Chapter 1: The Night My Mate Rejected Me

The Moon Goddess has a cruel sense of humor.

She mated me — a broke, human waitress who couldn't afford rent — to Alexander Thorne, the Billionaire Lycan King of Manhattan.

And tonight, he was going to reject me in front of everyone.

I stood outside his office on the 87th floor of Thorne Tower, my hands shaking around a cheap bakery box. Inside it was a single cupcake with one candle. My mating gift for him.

Through the glass wall, I could see him.

Alexander Thorne didn't look like a man who owned half of New York. He looked like a weapon. Black suit, black shirt, no tie. Hair as dark as midnight. A scar cut through his left eyebrow — from the last Alpha War, they whispered. His eyes, when they weren't cold, glowed amber. Like a wolf's.

My wolf had been whimpering inside me for three days, ever since I smelled him in the elevator.

Mate.

The word had been scratching my throat since I was eighteen. I had never shifted. My mother told me I was too weak, too human. But when Alexander stepped into that elevator, my heart stopped.

He looked at me once. Just once. And his jaw locked.

He knew.

I knew he knew.

That was three days ago. Three days of me working double shifts at the diner, telling myself I was brave enough to tell him.

Tonight was the Annual Pack Gala. All the Northern Packs were here. I wasn't invited. I told security I had a delivery.

"Miss Cole."

His beta, Liam Thorne, his own brother, stepped out of the office. Liam was beautiful in a golden-boy way, but his eyes were sad when they landed on me.

"He doesn't want to see you."

"Please," I whispered. My voice cracked. "I just need two minutes. It's important. It's about —"

"The mate bond," Liam said quietly. "I know."

My breath caught.

"You smell like him," he said. "Like snow and midnight. But Elena —"

Elena. The supermodel heiress from the Stone Pack. The woman the tabloids said Alexander would marry next month to unite the packs.

"He is with Elena inside," Liam said. "Don't do this to yourself."

But I had already pushed past him.

The office doors opened.

And the world stopped.

Alexander stood by the window, overlooking Manhattan, which glittered beneath the snowstorm like diamonds. Elena was draped over his desk in a red gown, laughing, her hand on his chest.

And his eyes — his terrifying, beautiful amber eyes — snapped to me.

The mate bond hit me like a truck. Pain and heat and longing all at once. My knees buckled.

"Who let you in?" His voice was ice. Not human ice. Lycan King ice.

Elena turned, her lip curling. "Oh. It's the waitress from the diner. The one who stares."

I held out the box. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"I— I brought — My name is Seraphina Cole. I— I think we are —"

"I know what you are," Alexander said. He stepped closer. Each step was a death sentence. He smelled like pine and power and my entire future.

He stopped a foot from me. Close enough that I could see the gold ring in his irises.

"You are the human girl who has been following me," he said, loud enough that the two Elders by the fireplace could hear. "The one who thinks fairy tales are real."

"No," I breathed. "We are fated. The Goddess —"

"The Goddess makes mistakes," he said. His voice never rose. That was worse. "You are weak. Human. You can't even shift. You will never be my Luna. You will never survive a night in my world."

Every word was a knife.

Behind him, Elena giggled.

I felt my wolf — my tiny, weak, never-shifted wolf — howl once inside me and go silent.

"I, Alexander Thorne, Alpha King of the Northern Packs, reject you, Seraphina Cole, as my mate and Luna."

The bond snapped.

I didn't know a bond could make a sound. It sounded like a bone breaking.

Pain exploded behind my ribs. White-hot, blinding. I fell to my knees. The bakery box fell with me. The cupcake smashed onto his marble floor.

Blood dripped from my nose onto the white frosting.

Elena gasped. "Oh my god, she's bleeding."

Alexander didn't move. His fists were clenched at his sides. His eyes were no longer amber. They were black.

"Get her out," he said to Liam.

Liam lifted me. I couldn't stand.

As he dragged me past the desk, I saw it. On Elena's finger. A diamond the size of a moon. An engagement ring.

Five years of waitressing. Five years of dreaming that someone would look at me and see worth.

And the Moon Goddess gave me a King who called me weak.

Outside in the hallway, as the snow beat against the tower windows, I pressed my hand to my flat stomach.

I hadn't even gotten to tell him.

I was already three weeks pregnant with his baby.