His Innocent Wolfless Stray Turned Queen

Azura Montgomery POV:

The bridal chamber was awash in crimson candlelight and the heavy scent of white roses. I stood in my custom lace gown, expecting tonight to mark a new era for the Montgomery Pack.

The heavy oak doors clicked open. I turned with a soft smile, expecting my new husband, Baron Guerra. But the smile froze on my lips.

Baron strolled in, his tuxedo unbuttoned. Clinging to his arm was Brie Forbes, a low-ranking socialite my family had taken in out of charity. Her hands roamed freely over his chest. The sight made my stomach churn. Baron was a nobody until my family funded his rise. He had begged on his knees for my hand to secure our alliance, yet here he was, defiling our wedding bed with a woman who owed her life to my pack.

"What is the meaning of this?" I demanded, my voice trembling as my white wolf bristled beneath my ribs. "Why is she here, Baron?"

Brie let out a venomous laugh. "Why wouldn't I be here, Azura? A true Alpha needs a real woman, not a pampered princess."

"Baron, explain yourself!" I snarled.

Baron's cold gray eyes gleamed with raw greed. He pulled a sleek tablet from his pocket and shoved the glowing screen into my face. "Look closely, Azura."

On the screen, the security feed showed my elite vanguard guards being gunned down mercilessly in the courtyard.

"I needed a flawless excuse to gather every single one of your elite guards in one place," Baron said smoothly. "What better occasion than your grand wedding? History is written by the victors, my dear. By tomorrow morning, the Council will be informed that the Montgomery family attempted a violent coup, and I was forced to enact righteous justice to protect the city. A tragic but necessary purge to secure true peace."

Before I could process his betrayal, a deafening roar of automatic gunfire erupted outside. The screams of my packmates tore through the night air, mingling with the sickening scent of silver and blood.

"No!" I screamed, lunging toward the doors.

Baron moved with blinding speed. His hand clamped around my throat, hurling me violently backward into the mahogany vanity. The mirror shattered, raining glass onto my pristine gown. A rib cracked, and I coughed up hot, dark blood onto the white lace as the world faded to black.

When I dragged my eyes open, the sharp stench of iron and burning drywall choked me.

"Hold her down!" a mercenary shouted, slamming his combat boot into my back. My cheek scraped against the blood-slicked marble.

Deep inside, my white wolf clawed at my ribs, but the thick cuffs of unrefined silver around my wrists paralyzed her. The metal hissed against my skin, sending up acrid plumes of smoke and blinding agony. Silver was absolute poison, capable of severing a werewolf from their beast forever.

"Still fighting, little pup?"

Baron strolled through the burning doorway in his immaculate suit, completely untouched by the massacre he had orchestrated. On the ruined bridal bed, he and Brie had just finished a frantic, animalistic entanglement. Brie locked eyes with me, her face twisted in a euphoric sneer.

Baron stopped two feet away and deliberately set the sole of his designer shoe onto my father's chest. My father lay motionless in a pool of crimson, his ribcage blown open by a heavy silver cannon.

"Take your foot off him!" I screamed, my vocal cords tearing. "He was the true Alpha!"

Baron pressed his heel down until the splintered ribs gave a sickening crunch. "A dead Alpha is just fertilizer. Tell me where the Tears of the Moon sapphire is hidden, and I might grant you a clean bullet."

"Go to hell!" I spat blood onto his polished shoe. "You will never touch our ancestral stone!"

Baron's expression cracked, but before he could speak, Brie swayed forward, her platinum curls contrasting grotesquely with the dead bodies. She knelt and dug her diamond-encrusted fingers into my jawline.

"Look at you," she purred. "The proud princess, groveling like a mangy dog."

"You filthy traitor," I whispered.

Brie sneered and slapped me hard, her ring tearing my lip. "You always looked down on me. Look who holds the crown now."

"Enough playing," Baron cut in, his voice dead. He pulled a heavy pneumatic syringe from his pocket. Inside churned a viscous, shimmering liquid. Liquid pure silver. A concentrated neurotoxin designed to permanently destroy the werewolf healing factor and sever the inner wolf.

"No... kill me! Just shoot me!" I thrashed wildly.

"Death is far too merciful for a Montgomery," he said softly.

The mercenaries clamped down on my arms. Baron drove the thick needle deep into my neck and slammed the plunger home.

Fire. Liquid lightning seared every vein and nerve. My back arched uncontrollably as a ragged scream tore from my throat. Inside my mind, the thundering voice of my white wolf faded into a terrifying, hollow silence. The psychic link snapped. My inner beast was dead.

"Throw her over," Baron ordered, wiping my blood from his cuff. "Broadcast to the lower districts. The Montgomery family has been executed for treason. I am simply delivering justice."

The mercenary dragged me by my torn collar across the shattered floorboards, leaving a smear of dark red. The freezing night wind hit me as they hauled me onto the observation terrace, one hundred and twenty stories above the city.

"Farewell, little wolfless orphan," Brie laughed, wrapping her arms around Baron.

Dangling above the yawning abyss, my vision swam with black spots. But against my ribs, hidden beneath my corset, the Tears of the Moon pulsed with a faint warmth. My father had sewn the relic into my clothing an hour before the breach. It poured a microscopic thread of energy into my failing heart, keeping the spark of my soul alive.

I had one move left.

Summoning my final drop of adrenaline, I threw my head backward.

Crack. My skull slammed into the mercenary's nose. He howled, his grip slipping for a fraction of a second.

Instead of scrambling back, I threw my weight backward into the empty air.

The mercenary's fingers caught nothing but wind.

As gravity seized my broken body, the burning tower shrank upward. Suddenly, piercing through the sirens, a frantic shout echoed from the terrace above:

"Alpha! We have a breach! Assassins in the lower levels! They are screaming the Montgomery name!"

The voice was abruptly cut off. Who were they? Were there still loyalists fighting for my family in the burning ruins below?