Chapter 7

Aria’s POV

 

I didn’t sleep that night.

 

How could I?

 

Every time I closed my eyes, I felt it the brush of his forearm against mine, the way his scent had flooded the study until I couldn’t breathe anything else. The way his eyes had flashed gold for one heartbeat before he locked it all down and walked away.

 

‘You heard wrong, Luna.’

 

The words looped in my head coldly.

I rolled onto my side, pulling the covers over my shoulder like they could shield me from the ache in my chest. My wolf, Saela, paced restlessly inside me, whining low and confused. She didn’t understand why the one who smelled like home kept running.

 

Neither did I.

 

Hours crawled by. Moonlight shifted across the floor. At some point, exhaustion pulled me under and sleep finally took me, but it didn’t bring peace.

 

It dragged me back to the place I hated most.

I was eight years old again, standing in the cavernous entrance hall of a house that never felt like home. Rain lashed the tall windows. My small suitcase was still in my hand, the one I’d arrived with two days earlier.

 

My parents had died in a rogue attack on our small border pack. I remembered very little of them, only flashes: my mother’s vanilla-lilac scent, my father’s deep laugh. Everything else had been erased by smoke and blood and grief.

 

A middle aged man had come to the ashes. He’d looked down at me, dirt-streaked and silent, and said to the woman beside him: “She’s the last of the Wynter line. Take her.”

 

That man became my adoptive father: Elder Harlan Voss, cold, ambitious, always calculating alliances like pieces on a board. His wife, my stepmother had smiled when they brought me inside, but the smile never reached her eyes.

In the dream, I stood dripping on the marble as she circled me.

 

“Clean her up,” she told the maid. “We can’t present her to the allies looking like a stray.”

 

They gave me a room on the third floor, far from the family wings. Beautiful, but empty. I learned quickly that affection was currency, and I had none to spend. So I tried to earn it.

 

I was quiet, obedient. Top of every lesson — history, politics, etiquette, martial arts, combat theory. I memorized pack laws before I was ten. I smiled when spoken to. I never asked for seconds at dinner, but it was never enough.

 

“You’re here because we allow it,” Elder Voss reminded me at every opportunity. “Remember your place, and you may yet prove useful.”

 

That word became my cage. When I was fourteen, they sat me down in the study that reeked of leather and cigar smoke.

 

Initially, a deal had been struck years earlier between Harlan Voss and Kade’s father that their children would be marriage partners. But as the wedding day approached, scandal erupted.

 

Harlan’s daughter began to show signs of pregnancy. It was later confirmed that the pregnancy belonged to her lover who is a rogue wolf. To bury the shame, they sent her away, far from prying eyes and then they turned to me.

 

“You’ll go in her place,” my stepmother said, voice smooth as silk. “And if anyone asks you about Sophie you know exactly what to say, right?”

 

“Yes, mother!” I stared at them, heart pounding.

 

But I couldn’t be Luna without a price. They fabricated rules, and ridiculous guidelines I had to follow: no questioning the Alpha, no forming true bonds in the pack, report back on his weaknesses, tend to our needs when the need arises.

 

“A high position for an orphan girl. You’d better be grateful.” My stepmother chipped in.

 

And I was.

Goddess help me, I was grateful.

Because Luna meant safety. It meant never being the spare again. It meant belonging to a pack that had to accept me and a title that couldn’t be taken on a whim.

 

It meant I would finally be chosen.

I clung to that promise through the years of formal visits, stiff dinners, and Kade’s distant politeness. He was older, already training to be Alpha, always surrounded by warriors and responsibility. He never looked at me like I was more than the agreement.

 

But I told myself that would change once we were mated. Fortunately the  Moon Goddess had paired us. I believed that had to mean something with every desperate piece of me.

 

The dream shifted and suddenly I was twenty-two again, standing in the ceremonial gown, my heart soaring as the elders called my name.

 

“Luna of the Blood Fang Pack.”

For one shining moment, I felt the safety, the validation, the belonging. And the next moment, my stepmother voice

 

 “Useful only as long as you remember your place” echoed in my head as the fake mark burned like acid, and the walls of the room slowly closed in on me.

 

I tried to scream, but no sound came.

I struggled to breath and finally, I jolted awake, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat.

 

The pack house room was dark and quiet, but the old fear clung to me like damp cloth.

I was still the orphan girl trying to earn her keep.

 

Still waiting to be chosen.

Still not enough.

 

I couldn’t lie there another second.

I pulled on a jacket over my sleep shirt, slipped into boots, and padded out into the silent hallway.

 

Midnight air and free space to breath was what I needed. I took the side door to the open training field, the one that stretched wide under the full moon.

 

I was halfway across the grass when I saw Kade and Claire, on a blanket beneath the stars.

 

His arm around her, her head on his shoulder and their laughter soft and intimate.

“If I have a kid, I'll name her Star.” Claire said

“Hmm… that's a beautiful name. She'll be just as pretty as you are.”

 

Riven stood guard a short distance away, his eyes scanning the darkness.

 

My heart stuttered.

I tried to keep walking, head high, pretending I saw nothing. But Claire’s voice floated across the field, sweet and sharp as broken glass.

 

“Luna! Out for a midnight stroll?” she asked with a knowing glance at Kade.

 

I stopped.

Kade turned to look at me and the moonlight caught his face.

 

Claire sat up, smiling like a cat. “You should join us. The stars are beautiful tonight.”

 

I took a quick look at the sky. “They're indeed beautiful.” I forced my voice steady.

My eyes betrayed me, sliding to Riven.

He met my gaze for one heartbeat; gold flaring bright in the dark.

Then he looked away.

 

Something inside me cracked.

Claire kept talking, words I barely heard.

I scoffed softly, more at myself than at her and said, “Enjoy your night.”

 

I walked on, past them, into the deeper shadows. The thoughts came fast and merciless.

 

Two mates.

Chosen and fated.

And neither wanted me.

Kade had never tried to hide it.

Riven on the other hand felt the bond, and still turned away like I was poison.

 

Was I cursed?

Or had the Goddess marked me for loneliness twice over?

 

I stopped at the far edge of the field, staring into the black tree line.

 

No more waiting to be chosen.

If my mates didn’t want me, I would choose myself. The Luna title was mine by law, by ceremony, and by right.

 

And if Claire ever carried Kade’s heir before I did, the elders would hand her my position on a silver platter.

 

But I wouldn’t let that happen.

I would make myself undeniable, and earn every ounce of respect this pack had to give.

I would fight for the one thing that had chosen me when everyone else rejected me with my life.

 

I turned back toward the pack house, steps surer than they’d been in days.

Tomorrow, the real work began.