THE ALPHA'S FORGOTTEN WHITE WOLF

My name is Elara Stone and I am the only nineteen year old in Black Moon Pack who has never shifted. In our pack, that is the same as being dead. If you cannot shift by sixteen, you are defective. If you cannot shift by eighteen, you are cursed. If you cannot shift by nineteen, you are nothing. I have been nothing for three years. Tonight was the Mating Ball. Every unmated she wolf between eighteen and twenty one was required to attend. The Great Hall was decorated with moon flowers and silver lanterns. The elders burned sage and rosemary to honor the Moon Goddess. The Alpha family sat on the high platform, and the smell of roasted meat and fresh bread filled the air. It was supposed to be the most beautiful night of my life. The night the Goddess shows you your fated mate. The night your wolf finally finds her other half. But I did not have a wolf. Not really. I had heard her once when I was fourteen, in a fever dream. Her voice was soft and ancient, like snow falling on a lake. She said her name was Seraphine and she told me to wait. I have been waiting for five years. Sometimes I thought I imagined her. I stood at the back of the hall near the kitchen doors where the Omegas serve. I was wearing a borrowed dress. It was light blue, made of thin silk, two sizes too big for my body. My mother Lyra had borrowed it from the Beta's housekeeper. Lyra is the pack healer. She spends her days healing wounds and delivering pups and making teas for sick elders, but she is still an Omega, the lowest rank. After my father died in the border war, we became even lower. The healer and her wolfless daughter. Everyone pitied us, and pity in Black Moon Pack quickly turns to cruelty. My hair is long and black as raven feathers. I keep it down because there is a hidden silver streak at the back that I do not want people to see. They already call me cursed. My eyes are ice blue, too pale, too strange. My skin is pale and I have a small crescent shaped scar on my collarbone. I was born with it. My mother said it was a blessing mark. The other girls said it was where the Moon Goddess tried to erase me and failed. Elara you should not be here. I turned. Jenna stood behind me with two of her friends. Jenna is the Beta's daughter, twenty years old, already shifted, beautiful with golden hair and a wolf that is pure brown. She has hated me since we were children. Tonight is for real wolves, she whispered with a sweet smile. What if your mate smells you and runs away. What if he smells that you have no wolf. You will embarrass your mother again. I held my dress tighter. I did not answer. If you answer Jenna, she wins. If you do not answer, she still wins. That is how it works when you are an Omega. I just wanted to get through tonight. Find a corner. Let the Goddess decide I have no mate. Then go home. But the Goddess had other plans. The great wooden doors opened. The wind came in first, cold from the mountains. Then silence fell over the hall like a blanket. Every head turned. Alpha Kian Black had arrived. He is twenty four years old and he is the reason girls in our pack pray at night. He is six foot three, built like a warrior from the old stories. Broad shoulders, black hair that is always a little messy, amber eyes that glow when he is angry, which is almost always. He has a thin scar on his jaw from a rogue fight in the Northern Territory. He is the son of Alpha King Magnus, the most powerful Alpha in the entire region, and he is already Alpha of Black Moon. He took over from his father last winter. He is ruthless. Everyone knows it. He once banished a whole family for stealing food during the famine. He once killed a rogue with his bare hands when his wolf was not enough. He is cold, dominant, and he never smiles. But he is also the strongest Lycan blood in a hundred years. Every unmated female in this hall dreams of him. Even though everyone knows he does not want a mate. He has said it many times. He wants power, not love. My heart stopped when I saw him. Because the second his amber eyes landed on mine, my soul exploded. The mate bond. It was not soft like in the stories. It was violent. It was like being struck by lightning and drowning at the same time. A white hot chain shot from my chest to his. My nose filled with his scent, pine and fresh snow and something wild and dark that was just Kian. My legs went weak. My hands started to shake. Mate. The word was not mine. It was inside me, ancient and powerful and howling. Seraphine. She woke up. For the first time in five years, I heard her clearly. She was not soft anymore. She was roaring. Mate. Our mate. Our Alpha. I gasped. My eyes flooded with tears. I have a mate. I am not defective. The Moon Goddess did not forget me. Kian stopped walking. He froze in the middle of the aisle. His eyes were locked on mine. His nostrils flared. His whole body went rigid. I saw his hands curl into fists. He smelled it too. He felt it too. He started walking towards me. The crowd parted without him saying a word. Girls moved out of his way, their faces filled with jealousy and shock as they realized where he was going. To the back. To the kitchen doors. To me. He stopped right in front of me. So close I could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the way his amber eyes had flecks of gold, the way his chest rose and fell fast. He was breathing hard. He looked down at me, at my face, at my scar. I could see his wolf fighting behind his eyes. Lycan. Huge and black and angry. Then his expression changed. It twisted from shock to disbelief to pure disgust. Impossible, he whispered. So low only I could hear it. His voice was rough, broken. You. I tried to smile. My lips trembled. I reached out without thinking. My fingers almost touched his arm. Kian. Do not say my name. His voice was no longer a whisper. It was a growl that made the lanterns shake. The entire hall went dead silent. Even the elders on the high platform stood up. I flinched. My hand dropped. He stepped back from me like I was poison. Like my touch would contaminate him. He looked at me up and down, at my borrowed dress, at my thin body, at my eyes that were now full of tears. And then he did it. He lifted his chin and spoke loud enough for every single wolf in Black Moon Pack to hear. His Alpha voice, the voice that makes even Betas kneel. I Kian Black Alpha of Black Moon Pack reject you Elara Stone as my fated mate and as my Luna. The world ended. The bond snapped. I have heard that rejection hurts. That it is like heartbreak. That is a lie. Rejection is death. It is your soul being ripped out of your body with a blunt knife. It is every nerve ending being set on fire. It is your wolf being murdered inside you. I screamed. I did not mean to. The sound tore out of my throat, raw and animal. My knees hit the stone floor hard. I clutched my chest. I could not breathe. Blood ran from my nose onto my blue dress. My vision went white. Seraphine howled inside me, a sound so painful I thought my skull would split. No. No. No. Mate. Please. Someone laughed. It was Jenna. Then another girl laughed. Then the whole hall laughed. The sound echoed off the stone walls. Wolfless trash thought she could be Luna. Of course the Moon Goddess would punish him with her. Look at her, bleeding like a human. My mother screamed. I heard Lyra from the back. Elara. My daughter. Let me go. Please let me go to her. But the warriors held her back. They held my dying mother back while I lay dying on the floor. Kian did not move to help me. He stood over me, his face like stone, but his eyes, his amber eyes were wide and his fists were shaking. For a second I thought I saw pain there. Regret. But it vanished as fast as it came. He leaned down, just enough so only I could hear. You are no Luna. You are nothing. You are a wolfless Omega and you will never be worthy of an Alpha. You are banished from Black Moon Pack. If I see you past our border by sunrise, I will kill you myself. Do you understand. I could not answer. I was choking on blood and tears. He stood up and walked away. He did not look back once. He walked straight to the high platform, sat on his Alpha chair, and picked up his wine as if nothing had happened. The music started again. The ball continued. I lay on the floor, alone. Lyra finally broke free and ran to me. She knelt and pulled me into her arms. She was crying, her hands shaking as she tried to wipe the blood from my face with her healer hands. But even her healing could not heal a rejected bond. We have to go, my love. We have to go now. She helped me stand. My legs could barely hold me. We walked out of the Great Hall, through the kitchen doors, past the laughing faces, past the guards who would not look at us. No one stopped us. No one helped us. Outside, the snow was falling hard. It was deep winter. The Forbidden Forest bordered our territory to the north. No one goes there. It is cursed, full of rogues and old magic and things that eat wolves. That is where I went to die. I could not stay in the pack house. My mother packed a small bag with bread and a blanket and cried the whole time. She kissed my forehead. Her own face was pale. She has been sick for months, coughing blood when she thinks I am not looking. Go to the lake, she whispered. The Ghost Lake in the middle of the forest. The old healer used to live there. She will hide you. You are strong, Elara. You are my strong girl. I hugged her one last time and walked into the snow in my bloody blue dress. The cold was brutal. It bit my feet through my thin shoes. The wind cut my face. I walked for hours, until the lights of Black Moon village were gone, until the trees became tall and black and ancient. The Forbidden Forest. I fell to my knees by a frozen lake. The moon was full and bright above me, reflecting on the ice. I was bleeding, freezing, rejected, banished, wolfless. I had nothing left. I looked up at the moon and I did something I had never done before. I cursed the Moon Goddess. Why did you give me a mate if you knew he would reject me. Why did you give me a wolf if you never let her shift. Why did you make me like this. And then, in the silence of the snow and the moonlight, something answered. It was not the Goddess. It was Seraphine. She did not howl in pain this time. She rose. Inside my chest, like a second heart that had finally started beating, she rose with power that made the snow around me melt. Enough, she said. And her voice was not soft. It was queenly. It was ancient and furious and beautiful. Enough crying, my little one. Let them think we died. Let them think the wolfless Omega died in the snow tonight. My body started to burn. Not with pain. With power. I looked down at my hands. My black hair was turning. The silver streak spread, fast, like frost, until my entire head of hair was pure white, white as moonlight on snow. My pale skin began to glow. My ice blue eyes flashed and turned moon white, glowing so bright the whole lake lit up. The crescent scar on my collarbone burned and then shone like real silver. I stood up in the snow, no longer cold. I was still Elara Stone, the rejected Omega. But I was also something else. I was the last White Wolf. And I was done begging.