Reborn Luna: The Alpha's Greatest Regret | Read Free Preview
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Chapter 1 — Reborn Beneath A Dying Moon
Lyra's POV
"Silver-flush antidote, now! Double the dose and keep pressure on the wound!"
"Healer! The Alpha's mate is hemorrhaging. The bloodroot reserves have been completely cleared from the infirmary. Every last vial, gone!"
The young healer-in-training's hands were slick with blood. Her voice broke when she shouted across the room. The healing den smelled like iron and something else underneath—the quiet, terrifying scent of a body running out of fight.
I had never seen so much blood in one place.
And through the noise and the panic and the cold stone walls, one sharp thought cut clean through everything else.
*Who empties an entire pack infirmary of bloodroot in a single order?*
The woman on the healing table had gone the color of ash. Her lips were cracked and colorless. The wolf-gold that once lit up her eyes had been reduced to a dying spark. When her voice came, it was barely a thread of sound.
"Cain... Dravos..."
“Say that again?” one of the healers leaned closer.
"Cain... Dravos..."
The senior healer heard it clearly the second time. He stared at the woman for one long heartbeat before his hands started shaking.
Cain Dravos. Alpha of Ironveil. The most feared wolf across the northern territories. A man whose name alone made lesser pack leaders lower their eyes and bare their throats in submission.
The healer fumbled with the infirmary comm line, dialing wrong twice before his trembling fingers finally reached the Alpha.
"Alpha Dravos," he said, voice barely holding together, "your mate is hemorrhaging badly. We have nothing left to treat her. She is asking for you. Please... come see her one last time."
A horrible moment of silence followed.
Then Cain Dravos spoke.
His voice carried all the warmth of frozen ground in the middle of winter. "She isn't dead yet? Don't call me again until she is."
The line went dead.
All at once, the wolf-gold disappeared from the woman's eyes.
*Cain Dravos. You couldn't even come. Not even now.*
The machine at my bedside released one long, flat, endless wail.
The healer’s hand pressed against her wrist, searching for a pulse that wasn’t there anymore.
Then he slowly pulled away.
“She’s gone.”
The room grew strangely quiet.
Then I was floating. I watched from somewhere just above the chamber as the healers stepped back from the still figure on the bed. She looked small. Hollowed out. Pale as winter snow. Twenty-seven years old, dead on an infirmary table from blood loss after a birth that had taken the last of everything she had.
That was me.
I had loved Cain Dravos past reason, past dignity, past every self-preserving instinct the Moon Goddess had ever built into me. As the only daughter of the Voss bloodline, one of the oldest wolf dynasties in Ironveil, I should have walked through this world with my head high and my power intact.
Instead, I had wagered everything on a man who considered my death a scheduling inconvenience.
Darkness slowly folded over me.
My last thought drifted upward like a prayer.
*Moon Goddess, if you give me one more chance, I will not waste it the same way.*
…
"My lady, the Alpha is taking you to the territory auction tonight. Which gown shall I lay out?"
Nanny Greta's voice hit my ears like a door slamming open.
My eyes flew wide.
The exposed brick walls of the pack house. The tall windows overlooking Ironveil's western ridge, pine forests silver and dark far below the skyline. The familiar scent of cedar and woodsmoke.
The mating suite. Our mating suite, though Cain had not spent a single full night in it during our entire first month of bonding.
I knew this moment. I had lived it before, and I had gotten it completely wrong.
The territory auction. Cain needed his bonded mate at his side for appearances only. Not because he wanted me there. He had never wanted me there.
But this was five years before the night I died.
The realization moved through me like cold water. Clean and absolute.
*Had I been reborn?*
"My lady," Nanny Greta said, drifting toward the wardrobe, "the Alpha almost never comes home. Tonight is your chance to..."
She pulled out a gown and held it toward me. It was a dull sage green. Muted, colorless, like it was designed to disappear.
I stared at it and felt something old and bitter turn over in my chest.
In my past life, I had studied Sera Whitmore the way desperate wolves study war maps. Sera wore washed-out, earthy colors. Faded greens, dull creams, shades that blended into any wall. She carried herself with rounded shoulders and a lowered chin, moving through every room like she was sorry for being in it. Every line of her screamed *small, harmless, unthreatening.*
And I had copied every bit of it.
Traded my rich colors for her pale ones. Swapped my loose waves for tight, stiff coils. I trained myself to walk with my shoulders rounded and my stride shortened, shrinking down to fit someone else’s idea of acceptable.
At this same auction, five years ago, Cain had replaced me with Sera at the last moment. I had arrived dressed as her shadow and stood next to the original while the entire room figured out exactly what they were looking at.
I would never do that again.
"Not that one," I said flatly.
I crossed to the wardrobe and pulled out what I actually wanted. A deep crimson silk gown, the color of a blood moon, cut to show that a woman has stopped asking for permission. Nothing Sera Whitmore would ever wear.
"But the Alpha usually prefers..."
"I know what the Alpha prefers." I laid the silk over my arm. "Box up all the pale colors and have them removed. Every single one. I'm done dressing that way."
Nanny Greta opened her mouth, thought better of it, and quietly got to work.
I turned to the mirror.
I let my hair fall loose. Thick waves, uncoiled and untamed, the way I always wore it before I started carving myself down. My chin was level. My spine was straight. My eyes had something sharp in them that five years of quiet suffering had once ground completely away.
I was done disappearing.
…
That evening, I walked into the Ironveil Territory Auction Hall in blood-moon crimson, my wolf-gold gaze steady and my stride unhurried.
The room tilted.
It always does when something unexpected walks through a door and refuses to apologize for the attention it commands. Heads turned. Conversation stuttered. Media lenses swiveled toward the entrance like compass needles finding north.
From somewhere across the crowded hall, a voice cut through the noise, low and genuinely curious.
"Who is she?"
Chapter 2 — What's Gotten Into This Woman?
Lyra’s POV
Across the hall, I watched Cain Dravos go still.
Not obviously — Cain never did anything obviously. But I knew that particular stillness the way you know the moment before thunder. His gaze swept the entrance as it always did, cataloguing the room with an Alpha’s cold efficiency. Then it landed on me and stopped.
He didn’t recognize me immediately.
In my past life, I had always come to events like this wearing those deliberate, muted colors, hair coiled tight, posture folded to make myself easier to overlook. He had grown accustomed to a version of me designed not to draw attention.
What stood before him now was something else entirely.
Beside Cain, Sera Whitmore had gone very still. This was the first time she had ever laid eyes on me in person, and whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. She was slim and pale and carefully pretty in a simple ivory dress, the very picture of studied fragility and next to the energy I was radiating, she looked suddenly, painfully young.
“Your mate,” Sera said quietly, and even that small word carried the faint, careful sting of jealousy she was too smart to show fully. “She’s… beautiful.”
I had already spotted them both.
In my past life, I would have faltered. I would have felt the familiar collapse of humiliation at seeing my bonded mate standing at ease beside another woman, in a room full of witnesses. Would have stumbled through the interaction with shaking hands and burning cheeks.
Not tonight.
I crossed the floor toward them without breaking stride, and the crowd parted slightly in that unconscious way crowds always do for someone who moves like they belong everywhere. I slipped my arm through Cain’s — smooth and unhurried, claiming what was mine without a tremor of uncertainty and extended my other hand toward Sera with a smile that gave absolutely nothing away.
“You must be Sera Whitmore. Cain has mentioned you.” I held her gaze evenly. “I’m Lyra. You may call me Luna Lyra.”
Somewhere nearby a media lens swiveled toward us. Sera’s fingers went limp in mine as she shook my hand, the words sitting in her throat like stones.
“Luna… Lyra,” she repeated, and it clearly tasted like ash.
“I heard you’re the scholarship wolf the Alpha has been mentoring,” I continued pleasantly. “Planning to study abroad with one of the overseas packs? How wonderful. A young omega seeing the world—very ambitious.”
Before either of them could respond, Beta Silas materialized at Cain’s shoulder, looking visibly relieved that I had arrived upright and smiling rather than making a scene. I gave him a small nod and turned my attention toward the auction floor, already scanning the room for what I had actually come to find.
Cain’s hand tightened briefly on my arm.
I released him first.
“You should take good care of Miss Sera then,” I said, stepping back with an easy smile. “I’ll head in and find my seat.”
Cain blinked. Just once. He had clearly expected something else entirely from me, a scene, a cold silence, tears maybe. He had no script for this version.
I didn’t wait for him to find one.
I turned and walked into the main hall before he could say another word.
Behind me, I heard Silas lean close to him and murmur something. I didn’t need to hear it. The slight crease between Cain’s brows as I walked away said everything. Since when had I become so agreeable?
Which was good. Let him wonder.
I found a seat on the upper tier and let out a quiet breath.
I remembered this auction clearly. In my past life, a small, unknown territory investor had quietly purchased the fourth lot on the evening’s list. A piece of land that everyone in the room dismissed as a flooded, worthless stretch of scrubland on Ironveil’s northwestern edge. The Crescent Basin. Within two years, high-value residential developments had broken ground on the surrounding land, and the Basin transformed almost overnight from a punchline into one of the most sought-after private territories in the entire north. That unknown investor had become one of the wealthiest wolves in the region practically by accident.
This time, I intended to be that investor. And it would be no accident.
I needed that land. Since I planned to leave Cain, I needed to build something of my own, and the Crescent Basin was the foundation.
Below on the main floor, Cain and Sera had settled into their seats. They were talking easily, comfortably, the way people talk when they’ve spent enough time together to develop a rhythm. I looked at it the way you look at an old wound that has finally closed over. It still ached. It just no longer surprised me.
Sera did have genuine ability. She understood pack economics and territorial value in a way that most wolves her age didn’t. It was one of the real reasons Cain would eventually fall for her. I could acknowledge that clearly now, from the safe distance of already knowing how the story ended.
The auction opened.
The first three lots were eastern ridge parcels. Valuable, visible, the kind of land that built reputations. Sera bid on all three with steady confidence, using Cain’s resources and driving each lot home without breaking a sweat. Cain sat beside her like a guardian wolf, watching her work with that expression he reserved for things he found genuinely impressive.
I watched it all from the upper tier and felt nothing I hadn’t already made my peace with.
“Lot Four. The Crescent Basin land, northwestern edge of Ironveil territory. Starting bid: eight hundred million marks.”
“One billion.”
The words left my mouth before anyone else had drawn breath. The entire floor swiveled toward me at once. Even from the upper tier I felt the collective jolt move through the room like a current.
On the main floor, Cain’s expression shifted. His head tilted almost imperceptibly toward the upper tier where my voice had come from.
*What is she doing.*
A message appeared on my screen seconds later: *Lyra. What are you doing? Stop.*
I turned my phone face-down.
On the far side of the upper tier, a voice rang out, sharp and completely unfiltered. I vaguely recognized the wolf it belonged to. Finn Callum, dark-haired, loud, and obviously incapable of staying quiet through anything interesting. *“Holy… did Lyra Voss just drop a billion on that wasteland? Is she out of her mind?!”*
“Two billion.”
The counter came quietly, from the wolf seated beside Finn. A low, absolutely calm voice with no hesitation whatsoever
I looked across the tier.
The wolf who had spoken was watching me with an expression of mild, deliberate curiosity. Like someone who had just decided they found something interesting and intended to find out exactly why. Dark eyes. Unhurried posture. The particular stillness of someone who has absolutely nothing to prove to anyone in this room.
I searched my memory.
Zade Wolfhart.
Even in my past life I had known very little about him. Officially, he was a businessman with holdings overseas. Unofficially, the whispered version was far more complicated and considerably more dangerous. What I knew for certain was that in the years ahead, he would move on Ironveil like a storm front, seizing territory and influence until he and Cain stood as the two most powerful wolves in the entire north.
Since when had he involved himself in territory auctions?
“Three billion,” I said, perfectly level.
Below, Cain had stood up from his seat. Another message hit my screen, sharper now, with all the patience stripped out of it. *I said stop. Now.*
I powered the phone off entirely.
“Four billion,” Zade answered, and the ghost of something that wasn’t quite a smile but was close to one moved briefly across his face.
Fine. If he wanted to push this.
Beside him, Finn had gone from surprised to alarmed. “Zade,” he hissed, grabbing his arm, “what are you doing? That’s a flood zone. It’s not worth one billion, let alone four.”
Zade didn’t even glance at him.
“Five billion,” he said.
I felt my back teeth press together. He was doing it on purpose. There was no reason for a wolf of his standing and intelligence to want this land at this price.
I was furious. And I refused to let it show.
Fine. You want to know what I’m made of?
“Eight billion,” I said, and looked directly at him across the hall as I said it. Clear, steady, not even a flicker of doubt.
The entire room erupted.
Chapter 3 — A Formal Separation
Lyra’s POV
Finn actually stood up from his seat. “Eight billion! For THAT?” He turned to Zade with the face of a man watching a building collapse in slow motion. “Zade, are we countering? Tell me we’re letting her have it. Tell me right now.”
Zade looked at me.
I held his gaze without moving.
Something shifted in his expression. Not defeat exactly. More like the quiet recognition of someone who had gotten their answer and found it more interesting than expected. He raised one hand, almost leisurely. And lowered it. A resignation.
“Eight billion, going once,” the auctioneer said, sounding faintly dazed.
“Eight billion, going twice.”
Below, Cain was completely still. Sera’s hand had found his sleeve. She tugged it once, leaning up to whisper. I could read her expression even from here. *She’s disgracing you or she's losing you a fortune.*
Cain’s jaw set. Whatever he said in return, it was short and cold.
“Eight billion, three times. Sold to Luna Lyra Dravos of Ironveil!”
The gavel came down, and the knot in my chest released all at once.
I had the Crescent Basin. I had secured the foundation I needed, the piece of territorial land that within two-three years would become some of the most coveted ground in all of Ironveil, once the northern development corridors expanded exactly as I knew they would. Land that everyone in this room had dismissed as worthless scrub.
None of them knew what I knew.
The fact that I had paid seven billion more than necessary because of one composed, infuriating wolf across the auction floor was a separate problem I intended to address shortly.
I found Zade Wolfhart across the tier and held his gaze for exactly long enough to make my displeasure unmistakably clear. Seven billion wasted. Because of him.
Finn Callum threw his hands up beside him. “She’s looking at you like she wants your head on a platter. Which is good, by the way. Completely reasonable.”
Zade raised an eyebrow. He looked, infuriatingly, completely unbothered.
I made my way down from the upper tier and was heading directly for the exit when I walked straight into Cain, who had apparently also been heading for me.
Sera hovered close at his shoulder.
“Lyra.” Cain’s voice was controlled, but only just. “If you don’t understand territorial investment, don’t come here and make impulsive decisions that embarrass us both.”
Sera tilted her head sympathetically. “Luna Lyra, that land really has almost no current value. That’s eight billion the Dravos coffers may never recover.”
I looked at her for a moment without speaking.
Then I almost laughed. “Miss Whitmore, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. That land is mine. I bid on it for myself. It has nothing to do with Alpha Dravos’s holdings.”
Sera blinked. “But… eight billion…”
“Is what it cost,” I said pleasantly. “Some wolves buy artwork. I bought land. These things happen.”
“Eight billion is pocket change for a Voss.” Finn Callum materialized from somewhere to my left, voice bright with the particular energy of someone who has never once in his life read a room correctly and has made his peace with it. “Right, Miss Voss? My friend and I were just saying as much.”
I glanced past Finn to where Zade Wolfhart stood at a careful half-distance, close enough to be part of the conversation, far enough to maintain plausible disengagement. His eyes moved over me with that same quiet, measuring attention he’d had in the auction hall.
“I understand Alpha Dravos is bonded,” Zade said, to no one in particular. “Is this his mate?”
Sera’s face went carefully, deliberately blank. “No, I’m…”
“This is my bonded mate, Lyra.” Cain stepped forward and pulled me to his side before I could react, his hand closing around mine with the easy certainty of someone who had never in his life expected to be refused. “Luna Lyra Dravos.”
I tried, subtly, to extract my hand from his grip. His fingers tightened.
He had felt Zade’s attention and understood exactly what it meant. Alphas always did.
“Oh, forgive me,” Finn said, slapping his palm to his forehead with theatrical dismay. “So this young lady with Alpha Dravos, she’s the pack’s omega consultant then? Handling the auction strategy this evening?”
The silence that followed was magnificent.
Sera’s cheeks went from white to scarlet in approximately one second. It was, I had to admit, deeply satisfying, even if I no longer had any real stake in the wound she was carrying.
“Escort Miss Whitmore home,” Cain said quietly to Beta Silas, his jaw set.
“Yes, Alpha.”
Finn gave a breezy wave. “Brilliant evening. Truly. Shall we, Zade?”
Zade held my gaze for exactly one beat longer than necessary before turning to follow. I watched them go, and only when they had fully disappeared into the thinning crowd did I look down at the hand still locked around mine. I stepped to the side and freed my hand from his.
Cain looked at his own hand for a moment, like the absence of mine in it was something he hadn’t quite prepared for.
“Had enough?” I asked.
He said nothing.
The last of the media lenses had turned elsewhere. The auction floor was clearing out. For the first time all evening it was just the two of us standing in the middle of it, and the silence between us had a particular shape to it, the shape of everything neither of us had said for an entire month of bonding.
“If this was some attempt to force my attention,” Cain said finally, his voice dropping to the tone that expected compliance by its very nature, “you’ve gone too far.”
I stared at him.
The breathtaking arrogance of it. And the worst part was that it wasn’t entirely wrong. Based on who I had been across five years of desperate, self-erasing devotion, I genuinely might have spent eight billion marks of Voss wealth just to make an Alpha look at me.
But that woman was lying on her deathbed in a future I had no intention of returning to.
“Think whatever you like,” I said.
“Lyra.” He caught my wrist before I could step away. Not hard. Just enough. “What is your relationship with Zade Wolfhart?”
I looked at him. “I don’t have one. I don’t even know him.”
“Good.” His grip didn’t loosen. “Keep it that way. In public, you are Luna Lyra Dravos. You represent this pack and this bond. You will conduct yourself accordingly and keep your distance from wolves who have no business being close to you.”
I let the words land. Then I let the quiet stretch long enough to become uncomfortable.
“Before you make demands of me,” I said, turning to face him fully, meeting his eyes without flinching, “ask yourself. You brought Sera Whitmore here tonight. In front of every Alpha, elder, and dignitary in the northern territories, you walked in with another woman on your arm while your bonded mate sat uninvited in the upper tier.” I let that land. “Even an outsider like Zade Wolfhart couldn’t tell which of us was Luna Dravos tonight. If you want Sera, Cain, then do the one honest thing you have always failed to do and end this properly.”
His expression darkened. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I am thinking more clearly than I have in years.” My voice stayed even and quiet, but absolutely certain. “I want a dissolution of the bond.”
“Lyra.” His tone sharpened with something I recognized as genuine alarm, not because he loved me, but because the Voss bloodline and every political alliance attached to it was not something a calculating Alpha surrendered without a fight.
“I said,” I repeated, voice soft and completely unmovable, “I want a dissolution of the bond.“
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