CHAPTER ONE: REJECTED UNDER THE BLOOD MOON

The night I was supposed to become Luna was the night I was publicly rejected.

The entire pack stood in a circle under the blood moon, their voices low, their eyes fixed on me as if they were waiting for something important to happen.

I stood in the center, my heart beating hard against my chest, my hands clenched at my sides as I tried to stay calm.

Tonight was supposed to change everything. Tonight, I was supposed to be chosen. But something felt wrong.

Alpha Kael stepped forward, his presence commanding, his golden eyes cold as they settled on me. For years, I had believed he was my mate. For years, I had waited for this moment.

But the way he looked at me now, there was no warmth. No connection. “Aria,” he said, his voice steady but distant. The silence around us deepened.

“I reject you.”

The words hit harder than anything I had ever felt. For a moment, I thought I had heard him wrong. “You what?” I asked, my voice breaking despite my effort to stay strong.

“I reject you as my mate,” he repeated. This time, louder and clearer so everyone could hear. A wave of whispers spread through the crowd. My chest tightened as the bond I had believed in twisted painfully inside me, as if something was breaking.

You cannot do that, I said, shaking my head slowly. You cannot reject a bond that exists. Kael’s expression did not change.

There is no bond,he said. The words cut deeper than the rejection itself. The words did not just hurt, they settled deep inside me in a way that made it hard to breathe, as if everything I had believed in had been quietly removed without warning.

I searched his face, hoping to find something, even the smallest sign that he did not mean it, but there was nothing there for me to hold onto.

For years, I had built my future around this moment, around him, around the idea that I was meant to stand beside him, not beneath him, not behind him, but beside him as his equal. Now that future collapsed in front of everyone, and I had no way to stop it.

My fingers tightened slightly at my sides as I forced myself to remain standing, because I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart. If they wanted to reject me, then they would have to watch me stand through it.

Still, something inside my chest shifted again, not breaking this time, but reacting in a way I could not explain, as if something deeper than pain had just been awakened.

Around us, the elders stepped forward. The girl has no wolf, one of them said. “She cannot be Luna.”

The world seemed to tilt. No wolf. The truth I had hidden for so long now stood exposed in front of everyone. “I was going to tell you,” I said, my voice low, my chest tightening.

Kael’s gaze hardened. You should have told me before now. I was waiting, I said. “I thought it would come.”

You are not fit to stand here, the elder said. Kael turned away from me. Just like that as if I no longer existed.

Something inside me broke and everything changed in that moment. As I stood there, rejected and exposed, something deep inside my chest stirred for the first time.

Not pain. Not fear. Something else. Something that should not exist. And then, a voice whispered inside my head. “You were never meant to belong to them.”