Reborn to Reject the Alpha.

The rope was rough against my neck, and the wind carried the smell of wet pine and burning torches across the square.

I stood on the wooden platform with my hands tied behind my back, looking at the faces of the pack I had served my whole life. Some of them were crying, some of them were angry, and most of them simply looked hungry for what was about to happen. Not one of them looked like they believed I was innocent.

Then I saw her at the front of the crowd, wrapped in a white cloak, her golden hair shining under the torchlight. My little sister Naomi was holding Alpha Darian's arm, and she was smiling at me.

It was not a sad smile or a shocked one. It was the smile of someone who had finally gotten exactly what she wanted.

"Liora Hale," the Elder said, "for the poisoning of Alpha Roderick, the Moon Goddess has judged you guilty."

I opened my mouth to say that I had never touched that poison, that I had spent my whole life healing people and not harming them, but the trapdoor dropped before a single word came out.

The last thing I felt was the rope pulling tight and my own heartbeat fading away.

Then I woke up gasping.

My hands flew to my throat, and I tore at it like the rope was still there, but there was only my own skin, warm and whole. I was in my small bed in the healer's cottage, with the soft gray light of morning coming through the thin curtains and the sound of birds outside my window.

I sat up so fast my head spun. My cottage looked exactly the way it had looked the morning of my mate ceremony, with the herbs hanging in bundles from the ceiling, my mother's old shawl folded on the chair, and the pale blue dress I had sewn myself hanging on the door, ready for tonight.

I knew this day. I had lived it once already, and I had died because of it.

My whole body began to shake as the memories came rushing back one after another. The ceremony in the moon temple, Darian's cold eyes, the words he spoke in front of everyone, and the way he chose my sister over me. After that came the cell, the false evidence, the trial that was over before it began, and then the gallows.

I pressed my hand over my mouth and forced myself to breathe slowly. If I cried now, I would waste the only gift the Moon Goddess had ever given me. I had been given a second chance, and I was not going to spend it falling apart.

The door creaked open.

"Liora? Are you awake?"

Naomi stepped inside carrying a tray with tea and warm bread, her long hair tied back with a pink ribbon, and her face as soft and innocent as it had always been. She looked just like the little girl I had raised after our mother died, the one who used to climb into my bed during thunderstorms and ask me to tell her everything would be okay.

My chest tightened so hard that for a moment I could not speak.

"I made your favorite," she said brightly, setting the tray on my table. "You need to eat something today. It's the biggest night of your life!"

I looked at her hands. They were small and gentle, and they had once held mine while I cried over our mother's grave. In my memory those same hands had slipped a vial of poison into Alpha Roderick's evening wine and then pointed at me.

"Thank you, Naomi," I said, and I was surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

She smiled and sat on the edge of my bed. "Are you nervous? I would be so nervous. But you don't need to be, because Alpha Darian is going to love you. Everyone knows the Moon Goddess never makes mistakes."

I almost laughed at that. The Moon Goddess had made no mistake. The mistake had been mine, because I had trusted the wrong people.

"I'm not nervous anymore," I told her quietly. "I think I finally understand what I need to do tonight."

For one tiny second something flickered across her face, so quick that I almost missed it. It looked like suspicion. Then the sweet smile returned, and she squeezed my hand.

"I'm so happy for you," she whispered.

I smiled back at her, and for the first time in my life I understood that a smile could be a weapon.

The evening came faster than I expected.

By the time I walked into the moon temple, the whole Silverfang Pack had gathered inside. Hundreds of candles lit the stone hall, and silver light poured down from the open ceiling where the moon hung full and bright. Everyone turned to look at me as I walked down the long aisle in my blue dress, and I could hear them whispering behind their hands about the healer's daughter who had somehow been chosen by the Alpha's wolf.

At the end of the aisle stood Darian Cross.

He was tall and broad, dressed in black, with dark hair falling across his forehead and gray eyes that could make a grown wolf drop his gaze. He was the most powerful Alpha the Silverfang Pack had seen in a hundred years, and in my first life I had loved him with my whole foolish heart.

Now my heart stayed quiet. Whatever I had felt for him, it had died on that platform with me.

Naomi sat in the front row with her hands folded, smiling proudly. The Elders stood on both sides of the altar, and among them was the pack's old moon seer, Veda, whose pale eyes followed me the whole way down the aisle.

I stopped in front of Darian.

"Liora Hale," the Elder began, lifting the silver chalice, "tonight the Moon Goddess has revealed that you and Alpha Darian Cross are fated mates. Alpha, you may now speak the words of acceptance."

Darian's jaw tightened, and he said nothing.

The silence stretched on for a few long seconds, and I saw something strange in his eyes, something I had not seen last time. It was not coldness. It looked almost like fear, as if he was standing at the edge of a cliff and already knew he would fall.

"Alpha?" the Elder prompted.

He opened his mouth, but I spoke first.

"Wait."

My voice rang out across the temple, clear and strong, and every head turned toward me. The whispers stopped like someone had cut them with a knife.

I lifted my chin and looked straight into Darian's gray eyes.

"I, Liora Hale, daughter of the Silverfang healer, reject you, Alpha Darian Cross, as my mate."

The silence that followed was so complete that I could hear the candles crackling.

Then the whole hall exploded.

Gasps went up from every corner. An Elder dropped the chalice, and it rang against the stone floor. Naomi shot to her feet, her face turning white, and for a split second her perfect mask cracked and I saw pure shock underneath it.

She had expected to watch me get rejected. She had never expected me to reject him first.

"How dare you," someone hissed from the crowd. "An omega rejecting the Alpha!"

"She has lost her mind!"

I ignored every one of them. I kept my eyes on Darian, waiting for the anger, for the cruel words I knew so well, for the wolf that would rage at my disrespect.

But he did not move, and he did not shout. He just stood there staring at me as though I was something he had lost a long time ago and had never expected to see again.

His hand trembled slightly at his side.

Then he took one slow step closer, so close that only I could hear him, and he leaned down until his lips almost touched my ear.

His voice was rough and broken, and it was full of a pain I did not understand.

"So you remember too."