Rejected before the moon

The mate bond hit me like lightning tearing through my chest.

I gasped, fingers clutching at my heart as the air around me shifted, thick with the scent of pine, smoke, and something dangerously familiar. My wolf whimpered softly inside me, confused, frightened… hopeful. I didn’t need anyone to tell me what was happening.

The Moon Goddess had chosen.

Slowly, trembling, I lifted my eyes to the man standing across the clearing.

Alpha Kael.

The most powerful Alpha in the North Ridge Pack. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Untouchable. His dark hair was tied back, his sharp jaw set in stone, golden eyes glowing faintly under the full moon. He was everything an omega like me was never supposed to have.

And yet… the bond pulsed between us, undeniable, ancient, alive.

My mate.

A murmur rippled through the gathered pack members. Some gasped. Some stared at me in open disbelief. Others laughed softly, cruelly, as if the Moon Goddess herself had made a terrible joke.

Me?

Elara, the quiet omega who cleaned the council hall, who kept her head down, who spoke only when spoken to.

I took a step forward before fear could stop me. “Alpha Kael…” My voice shook. “I...I think..."

His eyes hardened.

The warmth I felt through the bond slammed into ice.

“I know exactly what you think,” he said coldly, his voice carrying effortlessly across the clearing. Silence fell instantly. “And you are wrong.”

My heart stuttered. “W-what?”

He turned fully toward me then, and the bond flared brighter, almost painful. For one breathless moment, hope bloomed stupidly in my chest.

Then he crushed it.

“I reject you.”

The words struck harder than any blow.

Gasps exploded around us. Someone laughed outright. I felt every eye burn into my skin as if I were standing naked beneath the moon.

“I, Alpha Kael of the North Ridge Pack,” he continued, voice unwavering, “reject Elara as my mate and future Luna.”

My knees buckled. I barely caught myself before I fell.

Inside me, my wolf screamed.

“Please,” I whispered, humiliation choking me. “The bond, it can’t be undone so easily. We’re meant...”

“Meant?” His lips curled in disgust. “You are an omega. Weak. Powerless. Barely tolerated. Do you truly believe the Moon Goddess would curse me with you?”

The crowd parted as Lyra stepped forward.

She was beautiful in the way polished daggers were beautiful , sharp, gleaming, deadly. The Beta’s daughter. The woman everyone already called future Luna. Her red lips curved into a smile as she slipped her arm around Kael’s.

“Alpha,” she said softly, though her eyes gleamed with triumph, “the pack is watching.”

“I know,” he replied.

He looked back at me then, really looked, and whatever he saw sealed my fate.

“This bond was a mistake,” he announced. “And mistakes are corrected.”

The bond snapped.

Pain unlike anything I had ever known tore through me. I cried out, collapsing fully this time, hands pressed to the earth as fire ripped through my chest. It felt like something sacred had been torn out of me, leaving nothing but blood and ash behind.

I heard laughter.

I heard whispers.

Pathetic.

She thought she could be Luna?

An omega dreaming too high.

Lyra crouched beside me, her voice a sweet poison meant only for my ears. “You should be grateful, Elara. At least you were noticed… even if only for a moment.”

Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall in front of her.

“Get up,” Kael ordered.

I forced myself to stand, my legs shaking violently.

“You will leave pack territory before sunrise,” he said. “If you are found within our borders after tonight, you will be punished as a rogue.”

A death sentence.

My breath hitched. “Alpha Kael… please. I have nowhere to go.”

“You should have thought of that before embarrassing yourself,” Lyra said lightly.

Kael didn’t contradict her.

Something inside me cracked, not loudly, but deeply.

I bowed my head, not in submission, but because if I looked at him one more second, I would shatter completely.

“As you command, Alpha,” I said, my voice hollow.

I turned and walked away.

Each step away from the clearing felt heavier than the last, but I did not run. I would not give them the satisfaction. Only when the trees swallowed me whole did I finally break.

I collapsed beneath an ancient oak, sobbing so hard my ribs ached. The bond’s absence felt like a wound that refused to close, bleeding pain into every breath.

Why would the Moon Goddess do this to me?

The moonlight filtered through the leaves, bathing me in silver. My tears soaked into the earth as I pressed my forehead against the ground, grief threatening to drown me.

And then...

Warmth.

Soft at first. Gentle. A pulse deep within my chest, right where the bond had been torn away.

My sobs slowed.

The warmth grew, spreading through my veins like liquid moonlight. My wolf stirred, not in pain… but in awe.

Elara… a voice whispered, ancient and feminine.

I gasped, lifting my head as the moon above seemed to glow brighter, closer.

The pain didn’t disappear, but something stronger wrapped around it. Something powerful. Something waiting.

The ground beneath my palms shimmered faintly.

I sucked in a sharp breath as realization crept in, terrifying and impossible.

The bond hadn’t ended.

It had changed.