Prologue
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~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.