Chapter 1 (The Invite)

Aria's POV 

My name is Aria Blake and today I turn eighteen. The big eighteen, the age all the girls are thrilled to reach, but I just feel sad.

There is no celebration. Just a tired smile from my foster mom and a stale blueberry muffin with a tiny candle poked in the middle. I ate it in silence, as Tom my foster father quarrelled with one of the twins over shoes.

I never told my foster parents I never told them that birthdays do not feel like milestones when you wake up every birthday wishing the next one will be less painful.

It’s also another school year, luckily my last year in highschool.

Another year of everyone laughing at me, talking behind my back, stuffing me in lockers, and acting like I can not hear what they are saying.

Another year of sitting in the back, walking with my head down, calculating days until I can escape this place and maybe, learn how it feels to be a person without shame.

I have never attended the first day of school without my stomach aching before I had even left my house.

I stood before the mirror and my fingers were folded around the little silver necklace below my collarbone. Nothing much, just a dull crescent moon charm on a frayed chain, but it was mine.

I’ve had it ever since I can remember. My foster parents told me that I had it on the day they found me. And it has never been taken off my neck. Not once. It just remains there on me, like it is a piece of me that I never had the option of selecting.

I always stuff it under my shirt. I do not know why. Possibly because I fear that someone will steal it. Or perhaps, it could be the fact that it is the only thing that feels unblemished by the world that did not want me in the first place.

Growing up in Ravenstone means you know your place. The town is clearly divided into two fractions: humans and werewolves. And everyone knows which side matters.

There are the humans, like me and my best friend Tammy.

And then there are the werewolves who run the land. 

They own the businesses, the schools, the council. Some of them are quiet about it. Others walk like they were born to rule.

But even among wolves, there's a split.

There are the Legend Wolves, old bloodlines with power stretching back centuries. They’re faster, stronger, and deadlier than the rest. They act like gods among mortals. They have rules, laws, legacies.

Like...Kian Silverclaw

The Alpha’s son. The next in line.

And then there are the Outcasts, the broken packs. Forgotten names. The ones who lost their place when they lost their power. They live quietly, away from the center, surviving on the edge of everything.

Like Lucian.

His father used to be the Alpha powerful, respected. But after he was murdered by his own brother, everything changed. Lucian and his people were banished to the outer woods. No titles. No respect. Just shadows.

People barely speak of him. But I’ve seen him quiet, brooding, always watching. He doesn’t walk like the others. He doesn’t need to. He carries something different. Something heavier.

There’s also another thing about this town.

A rule.

During the full moon, everyone stays inside.

It’s not just a tradition it’s enforced like law. Shops close. Schools shut down. Even the wolves don’t roam freely. The streets go dead quiet from dawn to midnight. No one explains why not really. People say it’s for safety. Others whisper about ancient instincts being too hard to control under the full light.

I can only say that, that day of the month is heavier than all the others. Like the entire town is on tenterhooks.

Every semester, Tammy and I make the same promise to each other, that this year will be different. But every time, we’re wrong.

As I got closer to the school gate, I saw Tammy standing by the gate, waiting for me. Her hoodie up like it could somehow protect her from how people looked at us.

Happy birthday girl, she said in a crooked smile. "You made it to eighteen without blowing up. That’s something.”

I snorted a little, but it did not reach my eyes. “Barely.”

Tammy and I walked into the parking lot with our heads down and our bags pushed against our chests. 

The second we walked through the main doors something hit my back. A crushed juice box exploded against my sweater, soaking through instantly.

“Oops,” someone called out with fake innocence. “Didn’t see the trash can standing there.”

More laughter followed. Loud. Ugly. Familiar.

“Happy birthday, piglet,” another voice sneered from somewhere to the left.

I didn’t turn. I never did.

My hands curled tighter around the straps of my bag, shoulders locked forward like armor that didn’t really work.

Tammy moved a little closer to me. “Ignore them,” she murmured.

But how can you ignore something that never stops?

As we walked to the hall, someone hit Tammy on her shoulder so hard that she stumbled against the lockers. A girl who had bright pink nail polish and an ugly smile leaned very close.

“You two should just disappear. No one wants to see you walking around like you matter.”

I could feel the heat rise up the back of my neck. Not anger. Embarrassment. Shame. That helpless kind of rage that has nowhere to go but inward.

They dragged Tammy to the toilet as usual. I dare not follow them if not I will get it hot.

I lower my head and tighten my strap on my backpack to restrain the fear within me and continued walking.

Maybe... just maybe if I move quickly, no one else will see me.

But they always see me.

“Ugh, she’s still fat,” someone mutters behind me.

“Must’ve spent the summer eating her feelings again.”

I feel the flush rise under my skin. I don’t turn around. I never do. Because I know how it goes, if you flinch, they laugh louder.

“Hey, cow!” a voice barks. Then a shoulder clips mine, hard.

I stumble. My books drop, and no one helps.

A few people snicker. I think someone films it. I have no interest in looking.

I bend over, trying to breathe through the pain in my eyes, to still my hands. I cannot cry here. They enjoy it when I cry.

One by one I put my books back into my bag and stand up.

"Keep moving, don t stop," I kept whispering to myself.

It’s always been like this.

They say I’m fat. That I smell. That I wear clothes like I’m hiding a crime scene underneath.

And maybe I am.

Because if they could see the way I ache to be seen, really seen, they’d laugh harder. If they knew how many nights I lay awake wondering what I did to deserve this kind of loneliness… they’d probably say I brought it on myself.

“Ariaaa,” a familiar voice calls, like she’s calling a dog.

I didn't need to turn to know who it was. Savannah Cross.

Savannah Cross isn’t just any girl.

She’s that girl...niece to Alpha Marcus, and the closest thing this school has to a crowned queen.

She’s everything I’m not: flawless, fierce, and born into bloodlines that stretch back generations. Her uncle may run the pack, but Savannah runs this school and everyone in it knows better than to cross her.

She decides who’s seen and who’s forgotten. Who’s worshipped and who’s destroyed.

I’ve always been one of the forgotten.

But today, for some reason, she sees me. And I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

I stop walking. I shouldn’t. I know that. But something in me is tired. Just so tired.

She steps in front of me, all gloss and cruelty. Her smile is pretty and fake and dangerous.

Behind her are the usual wolves, perfect teeth, expensive clothes, smug eyes. They were born knowing the world was theirs.

While I was born not even knowing if I was allowed to exist in it.

“We’re throwing a party tomorrow tonight,” Savannah says, tucking her shiny blond hair behind her ear. “Ridge Creek. You should come.”

I blink.

“…Why?”

She tilts her head like she’s confused I even spoke.

“Because it’s your birthday, isn’t it?” Her voice drops. “Eighteen. That’s huge. Everyone should feel special on their birthday.”

She’s lying. I know she’s lying.

But for some stupid reason, my heart skips. Just a little.

And that’s how I know they still win. Because even now, even after years of this I want it to be real. I want to believe that maybe they see me. That maybe this year would be different.

Savannah leans in a little, her perfume too sweet and sharp.

“Wear something cute. Or, I guess, whatever fits.”

Laughter ripples behind her as she turns to walk away.

I stare after her, with my heart beating louder than it should, as she walks away, tossing her hair flippingly like she’s just done charity, I stay stuck, still feeling the weight of her words in my chest.

And then the door of the hall opens.

The sound shifts. Conversations pause. The air seems to fold in on itself.

And then he walks in.

Kian Silverclaw.

Alpha Marcus’s son. Future leader of the Silver pack. Untouchable. Unreachable. Unbreakable.

He doesn’t speak. He never does.

Not unless he has to.

He doesn’t smile either. Just walks with that slow, heavy stride like the ground itself answers to him.

His pack follows behind him tall, confident, eyes sharp, necks marked with status. They don’t speak either. They don’t need to.

Because when Kian enters a room, everyone falls silent. Even Savannah.

He is handsome...no scratch that... he is beautiful, the kind that is painful to look at. Dark hair, a harshly-cut jaw, and these cold, emotionless eyes that never appear to settle on anyone long enough to give them any hope.

Except mine.

Once.

In the library last year. He raised his head over a book, and our eyes met. And though he said nothing...though his face did not change, I swear something flickered there.

Or maybe that was just another lie I had made up to get me through the day.

Well, because look at me.

And then look at him.

The people automatically make way before him, as though he were not a person, but a god...Something untouchable.

And yet I still feel that stupid little flutter in my chest. The one I hate myself for.

No matter how cruel he can be and no matter how often I have seen him kick people against walls or slap a tray out of somebody hands just because he can...

Part of me thinks what it would be like to be looked at by him.

Not scoffed at. Not ridiculed. Seen.

And I detest that.

I despise that I still want what I know I will never get.