From Torment to Luna

**POV: Aria**

The moment Aria Voss walked through the gates of Crestmoon Academy, she made herself small.

It was not something she thought about anymore. It was instinct, like breathing, like blinking. She pulled her brown hair over her shoulder, dropped her gaze to the ground and moved through the crowded courtyard the way water moved around stone. Quietly. Without disturbing anything. Without being seen.

But she was always seen.

"Watch where you are going, omega."

The shoulder that slammed into hers sent her books scattering across the concrete. Laughter erupted around her, sharp and careless, the kind of laughter that did not care who it cut. Aria dropped to her knees and gathered her things quickly, her fingers trembling just enough to be annoying. She hated that her hands still shook. Three years of this and her body still had not learned to stop reacting.

"She is literally on her knees." A voice floated above her, smooth and sweet like honey poured over glass. "How fitting."

Aria did not need to look up. She knew that voice the way she knew the sound of rain. Selene Callum stood above her in a white fitted dress that made her look like she had been poured into it. Dark hair cascading perfectly over one shoulder. A smile on her lips that never once reached her eyes.

Selene was beautiful the way a trap was beautiful. All shine and no mercy.

"Good morning to you too, Selene," Aria said quietly, rising to her feet and hugging her books to her chest.

Selene tilted her head, studying Aria the way someone studied an insect before deciding whether to crush it. "You know tonight is the coming-of-age ceremony." Her voice was light, conversational, like she was discussing the weather. "You should just stay home, omega. The Moon Goddess does not waste gifts on girls like you."

The circle of students around them snickered. Aria felt every sound like a small stone thrown at her skin. She lifted her chin just slightly, just enough to hold herself together, and said nothing. There was nothing to say. Words with Selene were a game Aria could never win.

She walked away instead.

She heard Selene laugh behind her, that soft musical sound that meant she had already moved on, already forgotten, already thinking about something more interesting. That was the worst part about Selene Callum. Aria was not even worth a second thought.

The hallway swallowed her and she exhaled slowly.

"Hey." A hand grabbed her arm and she nearly jumped out of her skin before she saw the face attached to it. Mara Holt, brown skin glowing, natural hair piled high on her head, wearing an expression that sat somewhere between fury and concern. "I saw what happened. I was coming across the courtyard and I saw her knock into you."

"It is fine," Aria said.

"It is not fine." Mara fell into step beside her, lowering her voice. "One day I am going to say something to her. One day, Aria. I am not going to be able to stop myself."

"Please do not." Aria glanced at her. "She will make your life worse than mine."

"No one's life is worse than yours right now and that is the problem." Mara squeezed her arm once before letting go. "Tonight is going to be different. I can feel it. The ceremony changes things."

Aria said nothing to that. She had learned not to hope. Hope was something that grew in the chest and then got ripped out by the roots. She had planted it too many times to count and walked away empty every single time.

She was an omega. The lowest rank in the Silvermoon Pack. Her mother was gone. Her father Dorian worked the edge of pack territory doing jobs no one else wanted, his quiet dignity the only inheritance he had to give her. There was no future waiting for Aria Voss at a coming-of-age ceremony. There was just another room full of people who had already decided what she was worth.

Nothing.

The school day passed the way all her school days passed. She sat in the back. She answered questions only when called on. She ate lunch with Mara in the far corner of the courtyard, away from everyone, and she counted the hours until she could go home to her father's small cottage and pretend the world outside did not exist.

But she saw him once.

Just once.

Caden Silvermoor walked through the main corridor after fifth period surrounded by the easy silence that powerful people carried with them. The crowd parted without being asked. Conversations dropped to murmurs. Even the air seemed to rearrange itself around him. He was tall in the way that made rooms feel smaller, silver hair catching the light, jaw set like stone. His grey eyes moved across the hallway with the bored authority of someone who had never once questioned his place in the world.

He did not look at her.

He never looked at her.

She did not expect him to. Caden Silvermoor was the future Alpha of the Silvermoon Pack, the most feared and desired boy within a hundred miles of their territory. Selene walked two steps behind him, laughing at something Zane said, her hand brushing Caden's arm with the casual confidence of someone who had already claimed what she wanted.

Everyone knew they would be mated tonight. It was not even a question anyone bothered to ask.

Aria looked away first and kept walking.

That evening she stood in the crowd at the ceremony grounds with Mara beside her, the full moon heavy and golden above the trees. The air smelled like pine and something older, something that hummed beneath the skin. Around her the pack buzzed with excitement, dressed in their finest, faces flushed with anticipation.

Dorian had pressed her dress himself that morning. She remembered the way his hands had smoothed the fabric carefully, the way he had looked at her like she was the most important thing in any room she ever walked into. She carried that look with her now like armor.

The ceremony began.

One by one wolves stepped forward under the moon and felt the goddess move through them. Some found their wolves. Some found their mates. The crowd cheered and wept and pulled each other close.

Then Caden Silvermoor stepped forward.

The whole pack went still.

Selene straightened beside Aria, her chin lifting, her smile already forming.

And then Aria felt it.

Something cracked open in her chest like a door she had never known existed. Warm and consuming and terrifyingly powerful, it rushed through her blood like fire, like light, like something she had no word for. Her breath stopped. Her books would have fallen if she had been holding any.

She looked up.

Across the crowd, through fifty bodies and a lifetime of silence, Caden Silvermoor's grey eyes found hers.

And did not look away.

The Moon Goddess had spoken.

And she had chosen the one girl nobody ever looked at twice.