Chapter 1

Elara's POV

The dress was too tight across my ribs, but I didn't say anything, it's not like anybody asked.

Mira laced the back of it with quick, careful fingers, and every pull made my chest feel smaller, like the whole pack wanted to squeeze me down to a size they could finally accept.

"Stop breathing so much," she said, but she was smiling when she said it. "You're going to ruin my hard work."

"I'm nervous."

"You're allowed to be nervous Elara. You're not allowed to pass out. I didn't practice this braid for three days just to watch you faceplant in front of the whole pack."

I laughed, and it came out shakier than I wanted.

Tonight I would stand in front of every wolf in the Ashwood pack and be claimed by Ryker, our future Alpha.

Tonight the girl who spent her whole life folding laundry in the corner of pack meetings would become someone's mate. Someone important's mate.

I had told myself for weeks that it didn't matter that Ryker never looked at me the way the old stories said mates were supposed to look at each other.

I told myself the bond would grow. That's what everyone said.

Mira turned me toward the mirror and pinned the last piece of my hair in place. "There," she said. "Now you look like a woman who's about to become Luna, not a girl who's about to trip over her own dress."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence."

"I believe in you and I believe in gravity. Both things can be true."

Someone knocked on the door before I could throw a hairpin at her. It was one of the younger pack members, a boy who barely looked old enough to shift, and he was out of breath from running.

"They're ready for you," he said. "Alpha Cross wants you in the gathering now."

My stomach dropped, but I nodded like it didn't.

Mira squeezed my hand once, hard, the way she'd done since we were kids and she used to walk me past the older wolves who liked to make comments about the omega girl who flinched too easily.

"You've got this," she said.

I wanted to believe her.

The clearing behind the pack house was packed with wolves by the time I stepped outside, Torches lined the tree line.

The air smelled like smoke and pine and something sweet.

Ryker stood in the center of the circle already, golden haired, broad shouldered, exactly the kind of Alpha heir every pack story liked to write about. He didn't look at me as I walked toward him.

He was talking to his father, low and quick, and something about the way his jaw was set made my steps slow down before I even understood why.

"Elara." Alpha Cross, Ryker's father, said my name like it was something he'd rather not have in his mouth. "Come stand where everyone can see you."

I stood where he pointed, the whole pack quieted. Hundreds of eyes on me, and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel invisible. I felt like a target.

Ryker finally turned to face me, and that was when I saw it, the thing his father's face had already warned me about.

His eyes weren't soft, they were....cold.

"I can't do this," he said.

The clearing went so still I could hear the torches burning.

"Ryker?" My voice came out small. I hated how small it came out.

"You're not what a Luna is supposed to be." He said it loud enough for the whole pack to hear, loud enough that there was no pretending later that I'd misunderstood him.

"You're weak. You flinch at everything. You've never won a single sparring match in your life.

I need someone standing beside me who can actually protect this pack, not someone I have to protect."

Behind me, I heard Mira gasp. I heard someone else laugh.

"I don't accept you as my mate," Ryker said. "I reject you, Elara Ashwood, in front of this pack as my mate and luna in the name of the moon goddess.

The words hits deep in my chest, a pain sharper than anything physical, the kind that made my knees want to give out right there in front of everyone.

A rejection wasn't just an insult. It was permanent. It.. it was the Moon Goddess herself hearing those words and marking them true.

There was no taking it back, Just this, standing in a gathering of torchlight while the entire pack watched the boy I'd waited and loved my whole life throw me away like I was nothing.

"You don't mean that," I said, even though I could see in his eyes that he did.

"I do." His father put a hand on his shoulder, and something about that touch, the pride in it, made my stomach turn. "It's done, Elara you can go back inside."

Go back inside, like it was nothing, like I hadn't just been humiliated in front of everyone I'd grown up with.

I looked around the circle, at faces I'd known my whole life, and not one of them looked surprised. Not one of them looked sorry for me.

A few looked like they'd been waiting for this, like they'd known all along I was never really going to be Luna material.

Mira pushed through the crowd and grabbed my arm. "Elara, come on. Let's go."

I let her pull me away from the circle, past the torches, past the whispers already starting behind us, low and ugly, words like weak and finally and I always knew following me like smoke.

Inside the pack house, Mira tried to hold me, but I pulled back.

If I let her hold me, I was going to fall apart completely, and I couldn't do that here, not with the whole pack close enough to hear it.

"I need to leave the fucking place," I said.

"Elara, it's the middle of the night. Where would you even go?"

"I don't know, anywhere but here." My hands were shaking. "I can't stay in this house tonight, Mira, I just can't stay in this pack tonight. I need air.

She grabbed my hands to still them. "Then I'm coming with you."

"No." I pulled away gently. "Stay so if anyone notices we're both gone, it'll be worse, i just need an hour and I'll come back before sunrise."

She didn't look happy about it, but she let me go, because she knew me well enough to know that arguing wouldn't stop me.

I slipped out the back door of the pack house and into the tree line, away from the torches, away from the laughter.

The forest swallowed the noise fast, until all I could hear was my own breathing and the crunch of leaves under my shoes.

I didn't get far before I smelled the blood.