Chapter 1

The first time someone called me moon-cursed, I was thirteen and still stupid enough to cry where people could see me. Tonight, I don't cry. Not when the whispers curl through the crowd like smoke, not when eyes linger on me a second too long, pity stitched into every glance, not even when I feel it, that familiar hollow ache beneath my skin where my wolf should be.

Empty. Always empty.

I stand at the edge of the Moonstone Arena, fingers curled into the thin fabric of my dress, trying not to fidget. The stone beneath my bare feet is cold and grounding and real, unlike the restless energy buzzing through the rest of the pack. Tonight is the mating ceremony. Tonight, the Moon chooses.

A bitter thought rises before I can stop it. The Moon already chose. Just not me.

A ripple of laughter breaks out somewhere behind me, sharp and careless.

"You'd think she'd at least pretend to belong here," Lysa says, loud enough that I know she wants me to hear it.

"Maybe her wolf is just lost," another girl adds, softer but no kinder.

"Or dead," a third voice offers, and that earns a few snickers.

I don't turn around. I don't need to. I know that voice. Lysa is always loudest when she knows I won't answer back. My grip tightens on my dress, but I keep my face calm. That's the trick I've learned over the years. If you don't react, people get bored faster. Most of the time.

"Alira."

That voice doesn't mock. It shines.

I look up despite myself, and there she is. Elira. My twin. She moves through the crowd like she owns it, like the air bends just to make space for her. Her dark hair falls in perfect waves over her shoulders, and her silver-threaded dress catches the torchlight like she's already blessed by the Moon itself. People don't just look at her. They admire her. They always have. Her wolf came at sixteen, strong and fierce, one of the fastest in the pack. Everything about her arrived early, bright, undeniable. Everything about me didn't.

"You're standing all the way back here?" she asks, reaching me, her brows knitting slightly like she's trying concern on for size. "You should come closer."

"I'm fine here," I say.

"Come on, Alira. It's just the two of us out here talking, you don't have to put on the brave face for me."

"I'm not putting on anything. I like it back here."

She studies me for a moment, and there's something unreadable in her eyes, something that flickers and disappears too quickly to name.

"You won't always be fine standing in the back," she murmurs, almost gently. "Whatever happens tonight, you know that, right?"

Before I can ask what she means, someone steps up beside her, and the air shifts.

Darian Kross.

Even if I hadn't known he was coming, my body would have told me. He's tall, broad-shouldered, his presence commanding without effort, the kind of man people instinctively move aside for, the kind of man girls whisper about like he's already chosen them. He doesn't look at them. He looks at her.

"Elira," he says, his voice low and warm.

Her lips curve, of course they do. "Darian. I didn't think you'd get here before the ceremony started."

"I wouldn't miss this," he says. "Not tonight."

They fit. That's the first thought that slices through me, sharp and unwanted. I don't know why it bothers me. It shouldn't. Everyone expects this, the strongest female and the most promising male, it makes sense, it's logical, it's right. So why does something deep in my chest twist like it's being pulled apart?

Darian's gaze flickers, just for a second, and it lands on me. Everything inside me stills. There's a strange sensation, like a thread tightening between us, invisible but undeniable. My breath catches, my pulse spikes loud in my ears.

What is that?

His expression shifts, barely, a crease forming between his brows, a flicker of something like confusion or recognition. For one impossible second I think it can't be, it wouldn't be.

The bond.

My heart stutters. It crashes into me all at once, warm and overwhelming, a pull so strong it feels like gravity has changed direction. Every instinct in me leans toward him, toward that connection sparking to life beneath my skin.

My mate. Darian is…

"Strange," he says suddenly, and the word cuts through everything, cold and sharp and wrong.

The warmth falters. I blink, breath uneven. "What?" I manage.

His gaze hardens, not at me but through me, like he's looking for something that isn't there. Then he steps closer. Not to me. To Elira. And the thread, my thread, stretches and strains.

"Do you feel that?" Elira asks softly, her voice laced with wonder.

My chest tightens. No. No, no…

Darian takes her hand. "I do."

The thread snaps. Not slowly, not gently, violently, like something inside me is ripped free. A gasp tears from my throat before I can stop it, my knees threatening to buckle under the sudden, brutal emptiness. The bond, my bond, flickers unstable, like it's trying to exist in two places at once.

"That's not possible," someone whispers nearby.

"The Moon doesn't make mistakes," another voice answers.

Darian's grip tightens around Elira's hand, his jaw setting, decision locking into place. Then, finally, he looks at me. And there's nothing there. No pull, no recognition, no regret. Just dismissal.

"This connection," he says slowly, his voice carrying across the suddenly silent arena, "is unclear."

My heart pounds so hard it hurts. Unclear?

"It should not be," an elder calls out, stepping forward. "The bond is sacred, Darian. It reveals truth, not confusion."

"I understand that," Darian says, not looking away from Elira. "And I'm telling you what I feel. My truth is here."

"Are you certain?" the elder presses. "Once spoken, this cannot be unspoken."

"I'm certain."

He turns fully toward Elira, and everything inside me goes cold.

"I, Darian Kross, accept Elira Vale as my mate."

The world doesn't shatter. It tilts, like everything has shifted just slightly out of place, enough that nothing feels real anymore. Gasps ripple through the crowd.

"No," I whisper, but the sound barely exists.

Elira's eyes flicker to mine. There's shock there, but beneath it, something else, something that looks too much like relief. Her fingers tighten around his.

"I accept," she says.

The bond seals. I feel it, not as warmth, not as connection, but as absence, as something that was mine being taken cleanly, completely, without hesitation. A hollow expands in my chest, swallowing everything.

No one moves toward me. No one speaks to me. Because what is there to say? The Moon has chosen, and it wasn't me. Again.

My lips part, but nothing comes out. The arena blurs, faces melting into indistinct shapes as something fragile inside me fractures beyond repair. I can't breathe. I can't stay.

Before anyone can stop me, before anyone can notice, I turn and run. Bare feet slam against stone, then dirt, then roots as I push past the edges of the arena, past the boundary markers, past everything that has ever told me where I belong. Branches scrape my arms. Cold air burns my lungs. I don't stop, I don't think, I just run until the sounds of the pack disappear completely, until the silence is so heavy it presses in on all sides.

Only then do I stumble to a halt. My chest heaves, my hands shake, and the emptiness, god, the emptiness, is unbearable.

"Why?" The word breaks out of me, raw and jagged. "Why is it never me?"

The forest doesn't answer. Of course it doesn't. But something shifts, a presence, subtle at first, like the air thickening, like the night itself is listening. A chill crawls down my spine.

I should go back. I should…

"I don't belong there," I whisper, voice trembling. "I never did."

The words feel like a confession, or a surrender. My gaze lifts to the dark stretch of trees beyond the known borders, the place we're warned about, the place no wolf willingly enters.

The forbidden.

My heart hammers. This is stupid. Dangerous. Unforgivable. But the emptiness inside me is louder than fear.

"I don't care what you are," I say into the darkness, my voice steadier than I feel. "Wolf. Vampire. Something worse. If there's anything out there that can hear me, then come. I mean it. Come out and show yourself, because I have nothing left to lose."

Silence. A long, suffocating silence.

And then something answers.

A low, distant sound echoes through the forest. Not a howl. Not quite human either. Something in between.

My breath catches. The shadows shift. And suddenly, I'm not alone.