1: THE SCENT OF HOME

Ayla, exhausted and bloodied, returns from the battlefield after three days of healing warriors. The scent of her fated mate calls to her as she nears the packhouse.

My boots squelched in blood and mud. Three days. I hadn’t slept, hadn’t shifted. My wolf was silent, curled deep inside me like she didn’t want to come out and face what the world had become.

I stepped over a corpse and pulled my pack tighter. The trees thinned, and then I smelled him. My heart stuttered. The world blurred. His scent hit like thunder—rain-washed cedarwood and crushed bone.

Finally.

I staggered to a stop just past the ash tree. My breath locked in my chest. For three days, I had fought beside dying wolves, stitching shredded tendons, burning out infection with silver-laced roots—and the only thing that kept me moving was the thought of him, my fated. The one the Moon Goddess made for me.

And now…He was here.

“Ayla!” someone called. I didn’t turn. The scent pulled me.

I dropped my satchel at the edge of the path and followed the bond like a starving thing. It burned through my ribs like a tether, tighter with every step. My feet didn’t belong to me anymore. My body moved on instinct.

The sacred clearing came into view—where fated mates claimed each other under the stars.

And I saw him. Tal, shoulders like armor. Brown hair tousled by the breeze. My wolf screamed his name in silence.

“Darius.”

His hand was on her waist, Cassia. She was in white. My heart cracked in perfect silence. She leaned her head on his chest, he held her like a promise.

“No,” I whispered.

My knees wobbled. I stepped forward, slowly, like maybe if I just looked closer, I’d see I was wrong. Maybe this was a mistake.

And then he spoke.

“I claim her as mine,” Darius said, voice proud and clear. “Cassia Dane is my fated mate.”

Laughter, cheers, applause.

I couldn’t breathe. The world tilted. My lungs forgot how to take in air. Cassia turned her face, found me across the clearing, her smile never faltered.

She held out her hand toward me like I was a bridesmaid and not the discarded mate.

I stepped back.

The bond—It snapped like glass. Agony ripped through my chest. I doubled over, choking. My ribs pulsed with heat. Something inside me shrieked and went still.

The rejection.

“No—” My vision swam. “No, no—he was mine—”

I collapsed to my knees in the grass, clawing at my chest. My fingers found no wound. But the pain—gods, the pain was everywhere.

Cassia walked to me. The crowd made a path for her like she was already a Luna. My Luna.

I couldn’t move.

She knelt beside me, voice sweet, low. “I’m so sorry, Ayla. This must be so… confusing.”

I turned my face away.

She leaned closer. “But maybe next time,” she whispered, “try not to smell like trash.”

I stared at her. Something deep inside me cracked wide open. Her scent—it wasn’t hers, not fully. I could smell traces of it, it was mine. Twisted into something floral, too polished and masked.

“Witch,” I rasped. “You… you used…”

She stood, brushing imaginary dirt off her skirt. “Poor thing. All those healing herbs have really messed with your scent. No wonder he didn’t recognize you.”

I vomited in the grass, the crowd gasped.

Cassia spun on her heel and returned to Darius. He held her. Kissed her forehead.

And I stood up, shaking, hunched, barely breathing. I walked past the pack that had been my family. Not one of them reached out. Blood dripped down my arm from a half-healed wound, my vision was red.

I didn’t cry. Not yet. I wouldn’t give them that. I walked straight into the healer’s quarters and slammed the door.

I slammed the door of the healer’s hut behind me and leaned hard against it, heart hammering, chest still raw from the mate bond’s rupture. The silence inside wasn’t comforting. It was empty. Sterile like a grave.

I pressed my palm against my chest. The place where the bond had lived—it was… scorched. Not gone, not yet. Just torn and flailing like a cut nerve.

He had claimed her in public. Without hesitation. My mate. I shoved trembling fingers through my blood-matted hair. “You felt it,” I muttered to the empty room. “You knew it was me—”

But he hadn’t or hadn’t cared.

I dropped my satchel on the table and yanked off my jacket. Blood from five warriors was still crusted on the sleeves. My hands smelled like poultices and death. I couldn’t stand it.

A noise scraped at my ears, movements. I turned sharply—just in time to see Cassia slip through the back door. She smiled. Barefoot now, like she’d just danced with the Goddess herself.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” I snarled.

She tilted her head. “I wanted to make sure you were alright. You ran off looking… fragile.”

“Fragile?” I stalked toward her, fists clenched. “You stole him.”

She blinked innocently. “Ayla. You of all people should know. The Moon chooses the mates. We don’t get to interfere.”

“That’s not what happened,” I yelled. “You masked your scent. You covered it—”

“With what?” Her eyes gleamed. “Moonflower oil? You really think a perfume made your mate bond break?”

“You’re lying.”

“And you’re pathetic.”

The air shifted. My wolf stirred for the first time in days, low and angry.

Cassia moved closer. “It’s over. He’s mine now. The bond’s already sealed. Unless…”

She dragged a fingertip down my arm, slow and mocking. “You want to challenge me out there. In front of everyone.”

My stomach turned.

She knew I wouldn’t. I was an Omega. Healers weren’t allowed to fight duels. Not unless they wanted to be stripped of their rank—and hunted.

Cassia leaned in, breath warm near my ear. “You don’t have the rank, the bloodline, or the balls to fight for him. So… maybe keep your eyes on the wounded, little mouse.”

I slapped her, hard. Her head snapped sideways, mouth falling open. Color rose in her cheeks.

“Touch me again,” I said, voice low, “and I swear on the Goddess, I’ll show you what a healer can do with a bone saw.”

She didn’t smile this time, but she didn’t hit back.

Instead, she straightened her dress, wiped the blood from her lip with two fingers, and calmly walked out the door.

The scent she left behind was wrong.

It wasn’t hers.

It wasn’t mine either.

It was something… twisted. Fabricated.

I grabbed the small mirror from the supply shelf and held it up. My face was pale, eyes dull, lips cracked. But my scent—I sniffed my arm. Moonroot, blood, poultices. Nothing that screamed at me.

I smelled like a graveyard. I dropped the mirror, glass shattering around my boots. This wasn’t over.

She might’ve fooled the Alpha.

She might’ve tricked the pack.

But scent doesn’t lie.

And neither did the pain in my chest where the bond still trembled, not broken—but severed too early. Which meant one thing, the bond hadn’t chosen her.