The night everything changed

**POV: Aria**

She should have run.

Every rational thought in Aria's mind was screaming at her to drop her gaze, to look away, to do what she had always done and disappear into the background before anyone noticed her existing. But she could not move. She could not breathe. She could not do anything except stand there while Caden Silvermoor stared at her from across the ceremony grounds like she was the only person the moon had bothered to light up tonight.

The bond hit her in waves.

Warm. Consuming. Terrifyingly real.

She pressed her hand flat against her chest because she was certain something inside her had physically shifted. Like a lock turning. Like a key she had never known existed sliding into place and opening something she could not close again.

"Aria." Mara's voice came from somewhere beside her, low and urgent. "Aria what is happening to you right now?"

She could not answer.

Across the crowd, Caden had not moved either. His grey eyes were fixed on her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. Not cold. Not bored. Not the distant authority he wore like a second skin every day at Crestmoon Academy. He looked almost confused, like a man who had walked into a room and found the walls had moved without his permission.

Then the crowd began to notice.

It started as a ripple. A murmur here. A turned head there. And then it spread like fire through dry grass, heads swiveling between Caden and Aria, mouths dropping open, eyes going wide with something caught between shock and disbelief.

Alpha Ryker Silvermoor stood at the front of the ceremony grounds, tall and commanding, his silver-streaked hair catching the moonlight. He was watching his son. His expression was unreadable but his eyes were sharp, moving between Caden and the brown-haired omega girl at the back of the crowd.

Aria felt her legs go weak.

She locked her knees and refused to fall. She would not fall. Not here. Not in front of all of them.

"Oh my moon," Mara whispered beside her. The words came out barely above a breath. "Aria. It is you. It is pointing to you."

"Stop," Aria said. Her voice came out smaller than she intended.

"I am not making this up. Look at him. He cannot look away from you. The bond is pulling him toward you right now."

Aria looked.

Caden had taken one step forward without seeming to realize it. Like his body was moving before his mind had agreed to anything. His jaw was tight, his hands loose at his sides, and those grey eyes had not left her face.

And then she heard it.

The sound that shattered everything.

It came from her left, a sharp intake of breath that turned into something uglier, something raw and broken and furious all at once. Selene Callum stood three feet away, her beautiful face completely still in the way faces went still before a storm broke. Her dark eyes were moving between Caden and Aria and the expression building behind them was something Aria had never seen before.

Not cruelty. Not amusement. Not the cool superiority Selene carried everywhere she went.

This was pain.

Genuine, burning, humiliating pain.

And it was curdling into something dangerous right before Aria's eyes.

Elder Moss, the pack's oldest wolf, raised his voice above the murmuring crowd. His weathered hands lifted and the ceremony grounds went quiet enough to hear the wind move through the trees. "The Moon Goddess has spoken." His voice was steady, certain, carrying the weight of someone who had watched decades of ceremonies and never once doubted the goddess. "The bond has been drawn. Caden Silvermoor, future Alpha of the Silvermoon Pack, and Aria Voss of the Silvermoon Pack are fated mates."

The silence that followed was the loudest thing Aria had ever heard.

And then the crowd erupted.

Not in celebration. Not entirely. It was chaos, voices crashing over each other, some in shock, some in outrage, some simply in disbelief. Aria heard her name moving through the crowd like something foreign, like a word in a language nobody had expected to hear tonight.

Aria Voss.

The omega.

The nobody.

She felt every whisper like a needle.

Mara grabbed her hand and held it so tightly it almost hurt and Aria was grateful because without that grip she was not entirely sure she would still be standing.

Caden was still looking at her.

He had not reacted to the crowd, to the noise, to any of it. He stood exactly where he was and looked at her with that same unreadable expression and Aria had no idea what was happening behind those grey eyes. She did not know if he was angry. She did not know if he was disgusted. She did not know anything except that the bond between them was pulling at her chest like a tide and she could not make it stop.

She did not want to be anyone's mistake.

She especially did not want to be his.

A commotion broke out to her left.

Selene had stepped forward, away from the crowd, her chin lifted and her eyes blazing. Her assigned mate, a quiet pack member named Owen, stood a few feet behind her reaching toward her with uncertainty written all over his face.

Selene turned to him and the look she gave him could have frozen fire.

"I reject you," she said clearly. Loudly. Publicly. Her voice did not shake at all. "I reject this bond. I reject you completely."

The crowd went silent again.

Owen flinched like he had been struck.

Selene turned back toward Aria and the expression on her face was no longer pain. It had finished curdling. It had become something else entirely, something cold and deliberate and pointed directly at Aria like the tip of a blade.

She smiled.

It was the most frightening smile Aria had ever seen.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, omega," Selene said softly. Only Aria and Mara were close enough to hear it. "You have no idea what you just walked into."

Before Aria could respond, before she could breathe, a hand closed around her wrist.

Warm. Strong. Certain.

She turned and looked up and Caden Silvermoor was standing right in front of her, close enough that she could see the silver of his hair catching the moonlight, close enough that the bond between them roared to life so loudly she nearly gasped.

He looked down at her and said nothing.

But he did not let go.