CHAPTER 2: THE FOREST OF OUTCASTS

ELENA'S POV

Every step I took deeper into the woods felt like a test. The golden bond was shattered, but the silver ring in my palm kept pulsing. It sent a steady stream of dark, obsidian energy into my body, stopping the pain.

For nineteen years, the Bloodmoon pack doctors forced me to drink a bitter medicine every single morning.

I remembered every morning clearly.

The small silver cup placed in front of me. The bitter smell rising from the dark liquid. The way the healers avoided looking into my eyes whenever I asked why my body always felt weaker after taking it.

I thought they were helping me survive.

I thought my weakness was simply the price of being born without a powerful family behind me.

I never imagined my greatest enemy had been quietly living inside my own home, poisoning me one drop at a time.

They didn't just steal my future.

They stole my chance to know myself.

"To stabilize your weak health, Elena," Alpha Richard, Kaelen’s father, used to tell me with a fake smile.

A bitter laugh escaped my throat. They hadn't been treating me. They had been poisoning me. The medicine contained silver-ash, a powerful magic suppressor. They deliberately crippled my inner wolf from childhood so I would never challenge their stolen throne.

Suddenly, a sharp twig snapped to my left.

I froze. My inner wolf let out a defensive growl. My cheap dress was torn, my feet were bleeding, and I didn't even have a knife to defend myself.

"Well, look what the storm dragged in," a mocking voice called out.

A lean, heavily scarred wolf warrior dropped from a tree branch, landing right in front of me. He wore rough leather armor, and a curved knife hung from his belt. His eyes glowed yellow in the dark. He looked at my mud-covered face and my torn white dress.

Two more figures stepped out from the bushes behind me, cutting off my escape. One was a tall woman with sharp tattoos on her face and a heavy mace on her back. The other was a younger male holding a loaded crossbow.

Rogues. They were the lawless outcasts who survived on violence in the neutral territories.

"An omega," the scarred leader murmured, stepping closer. He sniffed the air and smirked. "And she smells like a fresh royal rejection. Alpha King Kaelen’s scent is practically dripping off her. She’s just a discarded toy thrown out with the trash."

"I am not a threat to you," I said. My voice was raspy, but it was steady. I didn't whimper. "I was banished by the Bloodmoon King. I am only passing through."

"We don't care about your story, little rat," the tattooed woman said. "An unmarked omega is worth a lot of money. You will either become a slave in the mining camps, or we will kill you right here. Get on your knees."

The leader reached out a dirty, calloused hand to grab my dress.

In that exact moment, a violent heat exploded from the silver ring in my fist. The dark energy shot through my body like lightning.

My inner wolf roared. She tore through the remaining silver-ash suppressors in my blood. A massive, invisible shockwave of pure alpha authority exploded outward from my body.

The wind violently whipped through the trees. The heavy rain literally bent outward around me.

The younger rogue gasped, dropping his crossbow into the mud because his hands were shaking so badly. The tattooed woman dropped heavily to her knees, clutching her throat as the intense atmospheric pressure slammed into her shoulders.

The scarred leader stumbled backward. His cocky smirk vanished, replaced by pure terror. He stared at my right hand, which was now glowing with a smoky silver light.

"That... that aura," the leader stammered, his teeth chattering. "The Eclipse Crest. That's impossible. That bloodline was wiped out a century ago!"

For a moment, I couldn't answer.

Because hearing those words from a stranger made something inside me ache.

My entire life, I had been told I was nothing. An orphan. A burden. A forgotten child with no history and no place in the world.

But this stranger looked at me like I was something sacred.

Like I was someone worth fearing.

My fingers tightened around the silver ring.

I wanted to believe him.

But a lifetime of being rejected had taught me one dangerous lesson: never trust the world when it suddenly decides you have value.

"Then you were lied to," I whispered.

My voice carried a strange, layered echo—the combined sound of my human voice and my awakening wolf. My eyes, which had always been a dull gray, now burned with a brilliant silver light.

The leader's instinct to survive took over. With trembling limbs, he dropped to both knees in the mud. He bowed his head until his forehead touched the wet leaves. It was a gesture of absolute submission.

Seeing this, the other two rogues quickly threw themselves to the ground, shaking in fear.

"Forgive us, My Luna," the leader breathed. "We did not know. The outcasts have waited a hundred years for the return of the true blood. We are yours to command."

The title struck me harder than the rejection ever had.

My Luna.

Not omega. Not rat. Not burden.

A strange emotion burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let the tears fall. I had cried enough for the person I used to be.

These wolves did not know the girl who had begged for love in the Bloodmoon castle.

They saw something else.

A queen I had never been allowed to become.

I stood over them in the pouring rain, feeling the fire in my chest settle into a calm power.

"Stand up," I commanded. "Take me to your Alpha King Nikolai. We have an empire to plan."

As the three rogues rose, I saw the fear and respect in their eyes.

A week ago, I would have been terrified of standing before wolves like these. I would have lowered my gaze and apologized for existing.

Now I walked through the Dead Woods with my shoulders straight and my head held high.

But beneath the power, beneath the strange fire awakening in my blood, one question remained.

Why had my mother hidden the truth from me?

Why had an entire kingdom worked so hard to erase my existence?

And most importantly...

What had they been so afraid I would become?