Rejected Once, Claimed Twice

The Pull

I waited until the moon was high before moving closer.

The pack house lights glowed warmly in the distance, but I kept to the tree line, using every skill Raven had beaten into me. My footsteps made no sound. My scent was carefully masked with crushed pine and earth. To anyone watching from a distance, I was just another shadow among many.

Still, the closer I drew, the stronger the strange pressure in my chest became.

It wasn’t the full, living mate bond I had felt for those few precious seconds three years ago. This was something fractured and restless — a dull ache that pulsed in time with my heartbeat, as if the broken pieces were trying to reach for something just out of range.

I hated it.

I hated that any part of me still reacted to this place. To him.

I stopped on a low rise that gave me a clear view of the training grounds behind the main house. Even at this hour, a few wolves were sparring under lantern light. Their movements were sharp, disciplined. The Silver Moon Pack had grown stronger in my absence. That much was obvious.

Then I saw him.

Asher stood at the edge of the grounds, arms crossed, watching the fighters with the same intense focus I remembered. He was taller than I recalled, broader through the shoulders. The boy who had rejected me was gone. In his place stood an Alpha — powerful, controlled, and radiating an authority that made the air itself feel heavier.

His dark hair was shorter now. A thin scar cut across one eyebrow. He wore a simple black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and even from this distance I could see the tension in his posture.

My wolf stirred restlessly inside me.

I forced her down.

I had not come this far to lose myself at the first sight of him.

Asher suddenly lifted his head, nostrils flaring. His golden eyes scanned the tree line with sharp precision. For a moment they seemed to lock in my direction.

My body went completely still.

The fractured bond in my chest flared hot and sharp, like a spark landing on dry tinder. I clenched my jaw and held my breath, every muscle locked in place.

Asher’s brow furrowed. He took one step toward the trees, then another.

A voice called his name from the training grounds. One of the warriors. Asher hesitated, still staring into the darkness where I stood, before turning away with clear reluctance.

Only when he walked back toward the others did I allow myself to breathe again.

My hands were steady, but my pulse was not.

He had sensed something.

Not me specifically — not yet — but the bond had reached for him the same way it had reached for me.

I slipped deeper into the shadows and put more distance between us, heart beating too fast for my liking.

This was going to be harder than I had planned.

I found a secure place to rest for a few hours before dawn, high in the branches of an old oak. Sleep came in fragments. Every time I closed my eyes I saw golden irises scanning the dark, searching.

When the sky began to lighten, I climbed down and moved toward the eastern edge of the territory, where the smaller residential cabins stood. I needed information. I needed to know the current state of the pack, who held power, and whether my sister still stood at Asher’s side.

I didn’t have to wait long.

Two women walked past on the path below, speaking in low voices. I recognized neither of them, but their conversation stopped me cold.

“…Alpha’s temper is getting worse. The elders are worried.”

“He hasn’t been the same since the last full moon. Some say the bond sickness is finally catching up to him.”

“Bond sickness? He rejected his mate years ago.”

“Exactly. And everyone knows a rejected Alpha doesn’t stay stable forever. Especially not one as strong as him. There’s talk of the prophecy again—”

Their voices faded as they moved out of range.

I leaned back against the tree trunk, mind racing.

Bond sickness.

Prophecy.

Asher was suffering.

A cold, bitter part of me felt a dark satisfaction at the news. The rest of me felt something more complicated that I refused to name.

I had come back to make him regret what he had done.

I had not expected to find him already paying a price.

The fractured bond in my chest pulsed once, almost like a question.

I ignored it and started walking again, deeper into the territory than I had planned.

If the Alpha of Silver Moon was becoming unstable, then the entire pack was standing on uncertain ground.

And I had just walked back into the middle of it.