CHAPTER 3 – Rejected and sold

“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.

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

I didn’t feel myself fall.

One moment, I was standing. The next, the ground hit me. My palms smashed into cold earth; pain flared through the raw wolfsbane burns. My knees cracked the frozen ground. My back felt like someone had driven a burning knife down my spine.

Inside my skull: nothing.

The small, familiar presence that had always been there—timid but constant—was gone. No fur‑brush against my thoughts. No quiet nudge.

“She’s losing her wolf,” someone whispered.

“Maybe the Moon’s punishing her,” another hissed. “For daring to think she could be his Luna.”

Hands clamped on my arms.

“Get up,” my mother snapped, yanking me to my feet.

“Mama—” My voice broke. “She’s gone. I don’t feel—”

“You should be grateful,” she spat. “Do you want to doom this pack? An omega as Luna of the realm? You’d drag us into the dirt.”

“I never wanted—”

“Exactly,” my father cut in, appearing on my other side. His grip was like iron. “You don’t think. You just exist.”

He jerked his chin toward the altar, where Nyra’s voice had turned dry and mechanical as she forced the ceremony to continue, Selene now standing beside Lucian like a golden ghost.

“Your sister will fix what you almost ruined,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”

He didn’t let me answer.

Between them, they dragged me from the circle.

Nyra’s strained blessings for Selene echoed hollowly under the Moon as the trees swallowed us, the crowd already trying to pretend they hadn’t seen the Goddess choose wrong.

They didn’t take me home.

They shoved me through a back door into the servants’ wing and into a narrow storeroom lined with linens and buckets.

“Stay here,” my father growled. “Say nothing. To anyone. The Moon chose poorly. The prince corrected it. That is the end of this.”

My mother’s eyes swept over me—mud, tears, burns—with a look that said I was a stain she regretted ever scrubbing.

Then the door slammed.

The bolt slid home.

I slumped down with my back against the wood, drawing my knees up, hands pressed to my chest.

“I’m still here,” I whispered into the dark. “You can’t just leave. Please…”

Silence.

No answering warmth. No weight of another mind. Just the faint sounds of feet and voices far away, celebrating a Luna who wasn’t me.

Eventually, the tears stopped because my body had nothing left.

I don’t know how long I sat there before boots pounded down the corridor.

The bolt scraped back.

The door opened a hand’s width. Light sliced across the floor.

I flinched away from it automatically.

Outside, the guard’s voice was bored. “The king wants the Beta and his family in the throne hall. Now.”

My father’s answer: “We’re coming.”

The guard pulled the door for them, then didn’t bother to shut it fully again—the latch clicked, but the wood stopped a sliver short of closing.

A thin line of light remained.

I should have curled back into myself.

Instead, I moved.

I crawled to the gap and pressed my eye to it, heart hammering.

Through that crack, I could see part of the main hall and, beyond the arch, the throne room.

King Rowan sat on his carved black throne, fingers tapping the armrest. Lucian stood below, shoulders rigid. Selene hovered at his side, pale, eyes lowered.

High Priestess Nyra stood near a pillar, robes shadowed, face hard.

Further back, half swallowed by dimness, leaned Kael—arms folded, shoulder to a column, like a wolf resting between kills.

“Explain,” Rowan said to Lucian, voice like a drawn blade. “The Moon names you an omega, and you defy Her in front of the entire pack.”

Lucian’s jaw clenched. “You expect me to bind myself—and this kingdom—to an omega? The packs would revolt. Our allies would laugh. She nearly dropped where she stood. How can an omega carry this realm?”

Nyra’s voice cut through, sharp. “She collapsed because you ripped the bond out of her while it was still forming.”

Rowan waved a hand. “The bond exists. We can not pretend it doesn’t. We can, however, redirect it.”

Lucian turned to him, strain cracking his princely calm. “Annul it. There must be some rite—”

“I am king,” Rowan said. “Not the Moon.” His gaze shifted to Nyra. “Can it be erased?”

Her lips pressed thin. “No. Only **severed**. If the omega is bound to another mate, in another bloodline, the original thread can be forced aside. But it will not vanish entirely. It will run quieter. Twisted.”

“Another bloodline,” Rowan repeated softly.

His eyes found Kael.

“You refuse an omega for yourself,” he said to Lucian, “but there is no law saying she can not be claimed by someone else.”

Selene’s lashes fluttered; she stared at the floor.

Lucian’s mouth curled. “So that’s it? Hand her off like a spare cloak?”

Rowan didn’t look at him.

“An unclaimed Moon‑touched omega is a liability,” the king said. “Every rival pack, every rogue king, every ambitious fool would try to lure her away. I will not leave that weapon lying around unguarded.”

Nyra’s nostrils flared. “You call her a weapon. She is a wolf.”

“Wolves are tools or threats,” Rowan replied. “I decide which.”

He tapped one blunt finger on the armrest. “We don’t waste the Moon’s gifts. Even the unwanted ones.”

He nodded toward Kael.

“You need a mate,” Rowan said. “No Luna. No heir. The packs mutter you’ll die in battle and leave chaos behind. Take the omega. Bind her. Her power stays in our bloodline. The Goddess is mollified. The court calms. My heir keeps the Luna he’s already chosen.”

Selene’s fingers twisted in her skirt. Guilt flashed in her eyes and died.

Lucian gave a short, ugly laugh. “Yes. Let the Bastard Alpha clean up the mess the Moon made. Uncle, you need a Luna. Take the omega. She’ll warm your bed for a while.”

Heat rose to my cheeks even in the dark.

Kael uncrossed his arms.

He straightened, slow and loose, and for the first time in that hall, all eyes shifted to him.

His gaze moved from Rowan to Lucian to Selene…then, unerringly, to the nearly closed door where I watched.

For a second, his eyes found mine through the crack.

The wolf behind them looked very awake.

My breath stopped.

He turned back to Rowan.

“If the Moon throws me scraps,” he said, voice low and rough, “I won’t refuse. And I don’t let them go.”

A ripple of unease moved through the room.

“Good,” Rowan said. “It’s settled. We’ll draw up the contract. The girl will be transferred to Blackthorn at dawn. Appropriate compensation for this…inconvenience will be arranged.”

Transferred.

Compensation.

Like cargo in a ledger.

Nyra’s jaw tightened. She said nothing.

The gathering dispersed on a wave of rustling cloaks and clinking armor.

Not long after, the two guards were back at my door.

“On your feet,” one barked, hauling it fully open. “His Majesty wants words with you.”

My legs were stiff, but I forced them under me.

They dragged me into the throne hall and shoved me to my knees at the base of the dais.

King Rowan looked down as if I were a stain he’d missed earlier.

“There she is,” he said. “The Moon’s mistake.”

I stared at the floor, biting down on the fear buzzing under my skin.

“You’ve caused more disruption in one night than most omegas manage in a lifetime,” Rowan went on. “Consider it fortunate that I’ve found a way to make you useful.”

I swallowed. “Your Majesty, I—”

“I did not invite you to debate,” he snapped.

Behind him, Selene stood on the lower steps, hands folded, face arranged into polite composure. Her eyes, though, flickered with something like shame when they brushed over me.

Lucian lounged to one side, arms folded, expression carved from ice.

Farther back, Kael leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, gaze on me—steady and unreadable.

“Aria Hale,” Rowan said, using my name like a curse. “From this night forward, you no longer belong to your Beta house. At dawn, you will be married and transferred to Blackthorn. The contract is already being drafted. Consider it an honor.”

My stomach lurched. “Married…?”

“To Alpha Kael Draven,” Rowan said.

Cold spread through my limbs.

Kael. The Butcher of Blackthorn. The monster in every training yard story.

Lucian’s lip curled. “You should thank him. At least he’ll take you. There are worse fates for a rejected omega.”

I wanted to beg.

The word **please** rose hot and sour in my throat, the same way it had earlier under the Moon.

But this time, I swallowed it back.

I wouldn’t beg him. Not again. Not after he’d looked at me like a miracle, then thrown me away like garbage.

“Your Majesty,” I managed instead, voice rough, “I— I’ll leave the pack. I’ll go to the human cities. You never have to see me again. Just…don’t—”

Rowan’s eyes hardened. “You think I’ll let a Moon‑touched omega wander out into the world unsupervised? To be picked up by whoever gets there first? No. You will do as you’re told. Or you will be put down as a threat to the crown. Those are your options.”

My mouth snapped shut.

The guards tightened their grip on my arms.

“Wash her,” Rowan ordered. “Dress her in something passable. I won’t have Blackthorn think we send them filth.”

Lucian stepped closer as the guards hauled me up.

He bent, voice low for my ears alone.

“Take the offer,” he murmured. “He likes to break his toys. You’ll be smearing on his bed in a week instead of a stain on my future. You should be grateful.”

Anger flickered faintly under the grief. Small, fragile—but there.

The guards started to drag me away.

As the throne room doors swung shut behind us, my gaze snagged on Kael one last time.

He had pushed off the pillar. His arms were uncrossed now, hands loose at his sides. Those grey eyes stayed on me as I was yanked from the hall, weighing, measuring, like a predator watching prey it had already decided to claim.

Later, after too‑cold water and rough hands and a shift that wasn’t quite mine, the guards marched me down a quiet corridor toward a locked chamber.

They didn’t get there.

A shadow detached itself from a side passage and stepped into our path.

“Alpha,” one of the guards stammered.

Kael.

Even without armor, he filled the space. The torchlight made sharp planes of his face, caught faintly on the scars.

“Leave,” he said.

The word carried weight. The guards didn’t argue.

“Yes, Alpha,” they muttered, releasing me and retreating.

Silence fell.

My heartbeat thundered.

I stood in the thin shift, damp hair clinging to my neck, hands twisted in the fabric. I felt smaller than ever under his gaze.

He walked toward me without hurry, each step steady.

Up close, his scent wrapped around me: smoke, pine, iron, and something deeply, dangerously male.

He stopped a step away, looking down at me like I was a puzzle he’d already solved, but was still deciding how to break.

His gaze dropped to my throat.

His hand came up slowly.

I could have flinched. I didn’t.

His knuckles brushed the side of my neck, over the spot where a mate mark had tried to form and had been ripped away. The skin there is still ached, hot, and tender.

His thumb pressed just enough to feel the faint residual warmth—like the ghost of the Moon’s touch still lived under my skin.

“Hurts?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered.

He made a low sound. Not quite sympathy. It's not quite dismissal.

“They think they threw you to a monster, little omega,” he said.

My throat worked. “Didn’t they?”

One corner of his mouth curled, cruel and amused at once.

“Maybe,” he said. “But monsters don’t bow to princes.”

His eyes darkened; for a brief second, wolf‑gold flared inside the grey as his beast pushed closer, reacting to my scent, to the tang of pain and Moon‑magic and something that still whispered *mate* beneath the rejection.

His thumb stroked once over my throat in a slow, claiming drag.

“And once I mark you,” he went on, voice dropping, every word a promise, “no one will ever touch you again without bleeding for it.”

A shiver ripped straight down my spine.

Fear.

And something else, darker, that I didn’t dare name.

He let his hand fall and stepped back, as if he hadn’t just redrawn the lines of my future.

“Sleep, Aria,” he said, my name sounding different in his mouth than it ever had in anyone else’s. “Tomorrow, you become mine.”

Then he turned and walked away, boots echoing on the stone.

I stood alone in the corridor, heart pounding, the place under my skin where his thumb had touched burning like a brand.

Rejected by my fated mate.

Sold to a man they all called a monster.

And for the first time since the Moon chose me, I wasn’t entirely sure whether what had trembled inside me was only terror—

Or the first spark of something dangerously close to hope.

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