Chapter 1

Gloria’s POV

The notification sound on my phone was usually a soft chime. Tonight, it sounded like a gunshot. Then another. Then a hundred more, all going off at once until my clutch vibrated violently against my hip.

I stood in the center of the Moonlight Ballroom, the crystal chandeliers casting fractured rainbows over the silk gown I had spent three months creating. It was supposed to be my night. The Mating Ball. The night Jaxson, the future Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack, finally claimed me.

I looked up, a smile frozen on my face, searching for Jaxson in the crowd. But no one was looking at me with admiration. They were looking at their phones.

Then, they looked at me.

It started as a whisper, a low buzz that swept through the elite wolves like a draft of cold air. Then came the snickers. The looks of disgust.

"Gloria," my best friend, Sarah, gasped, rushing to my side. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with horror. She shoved her phone into her pocket, but I had already seen the screen. "We need to go. Now."

"What’s happening?" I whispered; my throat tight.

"Just come with me." She grabbed my arm, her claws nearly extending in her panic.

But it was too late.

The large screens mounted on the walls—usually reserved for displaying the Alpha’s speech—glitched. The scenic view of the forest vanished. In its place, a video started playing.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

It was me. Or rather, a video taken through the window of my bedroom two nights ago. I was alone, or so I thought. I was wearing one of Jaxson’s shirts I had stolen, touching myself, whispering his name in the quiet desperation of a she-wolf in heat waiting for her mate. It was private. It was vulnerable.

It was humiliating.

And now, it was playing on twenty-foot screens for the entire pack leadership, visiting Alphas, and the press.

Every moan was amplified by the ballroom speakers.

"Oh god," I choked out. The room spun.

Then, the sound cut out. Jaxson stepped onto the stage. He didn’t look angry at the person who leaked it. He looked… bored. He looked at me with cold, dead eyes. Beside him stood Chloe, the Beta’s daughter. Her hand was resting possessively on his bicep.

"Turn it off," Jaxson commanded, though he let the image linger for a second too long. He looked down at me from the stage. "I think we’ve all seen enough."

The silence was heavier than the noise.

"Gloria Sutton," Jaxson’s voice boomed, amplified by the microphone. "I cannot have a Luna who displays such… lack of decorum. A whore who puts on a show for peeping toms."

"Jax, I didn't—" I stepped forward, tears blurring my vision. "I was thinking of you!"

"And I," he interrupted, his voice cutting like a serrated knife, "am thinking of the pack’s reputation." He inhaled deeply, the air crackling with his Alpha command. "I, Jaxson Blackwood, reject you, Gloria Sutton, as my mate."

The pain hit my chest like a sledgehammer. The bond snapped, a physical tearing sensation that made me gasp and double over.

He turned to Chloe, pulling her waist flush against his. "I accept Chloe Stern as my chosen mate and future Luna."

Chloe smirked. It was small, sharp, and vicious. She held up her phone, recording my reaction. Recording the moment the Alpha’s daughter became the pack’s laughingstock.

"Get out," my father’s voice came from the VIP section.

I looked up. The Alpha—my own father—wasn't looking at Jaxson with rage for humiliating his daughter. He was looking at me with pure loathing.

"You have disgraced this bloodline," he spat. "Leave. Before I have the enforcers drag you out."

I didn't pack a bag. I didn't wait for Sarah. I turned and ran, the sound of my heels clicking on the marble echoing the shattering of my life. I burst out the double doors into the pouring rain, the cold water soaking my dress instantly.

I scrambled into my car, hands shaking so hard I dropped the keys twice. As the engine roared to life, my phone lit up with a new notification. A live stream from Chloe.

“The trash took itself out. #Rejected.”

I slammed my foot on the gas, tires screeching as I sped away from the territory. I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I had to drive until the pain in my chest stopped, or until I crashed.

I didn't expect the latter to happen first.

Thirty miles out, near the border of the Shadowlands—the lawless territory where the exiled wolves lived—my tires lost traction on the slick asphalt. The world flipped upside down. Metal screamed against the guardrail. Then, darkness.