The moon was high, bathing the clearing in cold silver light as the Pack gathered for the mating ceremony. My heart thundered beneath my ribcage. Tonight was supposed to change everything.
It did.
Just not the way I had dreamed.
Standing across from me, Alpha Kael's eyes were hard as stone - the same eyes I used to lose myself in as a little girl. But tonight, there was no trace of warmth. Only resolve. It wasn't the man I had grown up admiring who stood before me. It was the Alpha - cold, distant, and cruel.
"I, Alpha Kael of the Silverfang Pack," he began, voice steady and emotionless, "reject you, Liora, as my mate."
The words punched the air from my lungs.
A collective gasp surged through the gathered wolves. My mother's hand flew to her mouth. I stood frozen, the earth trembling beneath my bare feet. No, this couldn't be happening. Not here, not now. My fingers trembled by my side, aching to hold on to something - anything - but there was nothing but empty air.
"I... I accept your rejection," I whispered. My voice cracked mid-sentence, barely carrying past my lips.
Pain split through my chest like lightning - the severing of the bond. It felt like dying. Like every fiber of my being had been torn from the inside out. My knees buckled, but I didn't fall. I wouldn't fall - not in front of them. I wouldn't give them that.
I looked up, forcing my eyes to meet the one who had shattered me. "Why?" I asked. The question sounded pitiful, but I needed to know.
Kael's jaw clenched. "Because you're weak. You're nothing but the daughter of a fallen Beta. You bring shame to this pack."
Shame? I had spent years training, healing others, holding my family together. And still... I was discarded like I never mattered.
Laughter bubbled from a group of she-wolves to Kael's right - women I had once considered sisters. They wore satisfied smirks, like they had just watched the final blow of a public execution. I felt my dignity slipping through my fingers.
But before I could speak again, a new voice cut through the air like thunder wrapped in silk.
"And yet," came the voice from behind the crowd, soft but unmistakably commanding, "the Moon thinks otherwise."
The Pack turned, parting like waves. From between the stunned faces stepped an old seer - cloaked in midnight blue, eyes glowing faintly silver. I had seen her once as a child, whispering riddles at my mother's bedside during her final illness. Many believed she had vanished into myth.
"She is chosen," the seer said, lifting a gnarled hand toward me. "Not by him. But by the Moon itself."
Silence fell so heavy it pressed on my chest.
A howl rose in the distance - long, haunting, ancient. It wasn't a call of mourning. It was something older. Something sacred.
Murm