Ceremony

Derrick Caldwell once promised me that on the night of our pack's founding feast, he would announce that we'd been married for eight years. However, on the big day, his childhood friend, Lilith Sterling, takes my place. She sits beside him—the spot reserved for his Luna. The warriors say, "We heard you have a mate with whom you've been married for eight years, Alpha. Is this her?" Derrick smiles without denying it. He silently allows their assumption to stand. I want him to explain this to me, but he merely says, "You may have helped me become the Alpha, but your lowly birth is nothing compared to Lilith's noble status. As my mate, you need to be more tolerant." I don't argue with him. Instead, I turn and leave the pack he and I built together. Later, I start my own pack and turn it into the largest one in the federation. Derrick stands among the crowd during a ceremony where the Alpha King confers a medal of honor to me. He proudly tells anyone who will listen that I'm his wife. I act like I don't see him, and his eyes turn red with desperation.

I have three dads who love and spoil me for fifteen years. Of the three, Maxim Ulfric is the high-ranking and authoritative Alpha of the Cinderhowl pack. The second is Ethan Skoll, the pack's most valiant Beta warrior. The third is Aidan Rafe, the most skilled healer of the whole pack. They're the reason I am the happiest princess of the Cinderhowl pack before turning 15. Everything changes after Raeya Wargan appears. Time and again, she accuses me of leading others to sideline and pick on her. Even my disappointed dads say I'm insensible and give everything I have to her as compensation. From then on, no one believes a word I say. Even the pups of the pack call me a pathological liar. Everything ends when Raeya throws me into a Rogue's den. As a ferocious Rogue hunts me down, I reach out through the mind-link to my dads for help. But none of them believes me. They call me devious and cunning. They say that I'm trying to frame Raeya on purpose. While a wolf pack tears my limbs apart, and my mangled corpse is left abandoned in the forest, my dads are wholeheartedly presiding over Raeya's grand coming-of-age ceremony. They once promised to give me the most unique coming-of-age ceremony, but it's a pity I'll never live to see that day.

He didn't choose me as a mate. He chose me as a write-off. When Darius Blackwood auctioned off my family's debt at the pack ceremony, Kaelen Thorne a billionaire Lycan King, cold-blooded strategist, the most untouchable Alpha alive — bought it without blinking. To him, I was leverage. A line item in a larger acquisition. Three years of my absolute obedience in exchange for a debt I never actually owed. What Kaelen doesn't know could fill the ledger he thinks he owns. I'm not packless. I'm not powerless. I am the last of a bloodline his entire empire was built to exploit and I've been suppressing my true nature long enough to know exactly how to use his arrogance against him. He bought a broken girl. He doesn't know he invited a queen into his kingdom. But the longer I stay in his penthouse, the harder it gets to remember that he is not the man I'm supposed to want. That this contract was never supposed to feel like something else. That when Kaelen Thorne finally looks at me — really looks and says mine like it's the only word that makes sense… I'm not supposed to believe him. He settled a debt. I'm here to collect.

Rejected on the night of her mating ceremony, Valeria’s world shatters when the mate she waited for abandons her without mercy. Branded a disgrace by her own family, she is betrayed in the cruelest way—offered in place of her sister to the most ruthless Alpha known to the packs. Alpha Sebastian does not want her love. He does not want her loyalty. To the pack, she is Luna,To him, she is nothing but a slave. Humiliated, tortured, and stripped of her title, Valeria is framed for a crime she did not commit. Her sister steals her identity. Her parents turn their backs on her. And the Alpha who owns her sentences her to death—only to spare her life for a fate far worse. Broken and chained, Valeria loses all hope… until a mysterious Alpha saves her life. Alpha Xavier is powerful, dangerous, and impossible to read. When he touches her, something awakens—a bond stronger than fate. But Alpha Sebastian will not let go of what he claims belongs to him. Caught between two Alphas.Hunted by her own blood. And carrying a secret that could cost her life, Valeria must escape… or rise and take revenge on everyone who destroyed her. Will she remain a slave forever, or become the Luna they all feared?

Abandoned at the borders of Darkfang as a child she was taken in by the generosity of the previous Alpha and raised along with his sons before he passed away. From a young age it was crystal clear that there was an undeniable bond between her and the Alpha twins; this was confirmed when she became of age at the mating ceremony and found out that she was fated to both brothers. She loved Wulfric but the weight of her decision was great knowing that whoever she picked would inevitably be chosen as the Alpha King, completely unprompted Wulfric rejects her in public and leaves the pack. Devastated, she falls into the arms of his brother and develops feelings for him. He promises to Cherish forever but that promise doesn't last long after 3 years pass and each of her children are girls. But she never gets to deliver them, one accident or another always occurs and causes a miscarriage. He starts to gather concubines, neglecting her until she is pushed into the foreground. She reaches her breaking points after finding out that he was the one who arranged for each of her miscarriages, in her burning flame for revenge she makes an impulsive choice reaching out to someone she hadn't heard from in years with one insane request that would not only eventually push Ranger out of power but give her her revenge- “Wulfric will you be my concubine?”

My son was kidnapped by a pack of rogue wolves. Two days later, the patrol team found his body. His limbs were broken, his entire body covered in bruises, not a single patch of fur left unmarked. I held his lifeless form and howled in anguish. My mate Damien, Alpha of the Stormfang Pack, swore the killers would pay. All evidence pointed to Sera, Damien's nominal Omega assistant, but in reality his mistress. As the pack's Luna, I publicly revealed the investigation results and evidence before all pack members. Under pressure from the pack, my mate was forced to execute his Omega assistant. A year later, I became pregnant again. But during my tenth anniversary Luna ceremony, my mate locked me in a burning chamber as punishment. That's when I learned the truth—he hated me for forcing him to kill his Omega assistant. He wanted me dead for revenge. In the flames, I felt the child in my womb slip away, and my own strength began to fail. After my rebirth, I still couldn't change my son's tragic fate. But when I chose to abandon my role as Stormfang Pack's Luna, the entire pack fell to their knees, begging me not to leave.

I was Alpha Damon’s Head Beta. For six years, I had been his partner in bed and his second-in-command. When he announced our mating ceremony, the entire pack celebrated. My dream was finally within reach. But then, outside his private trophy room, I heard him bragging about his “Luna trials.” And just like that, I learned the truth. I wasn’t his one and only. I was one of thirty candidates. He’d spent a month with each of us, grading our bodies, our submission, our performance. My score? Lower than an Omega’s. Lower than Lydia’s. “Fucking Lydia was incredible,” he boasted. “I could barely pull myself away. Then I look at Elysia—so stiff, so in control—and I’m just… bored.” Ice flooded my veins. My body went numb. Six years of devotion. Countless nights tangled in his sheets. It all meant less than a cheap thrill and a wolf who knew how to kneel. My heartbreak hardened into ice. I sent a message to an Alpha who had wanted me long ago. “Adrian, you once said your offer to mate was a standing one. Does it still stand? Damon and I are over now.”

Selene Nightshade, the daughter of a powerful alpha, was fated to be the Luna of the ruthless Alpha Kieran Blackwood. But on the night of their mating ceremony, he rejected her in front of the entire pack, choosing her stepsister instead. Broken and humiliated, Selene was cast out, left to fend for herself as a rogue. But Selene’s story didn’t end in exile. The Moon Goddess had bigger plans for her. She was taken in by a hidden pack—one of ancient power and dark secrets. There, she unlocked her true potential, her bloodline linked to a long-forgotten prophecy. Now, stronger than ever, Selene returns—not as the weak girl Kieran rejected but as the Queen of Rogues, commanding forces that could bring the werewolf world to its knees. Kieran realizes too late that his mate bond with Selene never faded, and now, he is haunted by the woman he betrayed. But she’s not the same girl who once loved him—she’s out for revenge. And worse, another powerful Alpha, a mysterious and dangerously charming rogue king, has set his sights on Selene. Now, caught between the mate bond she can’t escape and the tempting darkness of a new love, Selene must decide—does she destroy the mate who shattered her, or does she reclaim her destiny and rise as the most powerful Luna the werewolf world has ever seen?

On the ninth year after our bonding ceremony, my mate, Alpha Kyle Burns, finds himself hopelessly in love with Ivy Cline, an Omega who's taken in as a prisoner of war from a pack that has been conquered by the Silver Moon pack. Ivy is supposed to be a lowly prisoner, and yet she often keeps her head high in an arrogant manner. One time, she kicks the things gifted to her by Kyle into a puddle in front of everyone else. "I might be a prisoner, but I refuse to become a traitor who clings to wolves of power for survival! You can keep your disgusting charity act to yourself!" Those are the exact words that have Kyle wrapped around Ivy's little finger. In order to conquer the wild-spirited Ivy, Kyle personally severs the mind-link that he has maintained with me for the past nine years. He completely disregards the fact that I'm his fated mate as well as the most reverent Luna of the pack. But he most likely has forgotten the blood curse my father, who was also the former Alpha of the pack, asked the witch to place on him. If Kyle and I don't head over to the Moon Goddess' altar to extend our bond once ten years are up, the curse will take effect. That's when the mate bond between us will be completely severed.

My coming-of-age ceremony was supposed to be a celebration. My father, the Alpha of Alphas, had invited every powerful pack in the land. His goal: for me to choose a mate from the land's strongest Alphas. I chose the most powerful of them all, Alpha Lukas. But my sister Lyla, my father's bastard, was only allowed a lowly beta. She was slaughtered in the forest. After her death, Lukas and I crafted 99 soul crystals in her memory. I thought he did it for me, to honor my fallen sister. But then he killed me in battle. With his bare hands. "You bitch! If you hadn't chosen me, Lyla would have been my mate!" Only then did I learn the truth. He had only ever loved Lyla. He hated me for stealing the life that should have been hers. Those 99 soul crystals… they weren't for her memory. They were for my penance. I died in a sea of despair. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of my ceremony. Facing the most powerful Alphas in the world, I walked past them all and chose the one no one wanted. The half-breed outcast despised by all. Salome.