The Birthday That Changed Everything

The full moon hung heavy in the sky, casting silver light across the clearing where my entire pack had gathered. Every single member of Crescent Moon Pack stood in a circle around me, their eyes gleaming with anticipation. Or maybe it was pity. I couldn’t tell anymore.

“Aria Silvermoon, step forward.” Alpha Marcus Steele’s voice boomed across the clearing, and I obeyed, my legs shaking beneath my simple white dress.

Tonight was supposed to be magical. Tonight, on my eighteenth birthday, my wolf was supposed to emerge. Tonight, I was supposed to discover that Damien, the future Alpha and the boy I’d loved for two years, was my fated mate.

At least, that’s what I’d been telling myself for months.

“The Moon Goddess blesses us on this night,” Alpha Steele continued, his weathered face stern as always. Beside him stood his son, Damien, tall and golden-haired, looking every inch the Alpha he was born to be. “We gather to witness Aria’s first shift and to discover if the Goddess has granted her a mate among our pack.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. Damien’s blue eyes met mine across the circle, but there was something cold in them. Something that made my stomach twist with unease.

“It’s almost midnight,” someone whispered behind me. I recognized the voice, Vanessa Hardt, the Beta’s daughter, and the most popular girl in the pack. She’d hated me since Damien, and I started dating. “I bet she doesn’t even have a wolf.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd, quickly silenced by a sharp look from the Alpha. But the damage was done. My hands clenched into fists at my sides.

I had to have a wolf. Everyone had a wolf. It was what made us werewolves instead of humans. Without a wolf, I was nothing. Less than nothing.

“Midnight approaches,” Alpha Steele announced. “Aria, open yourself to your wolf. Let her emerge.”

I closed my eyes, reaching deep inside myself the way I’d been taught. Searching for that other presence, that wild, primal force that lived inside every werewolf.

Please, I begged silently. Please be there.

The crowd began counting down. “Ten… nine… eight…”

I pushed deeper, desperately clawing through the darkness inside me.

“Seven… six… five…”

Nothing. There was nothing but emptiness and the growing whispers of doubt around me.

“Four… three… two…”

No, no, no. This can’t be happening.

“ONE!”

The clock struck midnight. The full moon reached its zenith. And I felt… nothing.

I opened my eyes to a sea of shocked faces. My chest heaved as panic set in. Where was my wolf? Where was the transformation? The power? The connection to my wild self that every werewolf experienced?

“She’s wolfless,” someone breathed.

The word spread like wildfire through the crowd. Wolfless. Wolfless. Wolfless.

“Impossible,” Alpha Steele said, but even he looked uncertain. “Perhaps the bond just needs more time”

“There’s no wolf in her.” The voice that spoke was calm, cold, and devastatingly familiar. Damien stepped forward, his handsome face twisted with something that looked like disgust. “I can sense it. She’s empty.”

“Damien?” My voice cracked on his name. “What do you mean?”

He wouldn’t look at me. “Father, test for the mate bond. If she’s my fated mate as we suspected, the bond will appear regardless of her… condition.”

Alpha Steele nodded slowly and raised his hand. Ancient words in the old tongue fell from his lips, and suddenly a golden thread of light materialized between Damien and me. The mate bond, visible and undeniable, pulsing with destiny.

Gasps echoed through the clearing. We were fated mates after all. Relief crashed over me like a wave. It didn’t matter that I was wolfless; we were meant to be together. The Goddess herself had decreed it.

But when I looked at Damien’s face, I didn’t see joy or relief. I saw horror.

“No.” He stepped back as if the golden thread burned him. “No, this can’t be right.”

“Damien?” I reached for him, but he jerked away from my touch. The rejection in that single movement felt like a knife to my heart. “What’s wrong? We’re mates. Isn’t this what we wanted?”

“What I wanted?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I wanted a mate worthy of being Luna. I wanted someone strong, someone with power.” His eyes raked over me with open contempt. “I didn’t wait nineteen years only to be stuck with a wolfless omega.”

The crowd was dead silent now. I could feel hundreds of eyes on me, watching my humiliation, and I wanted to disappear. To sink into the earth and never resurface.

“But the bond,” I started, my voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t care about the bond!” His shout made me flinch. Every single person in the clearing heard him. Every single person would remember this moment. “Fate made a mistake. The Goddess made a mistake. I refuse to accept this.”

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Not here. Not in front of everyone.

Damien turned to where Vanessa stood at the edge of the circle, her green eyes gleaming with triumph. She stepped forward, her movements graceful and confident, everything I wasn’t.

“This is who I choose,” Damien announced, pulling Vanessa against his side. She fit there perfectly, both of them beautiful, powerful, and whole. “Vanessa has a wolf. She’s the daughter of our Beta. She actually deserves to be Luna.”

“You can’t choose someone else when you have a fated mate,” I said desperately, looking to Alpha Steele for help. “The laws”

“The laws don’t account for defective mates,” Damien cut me off. His father said nothing, offered no support. I was on my own. “I, Damien Steele, future Alpha of Crescent Moon Pack…”

No. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

“…REJECT you, Aria Silvermoon, as my mate and Luna.”

The pain hit me like lightning striking flesh. I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat as the mate bond shattered. It felt like my chest was being ripped open, like every nerve in my body was on fire. I collapsed to my knees, unable to breathe, unable to think through the agony.

Through the haze of pain, I saw Damien pull Vanessa close. Saw him lean down. Saw him kiss her while I writhed on the ground in the worst pain I’d ever experienced.

The pack watched in silence. No one moved to help me. No one protested. They just… watched.

When I could finally breathe again, gasping and shaking on the cold ground, I looked up at Damien. At the boy I’d loved. At the mate who’d just destroyed me.

“How could you?” I whispered.

He looked down at me with something that might have been pity if it wasn’t so mixed with revulsion. “You’re weak, Aria. You always have been. I need a Luna who can stand beside me, not a wolfless girl playing pretend.”

“I’ll show you weak,” I managed to say through gritted teeth, even as tears finally spilled down my cheeks. “One day, you’ll regret this.”

Vanessa laughed, the sound high and mocking. “Sure, she will, Damien. The powerless little orphan is going to make the future Alpha regret his choice.” She ran her hand down his chest possessively. “Face it, Aria. You were never good enough for him. You were just convenient until something better came along.”

Alpha Steele finally spoke, his voice heavy with finality. “Aria Silvermoon, without a wolf, you are no longer of use to this pack. You have three days to gather your belongings and leave Crescent Moon territory. If you are found here after that time, you will be treated as a rogue and dealt with accordingly.”

Exile. He was exiling me. Taking away the only home I’d ever known, the only family I had left since my parents died when I was five.

I pushed myself to my feet, my legs trembling but holding. I looked at each of them: Alpha Steele, Damien, Vanessa, all the pack members who’d watched me grow up and were now watching me be cast out.

“I’ll leave,” I said, my voice stronger than I felt. “But mark my words. All of you will remember this night. You’ll remember what you did to me.”

I turned and walked away from the circle, away from the pack, away from the only life I’d ever known. Behind me, I heard Damien’s voice, cold and final.

“Someone escort her to the omega quarters. Make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.”

Two guards fell into step behind me, but I didn’t look back. I kept my head high even as everything inside me shattered into a million pieces.

The omega quarters were really just a glorified prison, a small stone building at the edge of pack territory where the lowest-ranking wolves lived. Except I wasn’t even omega now. I was nothing. Less than nothing.

The guards shoved me inside and locked the door. I heard their footsteps fade away, leaving me alone in the darkness.

Only then did I let myself break. I sank to the floor, wrapped my arms around my knees, and sobbed until I had nothing left inside me.

The necklace my mother had left me, the only thing I had from her, felt warm against my skin. I pulled it out from beneath my dress, looking at the strange silver crescent-moon pendant. It was the one thing I’d managed to keep through all the years in the pack’s care.

“Why?” I whispered to the empty room, to the necklace, to whatever gods might be listening. “Why am I like this?”

The pendant began to glow, faintly at first, pulsing with a soft silver light.

I stared at it in shock. In all the years I’d worn it, it had never done that before.

The glow faded as quickly as it had appeared, leaving me wondering if I’d imagined it. Maybe the pain of the rejection had driven me mad. Maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there.

A knock on the door made me jump.

“Aria?” It was a female voice, soft and hesitant. “It’s Mira from the kitchens. I brought you some food.”

I didn’t answer, but I heard the slot at the bottom of the door open. A tray slid through—bread, cheese, and water. Simple fare, but more than I’d expected.

“I’m sorry,” Mira whispered through the door. “What they did to you… It wasn’t right. None of us thinks so. But we can’t speak against the Alpha.”

“Then what good are you?” I asked bitterly.

Silence. Then, “I hope you find somewhere better than this. Somewhere you’re appreciated.”

Her footsteps faded away, leaving me alone again.

I looked at the food, at the locked door, at the tiny room that would be my prison for three days. Then I looked at the pendant again, still warm against my skin.

There has to be more to this, I thought. There has to be a reason this is happening.

But right now, in the darkness of my cell, listening to the sounds of the pack celebrating without me, I couldn’t imagine what that reason could be.

All I knew was that in three days, I would walk away from Crescent Moon Pack.

And I would never, ever let anyone make me feel this powerless again.