Scorned Luna To Alpha Queen
Book Two of the Betrayed Luna to Alpha Queen Series
Can be read as a standalone or after Book One
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"They were supposed to hate me. All four of them. But the Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes, she just has a twisted sense of humor."
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"Let me die free rather than live as his possession."
Those were Lyralei Ravenwood's last words before she jumped off Widow's Cliff, choosing death over marriage to a monster hiding behind a charming smile.
She should have died.
Instead, she wakes in the camp of the Four Great Alphas..the most powerful, dangerous men in the ancient werewolf world. Men who look at her with resentment. Men who make it clear she's not welcome.
The Moon Goddess sent her to unite them against a rising darkness.
But they don't want unity. They don't want her.
Lyra didn't ask to be sent anywhere. She just wanted to escape a cage.
Now she's trapped with four hostile Alphas who see her as an obligation rather than a person. Who resent every breath she takes. Who make it clear that prophecy or not, she will never command their loyalty.
But something is awakening between them. Something ancient and undeniable.
The Primordial Mate Bond-a force that links one soul to multiple Alphas, pulling them together whether they want it or not.
As shadow wolves attack and an ancient evil rises, Lyra must navigate not just war, but the far more dangerous battlefield of four hearts that were determined to hate her.
Because feelings without trust are torture.
CONTENT WARNING: This book contains mature themes including explicit sexual content, violence, death of major characters, psychological trauma, and morally complex situations. Recommended for readers 18+
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Chapter 2
Lyralei stood frozen as Theron's figure cut through the crowd toward her. Each step he took felt like another lock clicking into place on the cage that was meant to be her life.
Her control over the anger, that careful, calculated restraint she'd maintained for three years, simply just....let go. It felt like watching a dam break from the inside. All those months of swallowing insults, of smiling through threats, of pretending she didn't hear the rumors about what he did to the omega girls. All of it rushed forward in a wave that left her breathless.
She had no power to stop what was about to happen. And the strangest part? She didn't even want to.
Theron's smile widened as he approached, that same evil and stupid expression he always wore when they were alone. But tonight he wore it in front of everyone, confident enough to show the monster beneath the mask. Because after tonight, she would be his. Completely, legally and irrevocably his.
The thought made her stomach turn so violently she almost tasted bile.
He was close enough now that she could smell the wine on his breath and the expensive oils in his hair. He was close enough that she could see the anticipation gleaming in those pale blue eyes. A memory suddenly surfaced despite herself. Three weeks ago, he'd cornered her in the library where she'd been writing. She remembered the way he'd plucked the pages from her hands, how his eyes had scanned the words she'd poured her soul into.
"LR," he'd said slowly, realization dawning across his face as he took in the implications. "You're L fucking R. You wrote Moon Rising."
Her blood had gone cold at that moment.
He'd laughed then, the sound cruel and delighted. "A fucking book about freedom. About a woman who runs from an arranged mating and finds love with someone who respects her choices." His fingers had traced her jaw, and she'd jerked away. "How perfectly ironic, Lyralei. You wrote about the one thing I'm going to take from you."
Since that day, his torment had intensified. He knew what she wanted most in this world, and he was going to make sure she never had it. The memory sharpened her rage into something focused and deadly.
Theron reached her side, and the guests nearby quieted, almost as if sensing something momentous was about to happen. The music swelled around them, cheerful and oblivious to the storm raging in her heart. He took her hand without asking, his grip just tight enough to hurt her but she betrayed no emotion at all. "There you are, my beautiful bride."
His thumb stroked across her knuckles in a mockery of tenderness. "Have I told you how stunning you look tonight? That dress fits you perfectly." His voice dropped lower, intimate enough that only she could hear. "I keep imagining what it'll look like on the floor of our chambers."
She felt her wolf stir, restless and furious beneath her skin. Around them, guests smiled and nodded, approving of the charming groom complimenting his bride. They couldn't hear the venom beneath his words. They never did.
Theron leaned closer, his breath hot against her ear. "I can barely contain myself, honestly. Just a few more hours and I'll finally get to hear you scream."
Images flashed through her mind as she suddenly remembered those omega girls whose eyes had gone dead and empty after Theron was done with them. Seraphina, who'd stopped speaking entirely for two months. Carol, who'd thrown herself from the eastern tower rather than endure another night of his attention. The pack had called it an accident. A tragic misstep.
Lyralei knew better and she knew, with absolute certainty, that Alpha Aldric knew too. He just didn't care. His perfect, charming son could do no wrong. The whispers were just jealous lies and the broken girls were just weak.
She felt her hands tremble slightly.
Theron pulled back, his public smile firmly in place as he addressed the watching guests. "I truly am the luckiest wolf alive," he announced, his voice carrying across the hall. "To have such a beautiful, accomplished woman as my mate. A general's daughter, no less. Strong bloodlines for strong pups."
Polite laughter rippled through the crowd.
Something broke inside her chest. Not her heart, that had broken the day her parents died and she'd been sold like property to this monster. No, this was something else. Something that had been holding her together, keeping her compliant and quiet and good. It snapped like a rotten rope and she didn't care about anything no more, at all.
Let everyone be fucking damned.
Lyralei smiled back at him. A real smile this time, wide and wild and absolutely gruesome.
Theron's expression flickered. Confusion crossed his face, followed by something that might have been unease.
"Lyralei..."
Her fist connected with his jaw before he could finish the sentence. The crack of bone on bone echoed through the great hall like a thunderclap. Theron's head snapped to the side, and he stumbled backward, shock and pain twisting his features.
The music stopped, conversations died mid-word and every eye in the hall turned to watch.
Lyralei heard the gasps, the shocked exclamations, the beginning of outrage from the gathered pack members. She heard it all and felt absolutely nothing except the singing satisfaction in her blood. Three years of fear and helplessness and rage. Three years of watching him destroy innocent girls while everyone pretended not to notice. Three years of counting down the days until he'd do the same to her. No fucking more.
Theron touched his jaw, his fingers coming away bloody. When he looked at her, the charming mask was completely gone. Fury blazed in his eyes, raw and unfiltered.
"You fucking bitch," he snarled. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Probably," Lyralei said, and launched herself at him again.
He wasn't ready. For all his warrior training, for all his supposed strength, he hadn't actually expected her to fight back. Men like him never did and it still surprised her how men underestimate women. Her second punch caught him in the throat. He choked, gasping, and she used his distraction to drive her knee up toward his face. He managed to dodge at the last second, grabbing her wrist.
"Stop this," he demanded, trying to twist her arm. "Stop this right now and I might show mercy..."
Lyralei twisted with the motion, exactly like her father had taught her. Use their strength. Let their force work against them. She broke his grip, spun inside his guard, and raked her nails across his face. He jerked back, barely dodging her attack by a hairs breadth. But it was just a feint.
While he was focused on his protecting his face, she drove her knee up with every ounce of strength she possessed, aiming for the target she'd been planning to hit all along.
His sweet and beautiful balls.
The impact was deeply and profoundly satisfying. Theron made a sound somewhere between a wheeze and a scream. His face went white, then red, then white again. He bent double, hands moving to cup his injured pride. And Lyralei, riding the wild high of her own recklessness, hit him there again.
This time he went down, crumpling to the floor like a puppet with cut strings. The mighty heir of the Silver Moon Pack, groaning and gasping on the ground at her feet. Her wolf sang with vicious satisfaction.
For a moment, the hall was completely silent. Then all at once, chaos erupted.
"Guards!" Alpha Aldric's voice boomed across the room, filled with outrage and disbelief. "Seize her! Seize her now!"
Lyralei saw the guards moving toward her, shock clear on their faces but duty winning out as they rushed towards her.
The guards were almost on her. Theron was still on the ground, trying to stand but failing, agony written across every line of his body. She had maybe three seconds before they grabbed her.
Lyralei dropped to her knees beside him, one hand shooting out to grab him between the legs. She felt him stiffen in renewed agony, his eyes going wide with terror.
The guards were almost on her. She could hear their boots pounding against the floor, see their hands reaching for her.
"Stop," she said clearly, her voice carrying across the sudden hush. "Stop right there, or I swear to the moon goddess I'm going to fuck crush his stupid balls right here, right fucking now."
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7.2
Genevieve woke up choking on her own blood, a fatal gash tearing through her abdomen. The memories of a primitive world crashed into her mind—she had transmigrated into the body of a sadistic beastman Mistress.
But the five powerful beastmen "mates" standing over her hadn't come to her rescue. They had come to watch their tormentor die.
"We should just leave her," Kameron sneered coldly. "The scavengers will clean up the mess."
Gilberto spat in disgust, while Angelo, a silver-scaled snake-man, trembled in pure terror at the sight of her. The original owner had whipped them, humiliated them, and driven another mate to suicide. Now, they were letting her bleed out in the mud, their eyes filled with undisguised loathing and satisfaction.
She was a top-tier apocalyptic survival expert, yet here she was, paying the ultimate price for a stranger's monstrous sins. It was a bitter, unacceptable irony to die helplessly in the dirt while her supposed protectors waited for her corpse to rot.
She refused to accept this ending.
Forcing a chaotic surge of energy through their shared Biological Link, she brought all five men to their knees in agonizing pain, commanding them to carry her back. In the dark cave, without a single scream, she plunged her bare hands into a fire and brutally cauterized her own gaping wound with searing ash. As the beastmen stared in horrified awe at the unbreakable soul now occupying the tyrant's body, Genevieve wiped the blood from her face and began to rewrite her fate.
9.3
My father ordered me to marry into the cursed Vaughn family.
Their heirs were rumored to die young from a mysterious genetic agony. My sister Kayden laughed, saying she wasn't going to waste her youth planning a funeral. So, I became the sacrificial lamb.
When I refused, my father slammed his hand on the table and threatened to throw my dead mother's ashes into the city dump.
"You are a struggling actress with no money and no power. You have no choice," he told me coldly.
To make matters worse, my own agent drugged my drink at a business dinner, trying to sell my body to a sleazy investor just to secure project funding.
I was completely cornered, suffocating under the weight of their cruelty. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could be so vicious, treating me like a worthless pawn to be traded and discarded.
But none of them knew that while escaping the drug-laced dinner, I crashed directly into the terrifying Vaughn heir, Algot.
When his glowing crimson eyes locked onto me during a violent episode of his cursed pain, we discovered an impossible truth: my physical touch was the only cure for his agony.
Looking at the dark bruises he accidentally left on my neck, I chose not to run. Instead, I pulled out the private business card he gave me and dialed his number.
"You need me," I whispered to the dangerous billionaire. "And I am going to use you to destroy them all."
7.2
Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt.
Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake.
After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust.
Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders.
Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her?
But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet.
"Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever."
He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.
8.7
I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella.
Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark.
But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved.
Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies.
When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel.
While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest.
The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella.
He ordered my father to punish me.
I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth.
That night, the love in my heart finally died.
On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape-the only proof that I was Seven.
Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney.
By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
8.9
The mangled car teetered on the cliff's edge, my leg crushed, gasoline fumes thick in the air. My husband, Holden, stood safe on the highway, directing the rescue – but not for me. He was saving her, the woman in the passenger seat, leaving me and our unborn child to the ocean below.
I woke trapped in the crushed Maybach, leg pinned. The cliff loomed; the driver's seat was empty.
Holden, safe outside, directed paramedics past me to Giana, his "most valuable asset," ordering her rescue first.
I watched him comfort Giana, oblivious, as the car slid. My baby barely viable. Holden offered a black card for silence; Giana gloated.
Ten years of devotion, a cruel lie. Rage fueled me: how could he abandon his wife and child?
I swore a venomous oath: never again an accessory. I flicked his card away, shielded my pregnancy, and promised my baby escape.