Chapter One: The Girl They Sent Away

My father did not come to collect me from the airport.

Neither did my sister.

After seven years away from Black Moon Ridge, I should have expected that. Still, as the taxi pulled away and left me standing alone outside the black iron gates with one suitcase and a heart full of stupid hope, something inside me cracked.

It was only a small crack, but it was enough to remind me why I had stopped hoping in the first place.

The gates loomed above me, twisted metal shaped into wolves and crescent moons. Beyond them, the pack road curved through thick pine forest towards the house I had once called home.

Black Moon Ridge.

The place where I was born, the place I had been sent away from, and the place that had never once asked me to come back.

I stepped through the open gates.

The air smelled of rain, pine, damp earth and wolf. My wolf stirred faintly beneath my skin, weak and restless, as though she had been asleep for too long.

I was three weeks from my eighteenth birthday and still had not shifted.

Victor Vale called it a delay.

Vivian called it unfortunate.

Bianca Mercer had once called it tragic when she thought I could not hear her.

One more family disappointment to add to the list.

A sleek black car rolled up behind me.

I moved aside, expecting it to pass. Instead, it slowed.

The back window lowered, and Vivian Vale looked out.

My older sister was only sixteen months older than me, but she had always seemed years ahead. She shifted first. Trained first. Sat beside Ezra Blackthorn first. She had learned how to smile like a Luna before I learned how to stop flinching when Father said my name.

She was beautiful in the way girls in stories were beautiful. Effortless, polished and completely untouchable.

“Aurora,” she said.

One word, and suddenly I was eleven again, standing beside the sister who always seemed to know exactly who she was while I tried not to embarrass her.

“Vivian,” I said.

Her gaze travelled over my wrinkled cardigan, travel-creased skirt, loose braid and single suitcase.

“You should have told us your flight changed. Someone would have collected you.”

“I sent the details to Father’s office.”

Vivian’s smile stayed exactly where it was.

“Well, you know how busy Father is.”

Yes.

I knew.

Victor Vale was always busy when it came to me.

A second face appeared beside Vivian’s shoulder.

Bianca Mercer.

Pretty, elegant and cruel in ways that left nothing visible enough for anyone else to prove.

“Back from boarding school at last,” Bianca said. “How sweet.”

I tightened my grip on my suitcase. “Bianca.”

Her gaze dropped. “Just the one bag?”

“The rest is coming.”

“Of course.”

The way she said it made my cheeks burn.

Vivian leaned closer to the window. “We’re late for my Luna preparation meeting, but I’ll see you at dinner.”

My stomach tightened. “Dinner?”

Her smile brightened.

“Yes. Ezra will be there.”

Ezra.

The name hit harder than it should have.

Ezra Blackthorn. Nineteen, almost twenty. Alpha heir of Black Moon Ridge. Vivian’s boyfriend since they were children. The boy the whole pack already treated like their future Alpha.

The boy everyone said would one day make my sister Luna.

I had not seen him in seven years.

There was no reason hearing his name should have made my pulse stumble.

Vivian noticed anyway.

Of course she did.

Her eyes narrowed for half a second before the window slid back up.

The car drove away, leaving dust in my face and silence in my chest.

By the time I reached the pack house, my palm ached from dragging my suitcase.

Two guards stood at the doors. One stared at me for a moment too long, as though trying to remember where he had seen me before.

I kept my head down and walked past him.

Inside, the entrance hall smelled of polished wood, smoke, old stone and pack. It should have comforted me, but instead I felt like I had stepped into a room where everyone had already decided I did not belong.

“Aurora.”

I stopped.

Victor Vale stood at the base of the staircase.

My father. The Beta of Black Moon Ridge, second only to the Alpha himself.

He looked the same as he had the day he sent me away. Tall, cold and perfectly dressed, with silver beginning to thread through his dark hair.

His gaze moved from my wrinkled clothes to the suitcase beside me, then returned to my face.

Whatever he saw disappointed him.

I lowered my eyes automatically.

“Father.”

“You’re late.”

There was no welcome home, no you’ve grown, no I missed you.

Only late.

“My connecting flight was delayed,” I said.

“You were expected before lunch.”

“I’m sorry.”

The apology escaped before I could stop it.

Victor’s mouth tightened. “You will attend dinner tonight. You will dress appropriately. You will smile when spoken to. And you will not make Vivian’s night about you.”

My chest tightened.

“I wasn’t planning to.”

His gaze sharpened. “You rarely plan trouble, Aurora. Yet somehow it finds you.”

Before I could answer, the front doors opened behind me.

The entire hall changed.

Every wolf went still.

Power rolled through the room, deep and commanding, raising the hair along my arms.

Alpha blood.

My breath caught before I even turned.

Ezra Blackthorn stepped inside.

For a moment, all I could do was stare.

He was not the boy I remembered.

He was taller now. Broader. His dark hair was wind-tossed, his features sharper, his grey eyes unreadable. He carried himself like the pack had already begun treating him as Alpha and he had spent years learning how to bear the weight of it.

Future Alpha.

The man everyone expected to stand beside Vivian.

His gaze found Victor first.

Then me.

Ezra stopped.

His stride broke for half a step, and something wild flashed through his eyes before his expression closed again.

My body noticed.

My wolf noticed too.

She stirred beneath my skin with a force I had never felt before. She was not awake or shifted, but suddenly she felt close enough to make my knees weaken.

Then his scent reached me.

When we were children, Ezra had smelled like forest air, clean soap and the leather training gloves he never remembered to put away.

Now he smelled of cedar smoke, storm rain and dark earth after midnight.

The scent settled inside my chest and made my fingers tighten around the handle of my suitcase.

I took one step back.

Ezra drew in a slow breath.

The grey of his eyes sharpened on me.

Across the hall, Vivian appeared in the sitting room doorway, Bianca at her side.

“Ezra,” Vivian called, smiling like the name belonged to her.

And it did.

It had always belonged to her.

Ezra was Vivian’s future. The boy she had loved since they were children. The Alpha the whole pack expected her to stand beside.

So why was he looking at me like that?

Why did the air between us suddenly feel too thin?