**Aria**
The scent hit me like a runaway horse—pine forests, thunderstorms, and something wild that made my knees weak. My wolf howled inside my head, screaming one word over and over: *MATE! MATE! MATE!*
Prince Zander stood frozen across the room, his green eyes wide with shock as he stared at me. Really stared at me, like he was seeing me for the first time ever. The room seemed to shrink until it was just us, connected by an invisible thread that pulled tight in my chest.
Then his perfect face twisted into something ugly—horror mixed with disgust.
"No," he said, loud enough that people nearby turned to look. "No, this is wrong."
I took a step forward, my body moving without my permission, drawn to him like a magnet. "You feel it too," I whispered, though somehow he heard me across the noisy room.
Prince Zander laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. It was cruel and sharp. "Feel it? I feel sick. The Moon Goddess must be playing a joke."
The room was getting quieter as more people noticed what was happening. Diana's face had gone from confident to confused to furious in about three seconds.
"Zander?" she said, her voice too high. "What's going on? I'm right here. I'm your mate, remember? We talked about this!"
"We talked about what YOU wanted," Prince Zander snapped at her, but his eyes stayed on me. Those green eyes that now looked at me like I was something gross he'd stepped in.
I finally found my voice. "We're mates," I said, louder this time. "The Moon Goddess—"
"The Moon Goddess made a mistake," Prince Zander interrupted. He walked toward me, and for one stupid second, I thought maybe he was coming to accept our bond. Instead, he stopped just far enough away that I couldn't touch him without reaching.
"Look at you," he said, his voice carrying across the now-silent ballroom. "You're an omega. The weakest of the weak. You're a servant who sleeps on floors and empties chamber pots. You smell like kitchen grease and dirt. You're nobody."
Each word hit me like a physical blow. I wanted to say something, to defend myself, but my throat closed up. Everyone was staring at us. I could see Stella in the crowd, her hands over her mouth in shock.
"But we're mates," I said weakly. "The bond—"
"The bond means nothing if I don't accept it," Prince Zander said coldly. "And I don't. I won't. I refuse to be tied to something as pathetic as you."
"Zander," Alpha King Marcus said warningly from his platform. "The mate bond is sacred—"
"Then the Moon Goddess should have thought of that before pairing me with this... this creature," Prince Zander spat. "She's not even a real wolf! She's barely more than human! Look at her!"
He was right, of course. I was small, weak-looking, covered in old scars from years of hard work. My dress was patched and gray. My hair was limp and brown. I was everything a future Alpha's mate shouldn't be.
But I was still his mate.
"Please," I heard myself say, and hated how desperate I sounded. "Just give me a chance. The bond exists for a reason—"
"The reason is to test me," Prince Zander said. "To see if I'm strong enough to reject weakness when I see it. And I am."
He took a deep breath, and I knew what was coming. My wolf whimpered inside me, trying to curl up and hide from what was about to happen.
"Don't," I whispered. "Please don't."
But Prince Zander's face was made of stone. He looked me straight in the eyes and spoke clearly so everyone in the room could hear:
"I, Prince Zander of the Shadow Creek Pack, reject you—what's your name again?"
The fact that he didn't even know my name hurt almost as much as what was coming.
"Luna," I said, my voice barely a whisper.
"I reject you, Luna, as my mate and future Luna of this pack. I sever the bond between us and cast you aside."
The pain was immediate and overwhelming. It felt like someone had reached into my chest and torn something vital away. I gasped, doubling over as agony ripped through every nerve. My wolf howled in anguish, and for a moment, I thought I might actually die right there on the ballroom floor.
Through the haze of pain, I heard gasps from the crowd. Rejections were rare, and public rejections were almost unheard of. This would be gossip for years.
"There," Prince Zander said, sounding satisfied. "It's done."
But something strange was happening. The pain was still there, but underneath it, something else was stirring. That tingling from before had become a burning, and the burning was becoming something else—power. Raw, wild power that felt like lightning in my veins.
*The spell breaks,* my wolf said, stronger now. *The rejection breaks mother's spell. We are free.*
Mother's spell? What—
Suddenly, memories that weren't quite mine flooded my mind. A beautiful woman with silver hair singing lullabies. A strong man with kind eyes teaching a little girl to track rabbits. A palace made of white stone. Screaming. Fire. Running.
*Remember who you are, little moon.*
"No," I gasped, but not from the rejection pain. Something inside me was unraveling, like a tight knot finally coming loose after years of being tied.
"Aw, is the little omega crying?" Diana's voice cut through my confusion. She'd moved to stand next to Prince Zander, her hand on his arm possessively. "How pathetic. Did you really think someone like you could be with someone like him?"
I looked up at her through my tears, and she actually stepped back. Something in my expression must have changed because she looked... scared?
"What's happening to her eyes?" someone in the crowd whispered.
I blinked, and suddenly I could see everything with crystal clarity. Every face in the crowd, every dust mote in the air, every flicker of candlelight. The gray of my vision was washing away, replaced by silver.
"I need to go," I said, standing up straighter. The pain was still there, but it was changing, morphing into something else.
"You're not dismissed, servant," Prince Zander said coldly. "You'll stay and finish your duties—"
"No."
The word came out with more force than I intended. Everyone gasped. No one said no to the Prince.
"What did you say?" Prince Zander's eyes flashed dangerously.
"I said no." I met his gaze steadily. "I'm done being your servant. I'm done being everyone's mudpuppy. I quit."
"You can't quit!" Garrett shouted from somewhere in the crowd. "Omegas can't just leave! You belong to the pack!"
"I belong to no one," I said, and my voice sounded different. Stronger. More like the voice in my memories—the voice of a little girl who once commanded respect.
"Guards!" Prince Zander barked. "Seize her!"
Two guards stepped forward, but I moved faster than I should have been able to. Omega reflexes were supposed to be slow, but I ducked under one guard's grab and spun away from the other like I'd been trained to fight.
Which, according to these new memories flooding in, I had been. By my father. The Alpha King of—
No. That couldn't be right. But the memories kept coming.
"Stop her!" Prince Zander commanded, and more guards joined the chase.
I ran. Not because I was scared (okay, I was a little scared), but because something inside me said it wasn't time yet. The spell wasn't fully broken. I needed to get away, to figure out what was happening to me.
I burst through the servant's entrance and ran down the familiar halls, my bare feet slapping against cold stone. Behind me, I could hear guards shouting and boots thundering. They were bigger and faster, but I knew these halls like the back of my hand. Every shortcut, every hidden passage, every—
I turned a corner and slammed straight into someone, bouncing off them like I'd hit a wall. I landed on my butt, looking up at the most massive man I'd ever seen. He had to be seven feet tall, with shoulders so broad he blocked the entire hallway. His hair was black as midnight, and his eyes...
His eyes were amber gold, and they were glowing.
"Interesting," he said in a voice like distant thunder. "A servant causing quite the commotion at the Prince's ceremony."
"Please," I gasped, scrambling to my feet. "I need to get past. They're coming—"
"The guards? Yes, I can hear them." He tilted his head, studying me with those strange golden eyes. "You're the omega who was just rejected."
Heat flooded my face. "How did you—were you watching?"
"I see everything that happens in allied territories," he said cryptically. "Especially things that shouldn't be possible."
"What?"
"Your eyes, little wolf. They're silver. Omegas don't have silver eyes."
Before I could respond, the guards rounded the corner behind me. "There she is! Stop right there, omega!"
The massive man stepped forward, putting himself between me and the guards. "Is there a problem, gentlemen?"
The guards skidded to a stop. One of them actually whimpered.
"King Raven," the lead guard stammered. "We didn't—we apologize for the disturbance. The omega is—"
"Under my protection," King Raven said calmly.
What? I stared at the back of his head in shock. This was King Raven? The Cursed Alpha of the Nightfall Pack? The one everyone whispered about but no one had actually seen?
"But sir," the guard said carefully, "Prince Zander ordered—"
"Prince Zander rejected her publicly, did he not?" King Raven's voice had gone dangerously soft. "That means she's no longer bound to your pack. She's free to leave. And I'm choosing to ensure she does so safely."
"The Alpha King will hear about this," the guard warned.
King Raven laughed, and the sound made the windows rattle. "Please, do tell Marcus I said hello. Now go, before I decide your Prince's public rejection of a sacred mate bond deserves... punishment."
The guards ran. Actually ran, like scared puppies.
King Raven turned to face me, and I got my first good look at the infamous Cursed Alpha. He was handsome in a dangerous way, with sharp cheekbones and a jaw that could cut glass. But there was something sad in those golden eyes, something broken.
"You're not an omega," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I—I don't know what you mean—"
"Your scent is masked by magic, but it's failing. Your eyes are turning silver. You moved like a trained warrior, not a servant." He stepped closer, and I caught his scent—dark forests and winter nights and something wild that made my wolf perk up despite everything. "So I'll ask you again, little wolf. What are you?"
The tingling had become a full-body burn now. My skin felt like it was going to split open. The memories were coming faster—a kingdom by the sea, parents who loved me, an aunt with cruel eyes, running through the forest as everything burned behind me.
"I don't know," I said honestly, then gasped as pain lanced through my skull. "I can't—something's happening—"
"The spell," King Raven said, his eyes widening in recognition. "Someone put a concealment spell on you. A powerful one. The rejection broke it, but your body's fighting the change."
"It hurts," I whimpered, falling to my knees as agony ripped through me.
"It will," he said, kneeling beside me. "Thirteen years of suppressed power doesn't release gently. You need help, or it'll tear you apart."
"Why—why do you care?" I gasped out between waves of pain.
He was quiet for a moment, then said softly, "Because I know what it's like to be cursed. And because..." He paused, his nostrils flaring as he took in my changing scent. "Impossible."
"What?"
But before he could answer, my vision went white. Power exploded out of me in a visible wave, shattering every window in the hallway. The last thing I heard before I passed out was King Raven cursing in a language I didn't recognize.
The last thing I felt was strong arms catching me before I hit the ground.
—