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.

Just a little.

Just 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 toward the house I had once called home.

Black Moon Ridge.

The place where I was born.

The place I was sent away from.

The place that never 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, like 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. Learned how to smile like a Luna before I had even learned how to stop flinching when Father said my name.

She was beautiful in the way girls in stories were beautiful.

Effortless.

Polished.

Untouchable.

“Aurora,” she said.

One word, and suddenly I was thirteen again.

The awkward little sister. The quiet one. The disappointing one.

“Vivian,” I said.

Her gaze swept over my wrinkled cardigan, my travel-creased skirt, my loose braid and my 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 the quiet way that never left bruises anyone could see.

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

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

Her eyes 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.

I did not know why hearing his name made my pulse stumble.

Vivian noticed.

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 if 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.

Instead, it felt like walking 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, perfectly dressed, with silver beginning to thread through his dark hair. His eyes moved over me with the kind of disappointment that did not need words.

I lowered my gaze automatically.

“Father.”

“You’re late.”

Not welcome home.

Not you’ve grown.

Not I missed you.

Just late.

“My connecting flight was delayed,” I said.

“You were expected before lunch.”

“I’m sorry.”

The apology slipped out 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 eyes hardened. “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. Dark hair wind-tossed, jaw sharp, grey eyes unreadable. He carried himself like someone already used to being obeyed, like the pack had been carved into his bones and he had never once been allowed to put it down.

Future Alpha.

Vivian’s Alpha.

His gaze found Victor first.

Then me.

Ezra stopped.

It was barely anything.

A pause.

A tightened jaw.

A flash of something wild in his eyes.

But my body noticed.

Worse, something inside me noticed.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin, sharper than she ever had before.

Not awake.

Not shifted.

But close enough to make my knees weaken.

Then his scent reached me.

Not the way I remembered.

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 different.

Cedar smoke.

Storm rain.

Dark earth after midnight.

Something warm and dangerous threaded underneath it, something that made my chest ache and my fingers curl around my suitcase handle.

I took one step back.

Ezra’s nostrils flared.

His eyes darkened.

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.

Vivian’s Alpha.

The boy she had loved since they were children.

So why was he looking at me like that?

Why did the air between us suddenly feel too thin?