All Chapters of REJECTED FOR MY CURVES, CROWNED BY THE MOON: Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

The Forbidden Northern Forest did not welcome her.Selena's bare feet sank into cold, damp earth the moment she crossed the invisible boundary. The trees here were older, their trunks thicker and blacker, their branches knitted so tightly overhead that the moonlight struggled to reach the ground. What little silver light managed to filter through fell in broken shards, never enough to fully illuminate the path. The air smelled different, sharper, older, laced with something metallic and wild that made the fine hairs on her arms rise.She kept walking anyway.Every step sent a fresh pulse of pain through the empty place where the mate bond had briefly lived. The rejection still burned like a brand behind her ribs. She could feel the exact shape of the absence, the place where Ryker's presence had flooded her for those few luminous seconds before he cut it away with six cold words. I reject the bond. The memory replayed without mercy. The way his eyes had hardened. The way the pack's co

Selena woke to the smell of woodsmoke and something warm cooking.For a moment she did not remember where she was. The narrow cot beneath her was harder than the thin mattress she had shared in the Silver Claw living quarters, and the air carried none of the familiar scents of pack, no lingering grease from the kitchens, no perfume Vanessa favored, no damp wool of warriors' cloaks. Instead there was cedar, clean stone, and the faint metallic edge of the forest itself.Then the hollow place in her chest pulsed, and everything returned.The ceremony. The silver light. Ryker's voice cutting the bond with six cold words. The long walk into darkness. Crimson eyes. A Lycan named Kael who had cleaned her feet and given her a tunic that still smelled faintly of him.She opened her eyes.Daylight filtered through the small, high window of the stone shelter in thin gray shafts. The fire had been rebuilt and burned steadily. Kael sat on a low stool near the hearth, sleeves rolled to the elbows,

The first bolt of corrupted magic screamed through the air like a living thing.Kael moved faster than Selena's eyes could follow. One moment his hand was still locked around her arm; the next he had spun, shoving her hard enough that she stumbled several paces toward the gate while his body took the place where hers had been. The green light struck him squarely in the chest with a sound like wet cloth tearing. The impact forced him back a step, boots carving shallow grooves in the dirt, but he did not fall.A low, resonant growl rolled out of him, deeper and more primal than any sound she had heard from a southern wolf.The hooded figure raised both hands. More of the sickly green energy gathered between their palms, swirling and spitting sparks that smelled of burnt herbs and spoiled blood. Vanessa's messenger. Or the Dark Witch's. The distinction no longer mattered. Someone from her old life had followed her into the one place she had begun to believe might be safe.Selena's wolf f