Chapter 1

The night the Moon Goddess revealed her cruelty, the sky was too beautiful for something so brutal. Silver light dripped through the clouds like silk, brushing the clearing where the entire Silvercrest Pack had gathered. The air was sharp and clean after the evening rain, but beneath it lingered the scent of wet earth, fur, and something electric — anticipation thick enough to choke on.

I stood on the edge of the gathering, clutching the sleeves of my worn sweater like it might hold me together. It didn’t. Nothing could.

The pack ring was alive with whispers, bodies pressing close, eager to witness the spectacle. Omegas like me weren’t supposed to stand anywhere near the center, but tonight was different. Everyone had been summoned. And every breath I took felt like it carried me toward something I didn’t understand yet.

The bonfire burned high, its light throwing long shadows across the faces that had taunted me since I could remember. I could feel their stares scraping against my skin — the mocking eyes of wolves who thought my existence was beneath them. Omega. Weak. Worthless.

I knew the words they whispered. I had heard them all my life.

But I had never heard the bond.

It happened in a heartbeat.

One moment, I was just another body in the cold, watching the Alpha stride toward the center like he owned the night. The next, the air itself shifted. A pulse. A drag. A force older than law or blood.

My heart stopped. Then it raced.

The moment Kael Draven looked at me, everything inside me splintered.

The Alpha’s golden eyes locked on mine across the ring, and I felt the bond snap into place — raw and undeniable. It was like being struck by lightning from the inside. A low hum shivered through my veins, sharp and hot, crawling up my throat. My knees nearly buckled.

No one needed to say it. Everyone knew what it meant when two wolves felt the bond that violently.

Fated mates.

The gasps around me were louder than the wind.

Kael Draven. Alpha. Leader. Untouchable.

And me… the Omega girl who mopped the training floor.

I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. My lungs burned, and somewhere deep in my chest, my wolf let out a desperate sound that felt like hope clawing through a wound. She had always dreamed of this moment, even when I told her not to.

But Kael’s face… it didn’t soften. It hardened.

His jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists. And in the silence that followed, I heard my world cracking at the edges.

“No,” he said softly, like a storm starting to breathe.

The crowd shifted, murmurs flickering like sparks. I tried to breathe, but the bond pulsed stronger — like a hand squeezing my heart.

He stepped toward me. Even without shifting, Kael radiated dominance. It rolled off him in waves, pressing down on everyone around. People lowered their heads. A few omegas whimpered softly, their wolves bowing before him on instinct. My wolf trembled too… but not out of fear. It was something else. Recognition. Claim.

“Aria Hale,” Kael said, voice cutting through the whispers like a blade through silk. “The Moon Goddess made a mistake.”

The words fell like stones.

Someone laughed softly behind me. Others gasped. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even think.

“Mistake?” I whispered. My voice cracked like ice underfoot.

His eyes flashed gold — the Alpha surfacing in full. “I will not accept you as my Luna.”

The bond surged — like something ripping inside me, tearing flesh I didn’t know could bleed. I clutched my chest as the power inside me howled against the rejection, scraping and burning. My knees hit the dirt before I even realized I’d fallen.

Kael’s wolf rumbled beneath his skin, restless. Mine clawed inside me, keening in pain. The Moon didn’t give you a choice. That’s what they always said. The bond was absolute. But Kael — Kael Draven was looking me in the eye and defying the Goddess.

“You can’t—” I tried, choking on air. “You can’t reject fate.”

His expression didn’t waver. He stood like a statue carved out of fury and pride. “I can. And I will. I will not tie my bloodline to weakness.”

Weakness.

The word punched through me harder than his power ever could. I’d spent my entire life hearing it whispered in dark corners. But hearing it from my mate was different. It was final.

The pack reacted like wolves smelling blood. Whispers. Snickers. Laughter that felt like blades pressing against my skin.

“She’s nothing,” someone muttered.

“An Omega Luna? The Goddess must be blind.”

“Pathetic.”

My hands trembled against the dirt. Heat stung my eyes, but I refused to let tears fall here. Not in front of him. Not in front of them.

I forced myself to look up. He was still standing there — the man the Goddess chose for me — refusing me with the entire pack as witness. My chest hurt. Not in the soft, fragile way of heartbreak. In the sharp, scorching way of something being carved out of you while you’re still awake.

“You’ll regret this,” I whispered, not because I believed it. But because saying anything else would’ve broken me.

Kael’s eyes narrowed. The bond flared between us again, a hot, trembling thread that neither of us could fully sever yet. For a heartbeat, something flickered in his gaze — something raw, dark, and unspoken.

Then he turned his back.

The bond screamed.

It wasn’t just pain — it was a storm ripping through my soul. My wolf wailed inside me, fighting to reach for him, even as I begged her not to. Every part of me wanted to run after him, to beg, to sink to my knees and offer myself as less than nothing just to stop the tearing. But I didn’t move.

I stood. Slowly. Every muscle in my body burned.

The bonfire’s light caught on my face as I met the stares of the pack — wolves who had always treated me like a stain they couldn’t scrub out. Now they had proof that even the Moon didn’t want me.

I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t need your pity,” I said softly.

Someone scoffed. Another laughed.

I walked away.

Every step felt like dragging my broken soul through gravel, but I didn’t stop. The bond pulsed with every heartbeat, a cruel reminder of what I’d lost before I ever had it. But beneath the pain, something else stirred. Faint. Small. Hot.

Power.

The night air wrapped around me as I left the clearing. The howls of the pack echoed behind me, half amusement, half bloodlust. I knew what came next — the mockery, the cruelty, the way rejection would brand me. Omegas didn’t survive rejections like this. Not cleanly.

But I wasn’t going to fall apart in front of them.

By the time I reached the tree line, my hands were shaking. My skin prickled like static under my clothes. The bond throbbed deep in my chest, an open wound. I pressed my palm to my heart.

“Breathe,” I whispered to myself. “Just breathe.”

The forest was silent, except for the rustle of wet leaves. I inhaled the scent of earth and night, trying to ground myself, but my body wouldn’t stop trembling. The rejection had ripped something open inside me — and the void it left behind wasn’t empty. It was… alive.

A sound ripped through the night. Not a howl. Something deeper. Ancient.

I froze.

Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my wolf rose inside me, sharp and alert, ears pricked. I’d spent my entire life bowing, hiding, shrinking. But right now, for the first time, my wolf didn’t cower.

My vision sharpened. My senses flared. I could hear the heartbeat of the forest — the drip of water from leaves, the rustle of a deer farther east, the low, steady thrum of something else watching me.

A shadow moved between the trees.

I backed up slowly, pulse hammering. But the air shifted again — that same electric pulse I’d felt when the bond snapped into place. Only this time, it wasn’t Kael. It was me.

Silver light bled from my palms.

I stared at my hands, panic burning through the fog of heartbreak. It wasn’t the reflection of moonlight. The glow came from beneath my skin, pulsing with my heartbeat, brightening every time I thought of Kael’s voice saying weakness.

“No,” I whispered, my breath shaking. “No, no, no.”

The power surged again — a hot, liquid rush through my veins, as if something inside me had been caged for too long and was now clawing its way out. I fell to my knees, fingers digging into the dirt.

My wolf wasn’t crying anymore. She was awake.

The shadow between the trees moved closer.

A low growl vibrated through the ground, making my bones tremble. Not from the pack. Something else. Something that felt older than this forest, older than Kael, older than the Alpha order itself.

I should’ve run. But something in me answered it. A low sound rose from my own throat, quiet but sharp, like a note pulled from a buried song.

My heart pounded. My palms glowed brighter.

And then—

“Aria.”

I jerked around. Kael stood at the edge of the clearing, half in shadow, golden eyes burning like embers. He’d followed me.

For a split second, the bond flared between us again — wild and furious and alive. His chest rose and fell like he’d been running, but his voice was low, rough, cracking around the edges like he didn’t know why he was here.

“You shouldn’t be here alone,” he said.

I laughed, bitter and breathless. “You rejected me five minutes ago, Alpha. What are you going to do now? Make sure I die gracefully?”

He flinched. It was small, but I saw it.

“Something’s out there,” he muttered, scanning the treeline. His wolf was at the surface — I could sense it in the shift of his stance, the way his scent sharpened. He could feel the power in the air too.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice shaking but sharp. “Me.”

His gaze snapped to my hands. Silver light painted the forest floor in trembling streaks. For a heartbeat, Kael didn’t breathe. The bond between us pulsed — not with rejection, but with something dark and hungry and unsettled.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

“I didn’t do anything,” I spat. “You did.”

His lips parted, a curse half-formed. But before he could step closer, the growl came again — closer this time, circling. Kael turned, his entire body shifting into Alpha mode, but the thing in the trees didn’t belong to any pack. I could feel it.

The silver in my blood pulsed harder, answering the darkness.

“Go back to the packhouse,” he ordered without looking at me.

I let out a shaky laugh. “You don’t get to order me around anymore.”

His head snapped toward me, and for a moment, the Alpha in him and the bond between us collided — a spark, a flare, something dangerous. His golden eyes flickered with a heat I didn’t want to name.

The growl turned into a roar.

Branches cracked as a massive shadow lunged out of the dark. Not wolf. Not human. Something else.

Kael shifted halfway in a blur of movement — bones snapping, fur bursting from skin — but even he wasn’t fast enough to stop what came next.

The thing’s eyes burned crimson. It launched straight for me.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t cower.

The silver light exploded from my palms like a star being born.

The world went white.