Chapter 1 : the day before.

Scarlet streaks bled through the clouds, casting an unnatural glow over the village of the silver crest pack. The wind smelled of iron and pine, of earth and endings. Even the birds had fallen silent, as if nature itself feared what tomorrow would bring.

Aurora stood in the middle of the field behind the pack house, the coarse wheat brushing against her thighs like ghostly hands. Her fingers were tangled in the hem of her faded shift dress, knuckles pale. She hadn’t moved in hours. Watching. Waiting. Dreading.

Tomorrow, she would turn eighteen.

Tomorrow, she would be taken.

The thought tasted like ashes in her mouth.

She’d known it was coming, of course. Every girl did. From the moment they could walk, they were taught how to bow low and speak softly. How to dress for the Ceremony. How to accept the will of the Lycan King—the eternal ruler of the Lycan Dominion, shrouded in myth and bathed in blood.

They said he requested females of ages 18 and over once every year. My 18th birthday falls on the day he takes females mainly females from alpha bloodlines. They said those who displeased him or were too weak disappeared without a trace.

None of it mattered now.

Not when his soldiers would come at dawn to take Aurora from her bed, dressed in ceremonial white and trembling beneath the weight of a future not her own.

She barely heard her mother approach until she felt the soft brush of a shawl being draped over her shoulders.

“It’s growing cold, Aurora.”

“I know.” Her voice was flat, distant.

A long silence followed, broken only by the whisper of the wind.

Her mother spoke again, quieter this time. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

Aurora turned to her slowly, searching her eyes. “But you were.”

A breath caught in her mother’s throat. She looked away. “Yes.”

Another pause. A truth hung between them—one that had never been spoken aloud.

“You were taken too,” Aurora said.

A nod. Barely there. “He didn’t choose me. I was… spared.”

“Then why didn’t you run?” Her voice cracked, a storm behind her ribs. “Why don’t any of us run?”

“Because we can’t.” Her mother’s words were not cruel, only resigned. “They would burn the pack lands to ash before they let us defy the Ceremony.”

Aurora looked back toward the trees. She’d dreamed of running. Of vanishing into the deep woods and becoming a myth of her own. But the Lycans would hunt her. And the King would not tolerate disobedience. He never had.

Still, a fire sparked behind her eyes. “I don’t want to be his. I won’t. Not even if the moon goddess herself made me his mate”.

Her mother touched her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear Aurora hadn’t felt fall. “Then fight, if you must. But be wise about it. Be clever. Kings fall not to brute strength, but to those who understand their weaknesses.”

The bell in the village square rang out once—dull, hollow, final.

It was the signal.

All girls of age were to return to their homes. To cleanse themselves. To pray. To prepare.

The villagers didn’t look at her as she walked back through the main road. No one met her eyes. Some pitied her. Some envied her. A few feared what she might become.

At the pack house, a bath had already been drawn. Warm, fragrant with herbs. She slipped into the water and let herself sink below the surface, hoping to drown the scream building in her chest.

She emerged breathless, blinking away the sting of rosemary and salt.

Her mother waited with a white gown. It shimmered faintly in the firelight, stitched with silver thread and old magic.

“No jewelry,” her mother said softly. “That’s tradition.”

Tradition. The word made Aurora want to rip the gown apart with her teeth.

Instead, she put it on, the fabric clinging to her damp skin like a shroud. When she looked at herself in the cracked mirror, she didn’t recognize the girl staring back.

She looked… haunted.

Later, as the fire died low and the shadows stretched across the walls like wolves, her father came to her room.

He had not said a word about the Ceremony all week. He hadn’t needed to. Grief lived in his eyes like an old wound.

He held out a Large sword. Iron blade. Wooden hilt.

“This belonged to your grandmother,” he said, voice low. “She made it to the final round of the Ceremony. She… wasn’t chosen. But she didn’t let them take her soul.”

Aurora took it with shaking hands.

“Thank you.”

He nodded once and left, the door closing behind him with a soft click that felt like a goodbye.

She sat on the edge of her bed for hours, staring at the sword and its engravings. Wondering what kind of girl she would need to become to survive a palace ruled by monsters.

Sleep did not come easily.

When it did, it was filled with red eyes and howls in the dark.

⸻

Dawn arrived too soon.

The sound of tires against the gravel crushed the silence, and a deep, guttural horn split the morning sky. The King’s Guard had arrived.

Aurora stood, dressed and ready, sword strapped to her back over the gown.

She looked at her mother. At her father. At the only home she’d ever known.

And then she walked out to meet her fate, head high.

There were 5 SUV’s all filled with soldiers all of them eerily quiet. The soldier who opened the door wore no expression. His eyes were as dead as the steel across his back.

Without a word, she climbed in.

The door shut behind her with a sound that echoed like a tomb.

As the car rolled forward, leaving behind her pack, her childhood, her freedom, Aurora made herself a promise.

He may be king.

He may be a monster.

But I will not be prey.