The Rejection

The moment the Alpha’s son rejects me, my wolf goes silent. I don’t know she’s waiting for the real king.

The Moon Gathering torchlight casts dancing shadows across the pack square. Every wolf in the territory has gathered, their eyes fixed on the raised platform where Alpha Thorne stands beside his son, Darian. My childhood friend. My secret hope. The boy who promised me as children that we would always be together.

I stand at the edge of the crowd, my hands clasped in front of me, my head bowed like a proper omega. The coarse fabric of my servant’s tunic itches against my skin. Around me, the pack’s finest wear silks and leathers, their wolves close to the surface, their scents rich with power and belonging.

I have no scent. No wolf. No worth.

At least, that is what they have told me every day since my parents died and left me an orphan in this pack. I scrub floors, haul water, and keep my eyes lowered so no one remembers I exist. But tonight is the Night of Revealing, when unmated wolves discover their fated mates. Tonight, everything could change.

“Seraphina.”

Darian’s voice cuts through the murmuring crowd. He is stepping off the platform, his golden hair catching the firelight, his blue eyes fixed on me. My heart slams against my ribs. He is coming to me. After all these years of stolen glances and quiet moments in the kitchen when he would sneak me extra bread, he is claiming me in front of everyone.

The crowd parts for him. Whispers follow in his wake.

“Darian and the orphan?”

“She doesn’t even have a wolf.”

“What could the gods be thinking?”

I ignore them. Darian reaches me, and for one perfect breath, I let myself believe. He takes my hand. His palm is warm, calloused from training. He raises our joined hands high so the pack can see.

“The gods have revealed my fated mate,” he announces, his voice carrying across the silent square. “It is Seraphina.”

A collective gasp ripples through the crowd. I feel tears prick my eyes. I was wrong about them. They will accept me now. I will finally belong.

Then Darian’s grip tightens, and his expression hardens.

“But I refuse her.”

The words land like a blow to my chest. I stare at him, uncomprehending. The crowd erupts, but I cannot hear them over the roaring in my ears.

Darian drops my hand as if I am something filthy. He turns to face the pack, projecting his voice to every corner of the square.

“An omega with no wolf has no place beside the future Alpha of this pack. I reject Seraphina as my mate, my equal, and my responsibility. She is unworthy.”

Unworthy. The word echoes through me, hollowing out my insides. I look to Alpha Thorne, hoping for mercy. His face is stone.

“The rejection is accepted,” the Alpha intones. “The bond is severed.”

It is not a bond. It was never a bond. The mate pull I felt was only my foolish heart reaching for something that was never meant to be mine.

Darian steps back, his eyes cold. “She is banished to the borderlands. Let the rogues claim what this pack has no use for.”

I cannot move. Cannot speak. The crowd begins to chant.

“Outcast. Outcast. Outcast.”

Hands shove me from behind. I stumble forward. Someone spits at my feet. I keep walking because if I stop, I will collapse, and I refuse to give them that satisfaction. I lift my chin and walk out of the square, out of the village, past the last torch and into the darkness beyond.

The borderlands stretch before me, a no-man’s-land of twisted trees and treacherous cliffs. Rogues prowl these woods, wolves without packs who answer to no law. They will tear me apart before dawn.

I am seventeen years old. I have never held a weapon. My wolf has never answered my call.

I am going to die.

I walk anyway, because the alternative is to lie down and let it happen. My feet carry me deeper into the forest. The moon slips behind clouds, plunging the world into darkness. Branches scratch at my arms. My lungs burn.

Then I feel it.

A heat spreading from my chest, down my arms, pooling in my wrists. I stop, looking down at my hands. Silver light flickers beneath my skin, illuminating the veins in my arms. I gasp and stumble backward, but the light only grows brighter.

Pain lances through my wrist, sharp and searing. I cry out and clutch it. When I look, a mark is burning itself into my skin, a crescent moon ringed with stars, glowing with an impossible silver fire.

My knees buckle. I collapse onto the forest floor, clutching my wrist, watching the mark blaze. And then, deep inside me, something shifts. A presence I have never felt before stirs, yawns, and opens its eyes.

My wolf.

She is not weak. She is not silent. She rises within me like a tidal wave, ancient and powerful, and her voice echoes through my mind with a single word.

Finally.

I draw a ragged breath as her strength floods my limbs. The silver mark pulses in answer, and I feel… I feel everything. The heartbeat of the forest. The scent of every creature within a mile. The weight of a crown I have never worn.

I am not an omega.

I do not know what I am, but I am not that.

A twig snaps behind me. I whirl, my newly awakened senses screaming a warning. A massive black wolf steps out of the shadows, its fur dark as midnight, its eyes the same silver as the mark on my wrist. It is massive, easily twice the size of any wolf in my former pack.

I should run. I should be terrified. But my wolf does not growl. She waits.

The wolf shifts. Fur melts into skin, bones reshape, and a man rises in its place. He is tall, broad-shouldered, his body a canvas of old scars. Dark hair falls across his brow, and those silver eyes, molten and intense, lock onto mine.

He kneels.

In the middle of the dark forest, with rogues hunting and my world shattered, this stranger lowers himself to one knee and bows his head.

“I have been searching for you for twenty years,” he says, his voice rough with emotion. “The lost princess of the Silvermoon line. The last true heir to the Alpha King’s throne.”

I stare at him, my wrist still burning, my wolf pacing beneath my skin.

“I don’t understand.”

He lifts his head, and his silver eyes meet mine. In them, I see something that steals my breath. Recognition. Devotion. And beneath it all, a bond that sings to my wolf like a song she has always known.

“Your parents did not die in an accident,” he says. “They were murdered. Your birth pack was slaughtered by a conspiracy of traitors who wanted the Silvermoon throne. They hid you here, as an omega, hoping you would never awaken.”

He rises to his feet and extends a hand.

“But you have awakened. And now, princess, it is time to come home.”

My wolf surges forward, eager to take his hand. But I am not just my wolf. I am Seraphina, the girl who scrubbed floors and believed in a boy who threw her away. I am the girl who just lost everything.

I look at his outstretched hand, then into his silver eyes.

“Who are you?”

A ghost of a smile crosses his scarred face.

“I am Kael, Captain of the Silvermoon Guard. And I am the one who will stand beside you when you take back your crown.”

The howl of rogues echoes in the distance, close now. Danger is coming. My old life is ash. And this stranger is offering me a new one.

I take his hand.

His fingers close around mine, warm and solid. The silver marks on our wrists flare in unison, and I feel the bond snap into place, ancient and absolute.

Fated.

“Then let’s go home,” I say.

But Kael does not move. His grip tightens, and his expression turns grave.

“There is one thing you must know before we go.” His voice drops to a whisper. “The Silvermoon throne is not empty. A usurper sits upon it. And to claim your birthright, you must survive the Rite of the Lost Queen.”

“What is the rite?”

He looks at me, and I see something like pain in his silver gaze.

“A fight to the death against the queen’s champion.”

My blood runs cold.

“Who is the champion?”

Kael releases my hand and takes a step back. His face is unreadable, but his voice is raw when he speaks.

“I am.”

The rogues’ howls grow louder, but they are nothing compared to the silence that falls between us.

He is my enemy. He is my fated mate. And he has just handed me a crown with one hand and a death sentence with the other.

I should run.

Instead, I smile.

“Then I suppose,” I say, “you had better teach me how to fight.”