Chapter 1

SERENA.

“Your dress!”

Serena froze when she heard the maid’s alarmed voice behind her. 

She looked down, and her heart dropped. The side of her white dress had torn open, exposing her underwear to the entire room. For a moment, Serena couldn't understand what had happened.

The only thing she could remember was the server crashing into her. One moment, she had been standing among the guests, waiting for Damon. The next, the server had stumbled into her, sending her off balance.

“I'm sorry, Luna!” he had said quickly.

Serena had barely managed to steady herself when she heard several sharp snaps. And now everyone was staring at her.

She instinctively reached for the torn fabric, trying to cover herself as heat rushed to her face. The maid hurried toward her.

“Luna, don't move.”

Serena's breathing became uneven as she tried to hold the dress together.

“What happened?” she whispered.

The maid looked down at the scattered pins and the torn seam before looking back at Serena. “I told you this dress wouldn't hold,” she whispered.

Serena's eyes fell on the ruined gown, and suddenly, she remembered. Just hours earlier, Vivian had placed the dress in her hands with a warm smile.

“I wanted you to have something special for today,” she had said. “Consider it my last gift to you before you become Luna.”

Serena had been touched by the gesture. Vivian had never been particularly close to her, so she hadn't expected such kindness from her.

But when Serena tried the dress on, the maid immediately noticed something was wrong.

“Luna, this fabric doesn't stretch.”

She pulled at the zipper again, but it stopped halfway.

Vivian looked at the dress before turning to Serena.

“This is already the largest size.”

The maid's expression tightened. “Perhaps Luna should wear her other dress instead.”

Serena had looked at Vivian, then at the maid. She didn't want to hurt Vivian after she had gone through the trouble of getting the dress for her.

“It's fine,” she had said. “Just pin it.”

The maid hesitated but eventually did as she was told.

Once they were finished, Vivian had looked Serena over and smiled.

“You look beautiful.”

Serena had smiled back, believing her. She had no reason not to.

Now, standing in the middle of the banquet hall with the same dress torn open, she wished she hadn't.

The entire hall had fallen silent, and hundreds of eyes were fixed on her. Then the whispers began.

“She’s the one?”

“I expected someone different.”

“The dress doesn’t even suit her.”

“She looks more like a servant than an Alpha’s mate.”

Serena swallowed hard. She had heard those words before. Her size had always been the first thing people noticed about her, long before they saw the woman who had spent years serving the Crescent Moon Pack. She had learned to live with the whispers, the stares and the quiet judgment, but hearing them on the night she was supposed to become Damon’s Luna made every word cut deeper.

Her eyes moved across the hall until they landed on Vivian.

Vivian was watching her. For a moment, Serena couldn't read the expression on her face. There was something almost sympathetic in her eyes, but then Serena noticed the small smile that appeared before Vivian quickly hid it.

Serena's brows drew together.

Why was she smiling?

She looked at Vivian for another moment, trying to understand what she was seeing, but Vivian had already turned her attention toward the guests around her.

Serena looked away, trying to steady herself as the whispers continued around her. She had spent years preparing for this moment, believing she would finally become the next Luna of the Crescent Moon Pack and prove that everything she had given to the pack had been worth it.

Instead, she was standing in the middle of the banquet hall, desperately trying to hold her dress together while everyone stared at her as though her body had become a public spectacle.

Then Damon appeared.

The moment Serena saw him walking toward her, a small sense of relief loosened something inside her chest. He would help her. He had to.

Damon had always been the person she believed would protect her when the world became cruel. He was the boy who had once stood between her and a group of children who mocked her because of her size. He was the man the Moon Goddess had later revealed as her fated mate.

Surely, after everything they had shared, he would not leave her standing there alone.

“Damon…”

She reached for him with her eyes, silently pleading for him to come closer.

But when he stopped in front of her, there was no concern in his expression. His gaze moved from her face to the torn dress, and the disappointment in his eyes made Serena’s heart sink.

“Serena,” he said coldly.

She lowered her voice.

“Damon, I…”

“You are an embarrassment to the Alpha lineage.”

The words silenced her. She stared at him, struggling to understand what she had just heard.

“The only reason I ever agreed to this was because of my father.”

Serena felt her throat tighten.

“What are you saying?”

Damon looked at the torn fabric again, his expression hardening.

“Look at yourself. You can’t even manage your own body. How could you possibly manage a pack?”

A few people nearby exchanged looks. Serena wished the floor would open beneath her.

“Damon, please…”

He took a step back.

“I reject you as my mate.”

The pain came before Serena could even process the words. The bond snapped with such force that her knees almost gave way. She grabbed the edge of the table beside her, gasping as a sharp pain tore through her chest.

For years, she had imagined what it would feel like to finally stand beside Damon as his Luna. She had never imagined standing before him while he rejected her in front of the entire pack.

She looked up at him through the tears gathering in her eyes, hoping there was some trace of regret in his face.

There was none.

Damon turned away from her and reached for Vivian’s hand. Serena stared as their fingers intertwined.

“Now that it’s done,” Damon said quietly, “I can finally choose who I actually want.”

She watched Vivian step closer to him, her expression carefully arranged into something that looked almost sympathetic.

But Serena no longer cared. Something inside her had broken so completely that the whispers around her no longer seemed real.

She could barely remember leaving the banquet hall. The cold rain hit her face the moment she stepped outside, soaking through the thin fabric of her dress as she walked away without knowing where she was going.

Nobody followed her. Nobody called her back. Nobody seemed to care that the woman they had once called their future Luna was walking alone through the rain.

Serena kept moving.

Her chest still ached from the broken mate bond, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the memories rushing through her mind. She had spent years believing that fate had brought Damon into her life for a reason. She had trusted that fate and built her entire future around it.

Now she understood how wrong she had been.

Her thoughts drifted to Alpha Richard, the man who had believed in her long before Damon ever did. He had trusted her with responsibilities throughout the pack and had never once made her feel like her appearance made her less capable.

She could still hear his voice in her head.

“A Luna is not chosen because she is the prettiest woman in the room. She is chosen because she knows how to carry the weight of everyone in it.”

Serena had held onto those words for years. Whenever someone made her feel too large, too noticeable, or too different from the woman they thought should stand beside an Alpha, she remembered what Richard had told her and reminded herself that being a Luna had never been about having the perfect body.

She had worked for the pack. She had helped families when they were struggling, worked with the healers, helped manage supplies and carried responsibilities that most people never noticed. She had spent years proving that she could lead.

And she had believed Damon saw all of that.

Maybe that was what hurt the most.

He had never seen her the way she had hoped he did.

The rain continued falling as Serena finally reached the pack house. Her clothes were soaked through, her hair clinging to her face and her body exhausted from the long walk.

She stopped when she saw two suitcases sitting outside the door.

For a moment, she didn't move.

Then she noticed the pack warrior standing nearby.

“What is this?” she asked, although something inside her already knew the answer.

The warrior avoided her eyes.

“Alpha Damon’s order.”

Serena looked at the suitcases again.

“You’re no longer welcome in the core territory.”

The words settled over her with a strange finality. She had lived here for years, and this had always been her home. The pack was the only family she had ever known.

She had spent so much of her life taking care of everyone else that she had never imagined there would come a day when she had nowhere to return to. Yet everything she owned was now sitting outside the door in two suitcases.

Serena slowly walked over and rested her hand on one of them. She looked back at the pack house, remembering all the years she had spent inside those walls and the future she had once believed was waiting for her.

Tonight, she had lost Damon. She had lost her place in the pack. And now she had lost her home.

Serena wiped the rain from her face, though she could no longer tell whether the wetness on her cheeks came from the rain or her tears.

She had thought the humiliation at the banquet was the worst thing that could happen to her.

She was beginning to realize it was only the beginning.