Chapter One: The Rejection

I wore my best dress that night.

It was a simple white gown, nothing too fancy, but my mother had pressed it carefully that morning and told me I looked beautiful. I believed her. For the first time in a long time, I actually believed her.

Tonight was my twenty first birthday.

Tonight was the night I would meet my mate.

Every wolf in Mooncrest knew what the mate ceremony meant. It was the most important night of your life. The moon goddess herself would draw two souls together and nothing in the world could feel more right than that moment. That one perfect moment when your eyes meet and your wolf goes still and you just know.

I had been waiting for this my whole life.

I stood at the edge of the ceremonial grounds and looked around at the crowd. Lanterns were hung between the trees. The night air smelled like pine and something sweet I could not name. Pack members were laughing and talking and the energy around me felt warm and alive.

I tried to calm myself down.

My wolf was already restless inside me, pacing back and forth like she could sense something coming. I pressed my hand against my stomach and took a slow breath.

Easy, I told myself. Just breathe.

Then it hit me.

A scent.

Warm cedar. Dark spice. Something deep and rich that went straight through me like a current.

My wolf stopped pacing.

She went completely still.

And then one word rose up from somewhere deep inside me, quiet but certain.

Mate.

My heart jumped so hard I almost lost my balance. I turned slowly, following the scent, and my eyes landed on him.

Kael Blackthorn.

He was standing near the Alpha platform with two of his men beside him. Tall, broad shouldered, with dark hair and a jaw that looked like it had been cut from stone. He was wearing all black and he looked exactly like what he was. The most powerful Alpha in Mooncrest. The man every woman in this pack had whispered about at some point.

And he was my mate.

A smile started to form on my face before I could stop it. My whole chest felt like it was opening up. All those years of feeling invisible, of being the quiet girl nobody paid much attention to, suddenly felt worth it. Because the moon had been saving this for me. She had been saving him for me.

I took one step forward.

That was when Kael looked up.

His eyes found mine across the crowd.

And my smile died.

There was no warmth in his gaze. No surprise. No slow recognition like the stories always described. He looked at me the way you look at something you did not ask for and do not want. His jaw tightened. Something moved behind his eyes, cold and sharp, and then he looked away like I was not even worth a second glance.

My wolf whimpered.

I stood there frozen, telling myself I had imagined it. Maybe he was nervous. Maybe he had not felt it yet. Maybe I was wrong about what I saw in his face.

But then he stepped forward.

He raised his hand and the crowd went quiet almost immediately. That was the kind of Alpha he was. One gesture and the whole world stopped.

I held my breath.

"Tonight I stand before this pack to fulfill my duty," he said. His voice was deep and carried easily through the silence. "As your Alpha, I am required to acknowledge the bond the moon presents."

He paused.

My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my throat.

"But I am also Alpha of this pack. And I will not allow a bond to compromise the strength of what I have built."

The air changed.

People started looking around, confused. Some of them looked at me. I do not know how they knew so quickly. Maybe they could smell it too, the way bonds left a trace in the air between two people. Maybe they had already figured it out.

Kael's eyes came back to me then.

Cold. Steady. Like he had already made up his mind before tonight even started.

"Aria Nightshade," he said.

My name in his mouth felt like a stone dropping into still water.

"I, Kael Blackthorn, Alpha of the Mooncrest Pack, reject you as my mate."

The words landed like a blow to the chest. I actually stepped back. I could not help it. My wolf cried out inside me so loudly I thought I might collapse from it, this invisible thing tearing through my chest, pulling at something that had only just started to exist.

The crowd was completely silent.

"You are weak," he continued. His voice did not shake. It was calm, almost bored. "You are an embarrassment to this pack. You are not worthy of standing beside me."

Someone gasped. I think it was my mother. I could not look. I could not look at anyone. I just stood there with my hands at my sides and my eyes burning and my whole body going numb from the inside out.

He was not finished.

"I have already chosen my future Luna." He extended his hand to the side and a woman stepped forward from the crowd, slipping her fingers into his like she had been waiting there all along. Selene Ashwood. Beautiful, polished, with cold eyes and a smile she was trying very hard to keep small.

She did not try very hard.

The two of them stood there together in front of the entire pack while I stood alone in my white dress that my mother had pressed that morning.

I do not remember deciding to speak. But I heard my own voice come out, quiet and flat.

"I accept your rejection."

That was all.

No tears. Not in front of them. I would not give them that.

I held my head up and I walked. I did not run. I walked through the crowd that parted around me like I was something contagious, past the lanterns and the pine trees and the sweet smell that had felt so warm just minutes ago, past my mother who reached out and touched my arm and I could not stop, I could not stop because if I stopped I would fall apart right there on the ground and I refused to do that.

I kept walking until the lights of the ceremony were behind me and the trees closed around me and there was nothing but darkness and the sound of my own breathing.

Then I sat down on the ground in my white dress.

And I let myself cry.

Not for Kael. Not really. I cried for the girl I had been ten minutes ago. The one who had stood at the edge of that crowd with her heart open, believing that the moon had something beautiful waiting for her.

That girl was gone now.

I did not know who I was without her.

But I knew one thing.

I was not staying.