CHAPTER 2 – The Omega the Moon Chose[Part 2]

Don’t dawdle,” the steward snapped, shoving a rough cloak into my hands. “Stand with the servants. Head down. The princesses don’t need to trip over you on their way to destiny.”

I clutched the cloak and followed the cluster of lower‑rank wolves along a side path. My dress was freshly mended but still patched. The cloak helped against the night chill.

The sacred stone circle lay in a clearing, ringed by ancient oaks. Pale stones rose from the earth in a rough circle, runes glowing faintly. In the center, a flat altar stone waited.

Alphas and betas stood closest, forming a gleaming wall of silk and mail. Beyond them, there are fewer ranks. At the very back, in the dark between trees: servants and omegas, allowed to watch but not be seen.

A hand dug painfully into my arm.

“Back here,” my mother hissed, dragging me further into shadow.

“Mother—”

“You think I want the Moon’s eye to fall on *you* and embarrass us all? Stay out of sight.”

The words hurt more than her grip.

“Yes, Mother,” I murmured.

My father didn’t even glance back. He stood proudly near the front beside Selene and my younger brother, Beta, sash bright blue across his chest, hand proudly on Selene’s shoulder.

Selene glowed in gold silk, hair braided into a crown, tiny silver moons glittering when she moved. She was every inch a Luna in waiting.

“Look at her,” someone whispered. “The Moon won’t even have to think. Selene Hale is the obvious choice.”

“Beautiful, strong, Beta‑blood,” another agreed. “Not like…” A vague flick of fingers toward the shadows where I stood. “Well. The Goddess knows what She’s doing.”

A hush fell as High Priestess Nyra stepped into the circle.

Tall, spare, hair white as frost, her robes shimmered silver and midnight blue, stars embroidered into the fabric. She lifted her hands to the sky.

“Moon above, Mother of Wolves,” she called, voice clear and pure, “on this sacred night, we call upon You. Let Your light fall upon Your chosen son. Reveal to him the mate You have marked.”

The pack answered in low, rhythmic words. Power stirred in the air, prickling over my skin.

“Prince Lucian Nightbane,” Nyra said. “Step forward.”

He did, shirtless now, only a simple chain and moonstone around his neck, loose black trousers at his hips. The runes on the altar stone brightened beneath his bare feet.

The full moon pushed through thinning clouds.

Silver light poured over the clearing, over Lucian’s bare chest, over the circle, over all of us.

My wolf stirred.

Warmth uncurled in my chest, rolling outward. My skin prickled, breath hitching. Heat coiled low in my belly, wrong in the cold night.

Not now. Not here.

Nyra’s voice wove through the stillness.

“See him, Moon above. Lead him to the heart that calls to his. Let him scent the one You have claimed.”

Lucian inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring.

The entire pack seemed to hold its breath with him.

He turned slowly on the stone, eyes closed, head tilted. He sampled the air: one direction, then another.

Selene straightened, chin high, lips parted, fingers curled in anticipation.

I pressed my spine to a tree, telling myself the wild pounding in my ribs was just the magic.

Lucian drew another breath.

Something changed.

His spine went rigid. Muscles along his shoulders bunched. The air sharpened.

Above him, moonlight thickened, pooling, then spilling down in a focused beam.

Then I saw it.

A thread.

Thin as spider silk, bright as molten silver, unspooling from the light over his head. It drifted, searching.

Most wolves couldn’t see magic. They felt it in their bones, but to their eyes, the air stayed empty. I’d always seen flickers—shimmers around wards, glowing around priestesses.

This was more than a flicker.

The thread hung for an instant—then snapped across the circle.

Past Selene.

Past noble daughters in jeweled gowns.

Through alphas, through betas.

Toward the dark at the back.

Toward me.

“No,” I whispered, but no sound came out.

The silver thread hit my chest like a spear.

Heat exploded through me, sharp and wild. My knees nearly buckled. My heart slammed so hard that I thought my ribs would crack.

My wolf roared awake—not a timid whimper, but a full‑bodied, hungry sound that shook me from the inside.

Mate.

The word wasn’t spoken. It burned through my mind like lightning.

Heat rushed to my face, not just from the bond but from sheer mortification. Of all the times for my pathetic, half‑silent wolf to suddenly remember she existed, she chose the moment every important eye in the pack was on *him*—never on me.

I dragged in a breath, and his scent—cedar smoke, winter air, bright electric under it—slammed into me, dizzying.

My thighs clenched. My fingers dug into the bark at my back.

On the stone, Lucian’s eyes flew open.

Moonlight turned them almost white, a ring of silver fire around the pupils.

His head snapped toward me.

Not toward Selene.

Toward me. At the very back. Cloak too big, hands burned and blistered, mud still under my nails.

His pupils blew wide.

Heat rushed down the thread between us, coiling low in my belly. Every inch of me leaned toward him, answering a call I hadn’t known existed until now.

*Mate,* my wolf whispered, awestruck. *Ours.*

Somewhere, distantly, I felt a second echo—his.

*Mate.*

Our eyes locked.

The sacred bond, the thing of songs and whispered dreams, snapped into place—

Between a golden prince on a stone altar and the omega, the pack barely remembered by name.

The world didn’t explode.

It cracked.

A sharp inhale went around the circle, a collective gasp.

“Did you see—?”

“He looked to the back—”

“No. That can’t be—”

“The prince’s mate is an omega?”

“Impossible.”

“The Goddess must be joking.”

“She’s—Aria? The Hale Stray?”

Selene’s smile froze.

Her head whipped around, following Lucian’s gaze.

To me.

Her eyes widened, horror and something jagged and green flashing across her face. Her hand clenched in her skirt, fabric crunching under her fingers.

My mother went stiff, hand flying to her throat. My father’s jaw tightened, eyes darting between Lucian and me like he’d swallowed poison.

“Bow,” he hissed under his breath, though I didn’t know if he meant me or the Moon.

King Rowan rose from his black stone throne at the edge of the circle, expression darkening, knuckles whitening on the arms of his seat.

The Moon had chosen.

No one liked what she'd picked.

Lucian stepped down from the altar.

The silver thread between us thrummed harder with every stride, pulling at something deep in my chest. My legs shook. I wanted to run and never move at the same time.

He walked straight through the ranks of nobility, ignoring hands that twitched toward him, ignoring murmured greetings.

He was coming for me.

Wolves parted instinctively, opening a path from the stone to the shadow where I stood.

He stopped a breath away.

Up close, under the Moon, he didn’t look real. The silver light carved every line of his face into something too sharp, too perfect.

His scent was overwhelming: smoke, frost, sweetness. My wolf went liquid.

He leaned in.

Warm breath ghosted over my cheek. He inhaled slowly at my throat, along my jaw, in my hair.

Heat slammed through me, low and hard. My thighs clenched. A small, humiliating sound caught in my throat.

His eyes softened for a heartbeat.

There was real, raw want there. Recognition. A flash of shock that matched mine, and under it, something hungry that made my breath catch. For a fraction of a heartbeat, he looked almost young—not prince, not heir, just a male who’d finally found what every wolf longed for. His throat worked as if he were swallowing words he didn’t dare say.

For that single, stolen second, I believed.

“Lucian…” I whispered.

Behind him, Selene made a broken sound. Tiny, strangled—but in the silence, it might as well have been a scream.

His head turned, just enough to see her.

She stood rigid among the golden daughters, hands clenched, eyes bright with tears.

Around her, nobles hissed:

“An omega?”

“He can’t.”

“The pack will be a joke—”

“Lucian,” King Rowan said, voice low and sharp.

The softness in Lucian’s eyes shattered.

I watched the change.

Want burned away. Shock is cauterized by pride and fear. His jaw locked. The silver in his gaze turned to ice.

He stepped back.

The thread between us went razor‑thin, vibrating with pain.

He looked down at me—not as a miracle. Not as a gift.

As a mistake.

His lip curled.

“The Moon Goddess,” he said, voice carrying clear through the clearing, “must be mistaken.”

No.

Not mistaken.

Just cruel.

The ground seemed to drop under my feet.

Nyra stiffened. “Your Highness, the bond—”

“I will not accept this…” His gaze flicked over me—plain dress, burned hands, stained hem. “…omega as my consort.”

The words hit harder than any boot.

Gasps erupted. Someone laughed. Someone else cursed. My mother’s hand flew to her mouth; my father closed his eyes.

The silver thread between us snapped down to a wire.

Pain lanced down my spine, hot and bright, like a knife shoved into the base of my neck where my mate Mark should have been.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t think.

The Moon shone cold and unblinking, bearing silent witness as the golden prince stood under Her light and rejected what She’d given him.

“I reject this bond,” Lucian said coldly.

“I would rather take no mate at all than be tied to an omega.”

So that was all I was to him. All I’d ever be to any of them.

*An omega to be stepped over, rejected, sold.

Not if I ever found a way to stand up again.*

The world went silent.

Pain exploded through me; my wolf screamed once—then vanished.

Something sacred inside me shattered.

And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure I would survive the night.