Chapter 1: The Rejection

The big room was packed with wolves, all of them watching Wren Hale like she was something to be afraid of.

She stood there alone, smack in the middle, squeezing her hands in front of her so they wouldn’t shake. The dress scratched her neck—she’d sewn it herself three years ago, the day she became Luna. She wore one like it every day since.

Kane watched from up on the platform. Her mate, her Alpha, her husband.

He wouldn’t even meet her eyes.

“Kane,” she said. Her voice came out too small. “Please talk to me. Whatever they told you…”

“Enough.” Kane’s voice cracked through the room. He finally looked at her, but his eyes were empty, cold—like he didn’t even know her. “You know why we’re here, Wren.”

She did. The whispers had gotten louder for weeks now. Three years—no child. No wolf. Cursed. She’d heard the old men hissing it behind their hands. She saw the pity and the anger in the women’s faces—women who used to smile at her.

“I don’t know what else to do,” she said quietly. “I was born without a wolf. You knew that when you married me. You said it didn’t matter.”

Something flickered across Kane’s face but vanished before she could catch what it was. He just turned back to stone.

“A Luna who can’t give the pack a baby isn’t fit to be Luna,” Elder Rasmus boomed before Kane could answer. He made sure everyone heard. “A Luna with no wolf is a bad sign. We’ve been patient. We waited three years. The Goddess gave us her answer.”

People started to mutter. Wren felt it—almost like pressure, building in her chest.

“And there’s the matter of the mark,” Rasmus went on. Without thinking, Wren’s hand covered her neck. “We’ve all heard the stories. A mark like that, on a wolf-less woman? It’s not natural. It’s a warning.”

“It’s just a birthmark,” Wren stammered. Her hand shook. She couldn’t stop it. “That’s all it’s ever been.”

“Is it?” Rasmus’s eyes shone. “Then show us.”

The room went deathly quiet.

Wren’s fingers locked around her neck. She’d spent her life hiding the mark—from the moment she stepped into the orphanage, where the other kids pointed and called her names, where nobody wanted to sit near her, all because of something she never asked for.

“Show them,” Kane told her. He sounded exhausted. “End this.”

She searched his face, desperate for any trace of the man who used to hold her in the dark and call her beautiful, who used to touch that mark with his thumb and say he’d chosen her, years before the Goddess ever tied them together.

Nothing. He wasn’t there.

With fingers that wouldn’t hold still, she pulled the collar down.

The mark was ugly and dark, sprawled over her skin, bigger than her hand. Someone gasped. A child started to cry—shunted quiet in a heartbeat. Wren kept her chin high even as she shrunk inside.

“There,” she said. “It’s just skin. Nothing else.”

Kane came down from the platform. For a second, Wren let herself hope, just a little, that he’d come close, put his arm around her, call this madness off. That he’d stand up for her. That maybe she wasn’t completely alone.

He stopped three feet away. He didn’t move any closer.

“Wren Hale,” his voice came, hard and formal, not even a little bit like her husband. “As Alpha of Ashgrove Pack, I remove you as Luna. Our bond is broken. You are no longer welcome here.”

The words hit her like stones. She’d known they were coming, but hearing them in front of everyone she’d tried to serve felt like a knife.

“Kane.” Her voice cracked. “Please. We’re fated. You can’t just—”

“It’s already done,” he said. Then softer—so soft hardly anyone but her could hear: “I’m sorry.”

She almost laughed at that—sorry. Like the word meant anything.

Across the room, Serena Vale stood among the men, one hand on her belly, eyes lowered, playing the modest girl. Wren didn’t buy it. Not anymore. She’d seen the way Serena smiled when nobody was looking.

“The pack needs a child,” Rasmus announced. “The Goddess has blessed Serena. She’ll be Luna now.”

The crowd cheered. It started low, then swelled until the sound filled the hall. They were already claiming Serena, the woman who’d wormed her way into Wren’s life, who was about to take everything that was left.

Wren didn’t cry. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t. She kept her back straight, her eyes dry—even while every wolf in the room turned their back on her, one by one.

Only Kane stayed facing her. He just stared, blank and cold, until Serena joined him and slid her hand into his arm.

He didn’t pull away.

That’s when something in Wren just went numb and quiet. Her heart hadn’t shattered just now—it had been breaking for weeks, bit by bit. This was the end of hope. The last warm piece in her chest sealed itself off for good.

Fine, she thought. Let them have each other.

She turned around. She left the room on her own two feet, before anyone could lay a hand on her. She wasn’t going to let them drag her out like some criminal. Not yet.

She didn’t get far.

“Wait,” Serena called, voice sweet as poison. “Before you go, I need your blood.”

The room went silent. Wren turned, slow.

“What?”

Serena clutched her stomach, making a show of pain. “I’ve felt so weak since the baby. The healer says I need Luna blood for strength before the transition. It’s the Alpha’s wish, isn’t it, love?”

All eyes turned to Kane.

He hesitated. For just a second, Wren saw it—a flicker of doubt in his face. For a heartbeat, she thought he’d say no. That maybe he’d finally see what was happening.

He looked away. “Do it,” he said. “Make it quick.”

Something inside Wren just snapped.

She’d given this pack three years. She’d given Kane every unguarded scrap of herself, back when she still believed fate meant something. Now, even exiled and rejected in front of everyone she’d ever tried to love, she still didn’t have the strength to tell him no.

The healer jabbed the needle into her arm, no gentleness, no ceremony. Wren watched her blood fill the vial, thick and dark. She felt the rest of her strength slip out with it.

When it was done, two guards each grabbed an arm—rough, not caring—and led her to the borders.

Behind her, the room broke into wild celebration. A new Luna. A new life.

Wren didn’t look back.

By the time the guards left her, the sun was already sinking. She could barely stand. Her arm throbbed where the needle had bit. Her legs trembled, weak from blood loss and three weeks of gnawing fear and not enough food.

“This is as far as we go,” one of the guards said. He didn’t sound mean about it. “Good luck out there.”

And then he was gone. Wren was alone, standing on the edge of everything she knew, with nothing but the dress on her back and the mark on her neck—the mark no one, not even Kane, had ever understood.

She took a wobbly step forward into the trees, not knowing that she wasn’t alone. The woods around her weren’t empty.

Somewhere out there, something was already watching. Waiting.

As for the people I met after, well—they weren’t exactly kind. Not the right kind, anyway. The people I’m talking about, they weren't the right ones.