CHAPTER 1: REJECTED

My name was being called, and I could not move my legs.

"Helena." Jason would not even look at me directly. His eyes were fixed somewhere over my shoulder, like meeting my gaze might make this harder than he wanted it to be. "I think we both know this isn't working."

I stood in the middle of the Ashwood Pack hall, my hands shaking at my sides. Everyone was watching. My aunt was watching. The elders were also watching. Even the little kids who were supposed to be asleep by now had crept out from the back rooms, their small faces peeking around the legs of the adults.

"Jason, please," I whispered. "Not here. We can talk about this somewhere else."

"There's nothing to talk about." He finally looked at me, and there was no softness left in his face at all, only impatience, like I was a decision he had already made and was simply announcing out loud. "The moon bond gave me to you, but it did not ask if I wanted a mate who could not even shift into her own wolf. I have given this two years, Helena. And I am done waiting for you to become someone worth keeping."

The words hit harder than any formal rejection could have. It was not a ritual line. It was worse. It was him telling the whole room, plainly, that he had measured me and found me not worth the trouble.

The whole room went silent for one second, then the whispering started, sharp and quick like knives cutting through the air.

"Poor thing. Guess even fate makes mistakes."

"She still cannot shift at twenty. What did she expect?"

"He waited two years. Nobody can say he didn't try."

I felt my face burn. My eyes stung, but I refused to let one tear fall in front of these people.

"Two weeks ago, you told me you loved me." My voice cracked anyway. "You held my hand and said it to my face."

"I said a lot of things I don't feel anymore." His eyes moved past me, to a girl standing near the door with her arms crossed and a smile she was trying but failing to hide. "Priya doesn't need me to wait around for her to become useful. She already is."

"Useful..."

That was the word he chose. Not unloved, not wrong for him, useful, like I was a tool that had never worked properly and he was finally allowed to throw me out and replace me with the one that did.

"Say something," Kayla, my only real friend, hissed beside me, gripping my wrist so tight it almost hurt. "Helena, don't just stand here and let him talk about you like that."

But what was there left for me to say. You cannot beg someone to want you, and I was not going to hand this room my dignity along with everything else Jason had already taken. I turned and walked out. My legs finally remembered how to move, even if they were shaking the whole way.

Nobody stopped me.

I pushed through the double doors into the cold night air and ran. I ran until my lungs burned, until the lights of the Bronx faded behind me and the trees of the Central Park swallowed me whole. Wolves were allowed to run freely here at night, because human eyes never came in this deep, and right now I did not care if I ran into a rogue or a bear or anything at all. I just needed not to be seen crying by anyone.

I stopped by a big rock near the water and let myself to finally breakdown. The sobs came out ugly and loud, and I did not care who heard me because I thought I was completely alone.

"Crying in the middle of the park at night is a good way to get yourself killed."

I spun around so fast I almost fell into the water.

A man stood a few feet away, arms crossed, watching me the way someone watches a problem they did not ask for. He was tall, broad shoulders and wearing a black jacket that looked like it cost more than my entire apartment. His eyes were gray, flat and unreadable, like storm clouds that had already passed and left nothing behind but cold air.

"I didn't ask for your opinion," I said, wiping my face fast, embarrassed he had caught me like this.

"Yes, you didn't." He did not move closer. He did not smile. He simply looked at me like he was deciding whether I was worth the time it would take to walk away. "This part of the park is not safe after dark. You should go home."

"I don't have a home to go back to right now," I said before I could stop myself, my voice bitter.

Something flickered in his eyes, gone as fast as it came. He did not ask what I meant. He simply studied me for a long moment, like I was a puzzle he had not decided was worth solving.

"That's not my concern," he said finally, but he still had not left.

"Then why are you still standing there," I snapped, humiliation making me braver than I felt.

"Because you're still crying, and crying draws attention in these woods that you do not want."

"Is that a concern," I asked, "or are you just annoyed I'm ruining your night walk?"

His jaw tightened, like the question caught him somewhere he did not expect. "It's still none of my concern."

"Clearly." I looked away from him, back at the water, my arms wrapped tight around myself.

"You can go, I'm fine."

"You're a bad liar."

I turned back sharply. "You don't know me."

"Yes," he agreed, and something about the flatness in his voice made it worse than if he had argued. "I don't. And I don't need to, to see you're not fine."

We stood there, the silence stretching between us, and even though he was cold, even though nothing about him invited warmth, I could not make myself look away from him. My wolf, the one that never woke up, the one everyone in Ashwood said was broken inside me, stirred faintly, like something turning over in its sleep for the first time in years.

"Why does that matter to you," I said softly, "if you do not care."

He did not answer right away. His gray eyes held mine, unreadable, guarded, like a door someone had locked a long time ago and never trusted anyone with the key.

"It doesn't," he said quietly. "I should go."

He turned to leave, and something in my chest ached at that, stupidly, over a stranger who had given me nothing but cold words.

Then a branch snapped behind us, sharp and loud in the silence.

He froze mid step, every muscle in his body going hard and alert. The flat, distant look in his eyes vanished, replaced instantly by something lethal and calculating.

"Get behind me," he said, low and sharp, all coldness gone from his voice, replaced by command.

"What? Why—"

"Now."

I froze, my heart pounding, watching this stranger who had barely looked at me twice suddenly turn into something built for war, and somewhere in the dark trees around us, more than one set of footsteps were closing in fast.