate sealed when she is offered as a gift to the most feared rogue in existence—the cursed Beast King.  

For two thousand years, the Beast King has sought a way to break the Moon Goddess’s wrath, his soul trapped in a monstrous body, his humanity slipping away. When Layla is thrown before him, he senses something he has never encountered before: a power strong enough to shatter his curse… or doom them both.  

But Layla is not a girl to be broken. She has her own vengeance to claim, her own past to uncover, and the Beast King may just be the key to it all.  

Bound by fate and cursed by the past, Layla and the Beast King must navigate a world that seeks to control them, betrayals that run deeper than blood, and a prophecy that threatens to consume them both.  

Will she rise as the weapon they tried to forge, or will she become the force that shatters their world?

Layla lay on the cold, moss-covered earth, hidden deep within the Northern Wastes—land no one from her pack dared to wander. A forbidden zone, they had always said. Haunted. Dangerous. Cursed. But to Layla, it had become sanctuary.


For the last three days, she'd drifted between consciousness and darkness, her body trembling with unfamiliar surges of power, her skin burning as if something inside her was clawing to get out.


The silver from the chains still left angry, red burns on her wrists—but the strangest part?


She sat up slowly, her golden-blonde hair falling in tangled waves down her shoulders, glowing faintly under the moonlight. Her once pale, delicate features were now sharper. Stronger. The silver in her eyes shimmered unnaturally—like moonlight caught in a storm.


She could feel something stirring beneath her skin. A presence. Wild. Fierce. Hungry.


The memory of the binding ceremony came rushing back—Nisaba's chanting, the swirling black mist, the way her very soul had felt like it was being chained…


Layla didn't know what had saved her that night—only that the moment the final words of the spell were uttered, a violent force inside her had shattered the silver cuffs and consumed the darkness meant to bind her.


Or rather—something inside her had run.


Now, as the trees whispered around her and the stars blinked overhead, she could feel it more clearly than ever.


Still faint. Still struggling. But alive. Awake.


She pressed a hand to her chest, where her heartbeat thundered like war drums.


"I'm still here," she whispered, breathless.


Still broken, but not lost. Not anymore.


The wind shifted, and she caught it—a scent. Faint. Familiar.


Let them believe she was weak, shattered, and gone for good.


She would return with fire. With vengeance.


And with the very wolf they thought they had destroyed.


Chapter 9 - Ashes and Awakening