Moonbound Hearts

Nyx

The wind carried the scent of crushed pine needles and coming rain, and I hated how much I still associated it with him.

Alpha Kade.

His name felt like a thorn in my throat every time I thought it, yet my wolf whimpered for him even now. Every inch of my body remembered the heat that surged the first time I laid eyes on him—and the cold that followed when he looked at me like I was nothing.

Like an omega.

I hauled a fresh basket of herbs toward the healer’s den, keeping my head bowed, shoulders hunched. It was safer that way—easier to disappear in a pack that never wanted to see me.

"Omega," someone sneered behind me. I didn’t turn. The voice belonged to Selene, Kade’s beta’s sister. Her cruelty had a particular edge that only existed in wolves who'd never been underestimated a day in their lives.

I didn’t give her the satisfaction of reacting. The word rolled off her tongue like venom, but I had long since learned to keep my silence sharp. If I opened my mouth, I might cry. Or worse—beg.

"Did you hear the Alpha is choosing a Luna today?" Selene said loudly, clearly for my benefit. “I heard his mate hasn’t shifted yet. Some poor omega, probably. Like that one.”

Laughter followed. My fingers clenched around the woven basket handle.

Today. The day he’d acknowledge our bond… or break it.

My wolf stirred, anxious. She’d felt it too—the bond. The pull. The burn of something ancient whispering he’s ours.

But Kade had never once looked at me like I was anything more than a speck on the floor of his kingdom.

Still… the bond didn’t lie. Right?

_______________

Alpha Kade

Her scent haunted me.

Earth after rain. Lavender in full bloom. And something wild beneath it, something I couldn’t name. Every time Nyx entered a room, it curled in my lungs and refused to let go.

I hated it.

She was quiet. Too quiet. An omega who barely looked anyone in the eye, didn’t speak unless spoken to. But when she did… her voice was like silk on skin, dangerous in its softness.

And worse, she was my mate.

I knew it the moment I turned twenty-one and the bond snapped into place. The recognition almost knocked me to my knees. But when I turned, expecting a Luna—the fierce, graceful alpha she-wolf I’d always envisioned—I saw her.

Nyx

The pack omega who worked in the shadows and never fought back.

It felt like a joke. A cruel, cosmic mistake.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t acknowledge her. And I thought maybe if I ignored it long enough, it would go away.

But it hadn’t. It only grew worse.

Today I will make it official. A public rejection. The council insisted I take a Luna before the Blood Moon Ceremony, and there was no way I’d tie myself to someone who couldn’t even defend herself.

I would choose Selene. She was strong, ambitious, and she knew what being an Alpha's mate required.

My wolf snarled low in my mind.

Wrong. She’s not the one.

I shoved the thought aside.

Emotions didn’t build a pack. Power did. Prestige. Strategy. And Nyx—whatever sweet, untamed blood ran in her veins—was no use to me.

_______________

Nyx

The crowd gathered near the stone dais outside the pack house. My fingers trembled, but I kept them clasped tightly in front of me as I took my place at the edge of the assembly. I shouldn’t have come. But my wolf had insisted.

He would see me. He would feel it. The truth in our bond.

Kade stood on the platform, tall and broad-shouldered, his raven-black hair catching the light as if it burned instead of shined. His golden eyes scanned the crowd once, briefly brushing over me.

No recognition. No pull.

And then he spoke.

"I, Alpha Kade of the Blackclaw Pack, reject Nyx as my mate."

It was like time fractured.

Gasps echoed around me, but I couldn't hear them. My wolf let out a broken, wounded howl in my mind. My knees buckled, but I didn’t fall. I wouldn’t.

Every piece of me shattered in silence.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t run. I just turned away and walked back into the woods where no one could see me bleed.

____________

Alpha Kade

Her scent vanished from my senses the second the words left my mouth. The bond severed with a crack I felt in my soul, even if I didn’t show it.

Nyx didn’t flinch. Didn’t cry. She just… left.

But as she walked away, something flickered in her step. A ripple in the air. Power.

Real, ancient, unmistakable power. Like something had been waiting to wake up inside her—and now that the bond was broken, it stirred.

My heart slammed in my chest.

What did I just do?

______

Nyx

I ran.

Not toward the pack, not toward the den I called home. Just away—from the cold words still echoing in my skull.

“I, Alpha Kade of the Blackclaw Pack, reject Nyx as my mate.”

My wolf howled inside me, not just in heartbreak, but in rage. She wasn’t meek like I was. She was a fire I’d never dared touch, always buried beneath the weight of what the pack told me I was: small, omega, powerless.

But now, the leash was slipping.

Trees blurred past me. My legs burned. My vision blurred. I stumbled through brambles and undergrowth until the forest opened into the Moonwater Glade.

Silver mist hovered over the quiet stream that cut through the rocks like veins of light. I collapsed at the water’s edge, my hands digging into the dirt as I tried to breathe.

Pain roared inside me. Not just from the rejection—though that burned like acid in my chest—but something deeper. Older.

I gritted my teeth as heat raced down my spine. My skin felt too tight, my vision sharpened unnaturally. My senses flared, taking in every leaf rustle, every shift of the wind.

What’s happening to me?

My wolf surged against the barriers that had always kept her quiet. She wasn't whimpering anymore.

She was growling.

And then, as if a dam had cracked wide open, a flash of silver-blue light burst from my chest, rippling through the glade.

I screamed as something inside me unlocked—not my shift, not yet—but something older. Something... bound.

I curled into myself, gasping, shaking. The mist around me stirred like it was alive, responding to the surge of energy that now crackled beneath my skin.

You are not what they told you, Nyx.

You were never meant to be small.

The voice wasn’t mine. It wasn’t even my wolf. It came from deep within, like a memory buried in bone.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like an omega.

I felt like something much, much more.

____________

Kade

I couldn’t sleep.

It had been hours since the ceremony. Since I said the words. Since she walked away without looking back.

I expected… relief. Closure. I had chosen Selene, pleased the council, and secured the Luna the pack expected.

But all I felt was wrong.

My wolf was pacing inside me, unsettled. Agitated. No matter how many times I tried to force him into silence, he snarled and snapped, furious with me.

“You made the smart choice,” I muttered aloud as I stared into the fire burning in my hearth. “She’s weak. She never shifted. She’s—”

My voice faltered.

Because the truth was, I saw something in Nyx as she walked away. A shimmer in the air. A charge, like lightning waiting to strike.

I’d seen magic before. We all had, once—stories of ancient bloodlines, wolves born of the Moon Goddess herself. But those were myths, fairy tales told to pups around a fire.

And Nyx? She was an orphaned omega who barely spoke.

Right?

But now my gut twisted with unease. My wolf snarled again.

You rejected your mate. You rejected power. You rejected her.

I clenched my jaw and threw another log into the fire, sparks flying.

If she truly had power… then I may have made the worst mistake of my life.

____________

Nyx

I didn’t return to the den.

I couldn’t.

I spent the night in the glade, curled beneath the roots of the moonwillow tree, body aching, skin buzzing with aftershocks of whatever had just happened.

I didn't sleep. My wolf stayed close, quiet now—not broken, but watching. Waiting.

When dawn filtered through the canopy, I dragged myself to the stream and stared into my reflection.

My eyes looked the same. My face was still the same. But something behind them had changed.

I didn’t know what I was yet. But I wasn’t just an omega.

Not anymore.

_____________

Kade

By morning, Nyx hadn’t returned.

The healer said she hadn’t been seen since the rejection. No one had smelled her scent. Even the trackers came up empty.

Panic curled in my gut.

“She probably ran off,” Selene said beside me with a scoff. “Omegas are always too sensitive. She’ll be back.”

But something told me she wouldn’t. Not as we knew her.

The rejection hadn’t broken her.

It had woken her up.

And that terrified me more than I could admit.