Bitten by JORDAN STEPHANIE GRAY is a fast-paced romantasy debut, in which a teenage girl must survive ruthless werewolves, a glittering court, and deadly politics to exact revenge on the monsters who killed her best friend. Read on for an extract.

Prologue

The Seven Werewolf Courts enforce few laws.

Do not expose your wolf to humans.

Do not speak court secrets to outside ears.

Do not bite humans without direct permission of the regent.

Under no circumstance will you ever kill a fellow wolf.

Breaking such laws does not incur punishments like imprisonment or maiming. The dungeon beneath Castle Severi has remained empty for centuries for a reason. When one breaks a law as a werewolf, the only true consequence is death.

Not imminent death, of course, but the excruciating burn of isolation.

Lone Wolves do not survive once cut from their pack. Lone Wolves lose themselves, slowly, painfully, the way humans lose limbs to frostbite.

Queen Sybil Severi knew this. It was why, when she found her sister, Cora, in bed with a human, she didn’t hesitate in dragging her sister out by her hair and flinging her before the feral members of court. The human man waited in the wings of their most sacred castle, half-dressed, shivering, grotesque. The Bite of the Wolf marked his ribs, and a fever touched his feeble brow.

‘Traitor,’ Queen Sybil growled. And that was enough to condemn Cora in the eyes of the court.

Cora transformed, a moon-white wolf with glowing red eyes, fighting the nobility with snarling teeth and dripping fangs. The first three laws had already been broken, but the fourth was broken here. Now. As Cora ripped out the throat of a Wolf General and spat the bleeding flesh onto the pristine marbled floor. Some of the nobility backed down. Bowed in lieu of a fight. Others fought harder. The walls splattered red – all with their own blood. Cora seemed victorious, but her power diminished the moment Queen Sybil said, ‘You are hereby removed from court and pack forever.’

The cleaving happened instantly, like invisible hands wrenching the sisters apart. Throwing them on opposing sides of the room. The Wolf Queen’s eyes blackened, darker still as she watched her sister crumple to the ground with a piercing howl.

‘You will leave Castle Severi at once and never again step foot on our hallowed grounds.’ Queen Sybil approached, and her footsteps trailed scarlet across the floor. ‘You are banished, Cora Severi, and should your human turn, he too will die.’

Cora shifted from wolf to woman with a sickening snap of bones breaking. She lay on the floor in a pool of the court’s blood, her body glistening like that of a fallen star in a midnight sky. ‘You can’t,’ she hissed. ‘If he turns—’

‘He is a traitor to the crown, and thus he will be made a Lone Wolf. Same as you.’

‘But . . . but . . .’ Cora searched for words, her red eyes dimming to a bitter auburn.

‘There is nothing left for you to say.’ Queen Sybil picked up her sister’s limp arm and began to tear her away from the throne room, out of the castle, and toward the woods where she would wander until her soul turned to ash and dust. Until she herself became ash and dust.

But Cora would not go so easily. She said, with as strong a voice as ever, ‘And what of my child?’

One by one, the court shifted. From wolves to men in a shattering second of pain. The Wolf Queen stared down in fury, ignoring the gasps of those surrounding her. More gasps over a single child than the dismembered royalty at her feet.

‘You are banished,’ Queen Sybil repeated, claws slipping forth from her fingers as easily as knives through a corpse. ‘You are a traitor.’

Her sister sat up, chin raised. Eyes narrowed. ‘The laws of court say nothing for the sons of traitors.’

Queen Sybil knelt, tucking a claw beneath her sister’s chin. Drawing blood. Cora did not flinch. ‘What would you have me do?’

‘Let him be born.’

‘You will die before then.’

‘You know I won’t,’ Cora snapped. Rage surged in her gaze. ‘I will birth him, and I will bring him to the castle’s entrance. You must take him.’

The nobility began to whisper, but Queen Sybil silenced them with a single look. Her claw dug deeper into her sister’s flesh. ‘I am queen. I do not have to do anything.’

‘Take him, and I will go quietly.’ Her sister sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Take him, and I will dispose of my lover myself.’

‘Now?’ the Wolf Queen asked. ‘Now.’

Queen Sybil straightened. She surveyed the remaining members of her court. Still plenty in number, even more plenty in strength. She had no worry of the child’s future betrayal –especially if the Oracle read his prophecy upon his birth and found him worthy – but she did have worry for the safety of her own child.

The boy had been born a fortnight ago, sickly and small. The court did not trust him as a leader, though he’d yet grown beyond a newborn babe. He would be strong one day. The Oracle predicted as much. He just needed to get there. He just needed to complete his ascension into wolf and become the crown prince she knew he could be.

And so the Wolf Queen decided, with the eyes of those she most trusted and most doubted observing her every move, that she would call forth the powers of the Cassiopeia constellation and enact a powerful blood bargain.

‘Should you kill your lover on this day and birth your child on the grounds near the castle’s gate, I will raise him as my own. But your blood will protect my heir with all his might, and should my heir’s life come to an end, his will as well.’ Queen Sybil outstretched her hand. One more second of contemplation, and she would revoke the bargain. Her sister knew this and grabbed the queen’s claws. Squeezed. Her blood dripped onto the Wolf Queen’s flesh and sizzled between them. Before their eyes, the blood absorbed into the Wolf Queen’s skin, and then vanished.

The blood bargain had been struck.

Queen Sybil stood with a smile as haunting as the castle itself. She rolled her shoulders back and straightened the crown of stars atop her black hair. ‘It is done, then. Kill your lover and be gone, sister. Should you survive long enough to birth your child, deliver him to us. Then die.’

Cora stumbled to her feet and found her human lover still shivering in the wings. The Wolf Queen’s Court watched as Cora ripped the man’s head from his neck, tendons snapping as easily as vines. Humans. Queen Sybil sniffed and turned away. ‘Clean this,’ she ordered. Then, ‘Chase her out.’

Without hesitation – or ability to do otherwise – her court obeyed her every command. And, a Lone Wolf sure to die, Cora fled the soldiers who hunted her. She ran, and she ran – until one day, weak and dying, she gave birth to a boy and placed him on the grounds of the castle’s gate.

The guardian returned to the prince who awaited his protection, and both were raised as brothers. Never apart. Only together.

But this is not the story of the prince and his guard. This is the story of a human girl, and how the prince and his guard destroyed her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jordan Stephanie Gray is the debut author of Bitten and a long time daydreamer of the fantastical and the romantic. Prior to writing professionally, she spent most of her young adult life consuming any book she could get her hands on – especially if said book had lots of kissing. Local to Florida, though sadly the part of the state without any hot supernatural men, she spends her time either camped outside on her laptop or in front of the television with her four dogs, partner, and child.

Visit Jordan Stephanie Gray’s website