The moonlight cast a silver glow over the stone courtyard, but there was no warmth in it. Only cold silence. I stood barefoot on the rough ground, trembling in a thin nightdress, surrounded by wolves who refused to look me in the eye. They'd brought me here like a criminal.
The Alpha's mating ceremony had ended hours ago. The laughter, the drums, the celebration — none of it had been for me. I wasn't his Luna. I was nothing.
Footsteps echoed. Heavy. Commanding. The air shifted with his presence before I even turned.
Alpha Damien Blackthorn.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with pitch-black hair and eyes like winter frost. His power rolled off him like a storm, sending shivers through my bones. He stopped a few feet from me, arms crossed over his tailored black shirt, his jaw tight with disgust.
"Celia Moonstone." His voice held no emotion. Just a sentence waiting to be passed.
I swallowed, head bowed, heart pounding. My wolf whimpered inside me.
"You are my mate." His words were a slash through the silence.
Gasps rippled through the gathered pack. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
But then came the second blow.
"And I reject you."
Pain. White-hot. Like my soul had torn in half. My knees buckled. I fell.
Rejected.
The bond that had barely begun to bloom shattered like glass. My chest heaved. My vision blurred. I tried to speak, to ask why, but no words came. My wolf howled in agony, clawing at my insides.
"I will not take a lowborn, powerless omega as Luna of the Blackthorn Pack," he said, voice sharp and public. "You are dismissed. Leave this territory before dawn."
I stared at him, struggling to breathe. I was nineteen. I hadn't even known I had a mate. They'd kept me hidden, preparing me to serve as nothing more than a breeder.
But this?
This was humiliation.
The pack parted as I crawled to my feet. No one helped. No one looked at me. Not even my cousin Liora, who once swore she'd protect me.
Tears burned, but I refused to cry. Not here. Not for him.
I walked.
Away from the man the Moon Goddess had chosen for me.
Away from the life I was told I was born to serve.
Into the woods. Into the dark.
---
The forest was alive with danger. Crickets. Cracking branches. Distant howls.
I didn't know where I was going. I didn't care.
Branches slashed my skin. Blood mixed with tears. I kept running. I had nothing — no family, no rank, no protection.
And then the pain started.
Lower abdomen. Tight. Sharp. Deep.
I collapsed under a tree, clutching my stomach, the moon above me turning crimson in my blurred vision.
Heat.
No, not heat. Something else. A pull.
My wolf stirred.
Pregnant.
The scent hit me then. Faint, but familiar. I had smelled it before, weeks ago. The night I was taken to serve a visiting alpha. The one night I was drugged and given to someone else.
Not Damien.
Another alpha. Taller. Colder. Golden-eyed.
The Lycan King.
My hand trembled over my stomach.
And I understood.
The baby inside me wasn't Damien's.
It was his enemy's.
---
I groaned as my vision blurred again.
Memories poured in — days ago, or maybe a week. Time had blurred in that dungeon.
I had been dragged there, stripped of dignity. Locked beneath the packhouse in a cell made of silver bars. No light. No food. Just pain.
Damien had come down once. Looked at me like I was filth.
"Be grateful, Celia. You get to serve your pack before I cast you out."
They drugged me that night. I remember the burn in my veins. The cold hands. The way my limbs refused to move.
And the scent. Strong. Dominant. Not Damien's.
He had brought in someone else. For what? A ritual? A punishment?
That night changed everything.
Then, they left me there — for days. Until today, when they brought me out. Dressed me in white. Paraded me like an offering.
Only to humiliate me before the pack.
Only to reject me.
---
The sound of a river nearby snapped me back to the present. I forced myself to stand, knowing I had to keep moving. I had until dawn to leave Blackthorn territory or be hunted.
Pregnant. Rejected. Alone.
But something inside me flickered — not quite hope, not yet. Just survival.
"I'll live," I whispered. "Even if it kills me."
I didn't know that by morning, I would collapse at the feet of the Lycan King himself.
And that he would save me.
Or claim me.