The Alpha’s Discarded Oracle

The divorce papers smelled like his cologne. Seraphine stared at the documents on the marble table, her fingers tracing the edge without touching them. Three years. Three years of waking before dawn to manage pack logistics, of smoothing over Darian’s political wars with a smile, of sleeping on the cold far edge of a bed that never felt like hers. Three years, and he hadn’t even delivered them himself. His beta, Colt, stood by the door with the decency to look uncomfortable. The Alpha requests you vacate the east wing by morning. The Alpha. She tasted the words. Bitter. Final. Seraphine. Tell him I said congratulations. She picked up the pen. On finding someone worthy. Her hand didn’t shake. She was proud of that. She signed. The bond snapped like a wire pulled too tight, a white-hot slice through her chest that stole her breath completely. She gripped the table edge, knuckles pale, and forced herself upright. Forced her face into something neutral. Colt was still watching. She would not collapse in front of Colt. I’ll be gone by dawn, she said. She was gone by midnight...................... The road out of Blackmoor territory was long and unlit. Seraphine walked it with one bag on her shoulder and the bond scar throbbing beneath her collarbone like a fresh burn. The rejection had made it physical, a dark crescent mark that hadn’t been there three hours ago, already visible above her neckline. Discarded. The word followed her down the road like a second shadow. She didn’t know where she was going. Her family pack was three territories over and her father had given her to Darian’s contract like a business transaction. She had no illusions about the welcome she’d receive there. The small amount of money in her account was hers at least. She’d made sure of that quietly, months ago, when she first noticed the way Darian looked at Lyra Ashwood. She hadn’t let herself admit what she was preparing for. Now the night air hit her face and she finally, finally let herself feel it. He chose her. The grief was enormous and shapeless and she swallowed it back down before it could reach her eyes. Crying on the road in the dark was how you got caught. She kept walking. She was two miles past the territory border when the headache started. Not a normal headache. Something deeper, something that moved behind her eyes like a tide coming in wrong. She pressed her fingers to her temple and kept moving but the pressure built fast, too fast, climbing from discomfort to agony in seconds. She stumbled off the road into the treeline. The world tilted. The trees blurred. And then, between one breath and the next, she saw something that wasn’t there. A man, tall, silver-haired, standing in a burned clearing she didn’t recognize. He was looking directly at her. His mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear the words. Then he smiled. The vision shattered. Seraphine hit her knees in the dirt, gasping. Her hands were shaking now, the composure she’d held so carefully through the signing, through Colt’s pity, through two miles of dark road, crumbling all at once. Her nose was bleeding. She stared at the blood on her fingers. What is happening to me. A twig snapped somewhere behind her in the trees. She went very still. The sound of breathing, slow, deliberate, the kind that wanted to be heard, moved closer through the dark. Interesting, said a voice she didn’t recognize. Low. Unhurried. Like someone who had been waiting. A rejected Luna, bleeding on the border of Blackmoor territory. A pause. And glowing. Seraphine looked down at her hands. Silver light was bleeding from her skin like moonlight through a crack. I’m not, she started. You’re an Oracle, the voice said simply. And every Alpha on this continent is about to want you dead. A figure stepped out of the trees. She scrambled to her feet, backing against the nearest trunk, heart slamming against her ribs. He was watching her the way you watched something rare and dangerous. Or, he said, tilting his head. You could come with me............. She had one second to decide.