Chapter One — The Girl in the Basement

THE REJECTED MATE IS THE MOON GODDESS'S DAUGHTER

Chapter One — The Girl in the Basement

Sophia POV

I woke up, my back hurts.

Not because I slept enough. Not because morning has come. Because the stone beneath me has become too cold to ignore.

For several seconds, I don't move. I stare at the ceiling. There's a crack running across it. I've counted it so many times I know exactly where it begins.

Above my head, someone walks across the floor. Then another person. Then another. The house is waking.

I should get up. I don't. Not yet.

For another ten seconds, I let myself stay where I am. The only warm thing I have is the breath leaving my own mouth. My blanket is a piece of torn fabric,used to be part of something better. A curtain, maybe. An old bedsheet. It doesn't matter anymore.

I pull it away from my face and sit up. My body aches. My feet are numb. I look at the empty corner where a bed should be.

There's never been one.

I fold the torn fabric carefully. It's the only thing in this basement that belongs to me. Then I stand.

The basin is waiting in the corner. The water is cold. I wash quickly, using the reflection in the dark window since there's no mirror. My face looks tired. My hair is tangled. There's a bruise near my elbow from yesterday. I don't remember how I got it. I probably bumped into something.

That's what I tell myself now. It's easier than remembering.

I pull on my faded dress. The sleeve is torn — again. I smooth it down. No one needs to know.

I pick up the empty bucket and climb the stairs. One. Two. Three. I stop before the final step. Voices are coming from the kitchen. I wait. It's a habit, I always wait before entering a room. Safer to know who's inside first.

I hear laughter. Then someone says my name.

I lower my eyes automatically. Nobody is even looking at me yet. Still, my body already knows what to do.

Stay small. Stay quiet. Don't make anyone angry.

I step into the kitchen. The laughter stops for half a second. Then continues.

I pretend I didn't notice.

Later, I pass several young wolves in the corridor. One of them shifts her eyes toward me, then wrinkles her nose.

"She smells strange."

Another girl laughs. "She doesn't have a wolf. What do you expect?"

I keep walking. I've heard worse.

Everyone knows. Wolf-less. The word follows me everywhere, has since before I understood what it meant to be anything else.

I remember being younger and asking the Moon Priest when my wolf would come. He looked at me a long time before he answered.

"Some wolves are simply late."

I waited after that. At ten. At twelve. At fifteen. At eighteen.

Now I'm nineteen.

I've stopped waiting. That realization hurts more than I expect it to, even now.

Mara finds me carrying the wrong bucket. She doesn't shout. She just looks at me.

"The laundry."

I look down. "I'm sorry."

She takes the bucket from my hands. "You apologize too much."

I don't know what to say to that. I've never known what to say to that.

She sighs, and gives it back. "Go."

I start walking. Behind me, she says, "And Sophia?"

I turn. Her face is unreadable, the way it usually is.

"Eat something today."

I blink. It's such a small thing. But nobody has said it to me in a long time,not like that, not like it mattered whether I did or didn't.

Mara walks away before I can answer. I whisper, "Thank you," but she doesn't hear. Or pretends not to.

By afternoon, the house feels different. There are more hands in the kitchen than usual, more voices, a kind of restlessness moving through the halls that has nothing to do with chores.

I catch pieces of it as I work.

"Tomorrow night."

"Finally."

"Can you believe it's almost here?"

At lunch, I sit at the far end of the servants' table, the way I always do. I watch them talk. Mates. Wolves. Families. A girl across the table says, "I know mine is going to be an Alpha," and everyone laughs. I smile with them.

Then someone announces it properly, the way you'd announce anything that mattered to everyone but you,loud, offhand, certain.

"The ceremony's tomorrow night. Every unmated wolf in Moonridge."

Tomorrow.

I look down at my hands and wonder what it would feel like. Not to have an Alpha. Not to have power. Just...someone. Someone who would notice if I wasn't there.

My throat tightens. I push the thought away before it can go any further.

Hoping is dangerous. Hope only makes the disappointment hurt twice as much, and I have never once been wrong about that.

That night, I carry a small piece of leftover bread back down to the basement.

I sit on the floor. I break it in half. I eat one piece.

Then I put the other beside me.

I don't know why. Maybe tomorrow will be worse. Maybe I'll be hungry again by morning. Maybe someone will take it before I wake. But tonight, for once, I've made a decision based on what I need instead of what everyone else wants from me.

I lie down on the torn fabric. Above me, the pack moves through its evening. Someone laughs, a door slams, someone calls out for their mate, easy as breathing.

I close my eyes.

Don't hope, I tell myself. Twice. Then a third time.

It doesn't work.

Because tomorrow night, every wolf in Moonridge will gather beneath the moon to learn who they've been given. And I have spent nineteen years believing I'll be the only one standing there with nothing.

I turn onto my side and stare into the dark.

Then I hear it.

Footsteps, directly above the basement door. Not passing by. Stopping.

I go still.

The footsteps don't move again. Someone is standing there.

Listening.

Then, slowly, the handle begins to turn.

End of Chapter One.