Reborn as the Alpha’s Sassy Luna

Stories like this usually start differently. At least, the ones I used to binge-read the moment I got home from my miserable job did. You know the type—the heroine dies saving a child from an oncoming truck or sacrifices herself in some grand, noble act. Maybe extraordinary people deserve extraordinary endings, and pathetic people deserve pathetic ones. And boy, did I get a pathetic ending. I pound my chest in desperation as I sit at my old, worn-out kitchen table. Today was supposed to be peaceful. I was going to reread my favorite novel, eat fried chicken, and complain about my boring life—just like I did every Friday night. Instead, I’m desperately praying for air to reach my lungs. I slam my fist against my chest over and over, but the damn piece of chicken lodged in my throat refuses to budge. I can’t breathe. I try to cough and frantically reach for my phone to call emergency services, but my fingers are shaking so badly that it slips from my hand and crashes onto the floor, just out of reach. I’m completely alone. I live alone in this tiny apartment, where no one can hear me choking. No one’s going to kick down the door and save me. An unbearable pressure builds inside my head as my vision begins to blur, and panic consumes me completely. This is such a stupid way to die that I can barely believe it’s happening. I throw myself against the edge of the table, trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver on my own, but I’ve already lost what little strength I had left. The last bit of air leaves my lungs. My heart gives one final, painful thud before stopping altogether. My body collapses forward, face-first onto the cover of my favorite novel. The Alpha’s Humiliated Luna. And just like that, at twenty-seven years old, without accomplishing a single meaningful thing in my life, I, Emma Bennett, died. Choked to death by a fast-food combo meal. Pathetic. ⸻ Suddenly, I gasp for air as though I’ve been drowning for hours. My lungs fill completely, and the pain in my chest vanishes. “Aria, please, keep walking. Don’t make the groom angry. You know what he’s like,” an anxious voice whispers behind me, giving me a gentle push. I blink several times, completely disoriented. What the hell is going on? I’m not in my apartment anymore. There’s no smell of fried chicken. Instead, I’m standing on an impossibly long red carpet surrounded by towering stone walls that belong more in an ancient cathedral or a Gothic castle than anywhere else. Sunlight streams through magnificent stained-glass windows, bathing the entire hall in golden light. I look down and nearly have a heart attack. I’m not wearing my ratty pajamas. I’m wearing an enormous white wedding gown covered in heavy lace, its hem dragging across the floor, while a translucent veil conceals my face. I turn my head slightly to look at the person who spoke. She’s a young woman with short orange hair dressed in a green bridesmaid’s gown. Pure terror is written all over her face. She looks strangely familiar, but my brain is still struggling to process how I went from dying alone at my kitchen table to attending some aristocratic wedding ceremony. Is this a dream? Some weird hallucination my brain cooked up before shutting down for good? My feet begin moving toward the altar almost on their own as I look around. The cathedral is filled with guests, but they’re not ordinary people. The men are enormous, broad-shouldered, and intimidatingly handsome, while the women possess an untamed elegance. Every single one of them radiates a powerful, oppressive aura. They look like wolves. Human wolves. Exactly like the ones from the werewolf novels I used to read whenever I wanted to escape reality. I continue down the aisle until I reach the altar. That’s when I see him, the groom. Holy s**t. The man is unbelievably tall—I actually have to tilt my head back to look at him properly. His hair is as black as midnight, and his impossibly muscular frame strains against the fabric of his dark suit. When his eyes meet mine, they gleam with an unnatural shade of gold. He stares at me with undisguised contempt. Seriously, if looks could kill, I’d already be dead for the second time in less than five minutes. Up close, I notice that his canines are slightly longer than normal, peeking out from between his tightly pressed lips. He’s dangerously handsome—the kind of man who practically screams WARNING: LIFE-THREATENING. Suddenly, his golden eyes shift toward the pews on the right side of the cathedral. He’s looking at one of the guests—a breathtakingly beautiful she-wolf with platinum-blonde hair, a model’s figure, and an angelic smile that somehow manages to look fake at the same time. She smiles back at him sweetly, and the silent exchange between them is so intimate that something inside me suddenly clicks. That look of contempt directed at me, the terrified redhead behind me, the flawless blonde sitting in the front row, and the grumpy bastard with glowing golden eyes standing at the altar... An icy chill runs down my spine. I've seen this before. Not once or twice, but dozens of times over the past three months while obsessively rereading this novel . The redhead is Lily, my loyal maid . The blonde is Camille, the obsessive villainess. And the towering, perpetually pissed-off man standing before me is Ethan Blackwood, the Supreme Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack. An elderly priest clears his throat at the altar, shattering the sacred silence before solemnly reciting the wedding vows. “We are gathered here today to unite the sacred bond of the pack. Aria Sterling, do you willingly offer your life, your soul, and your unwavering devotion to become the Luna of—” The priest keeps talking, but I’ve stopped listening. The pieces fall perfectly into place. This isn’t a dream. Somehow—through the dumbest twist of fate imaginable—I transmigrated into my favorite novel. And I’m not some nameless background character who can quietly move to another city and live in peace. I’m the freaking heroine. The weak, naïve, crybaby heroine who spends three hundred chapters suffering abuse at the hands of this wolf before tragically sacrificing herself for him in the final chapter. I glance at Alpha Ethan, who’s watching me expectantly, waiting for me to lower my head and timidly say “I do” just like the original Aria would. I prick my finger with one of the decorative pins sewn into my dress to make sure I’m not dreaming. It hurts. This is real. I’m trapped here. “Oh, shit.” The words slip out before I can stop them, cutting the priest off mid-vow. The echo of my profanity reverberates throughout the enormous cathedral. The priest stares at me in horror, his mouth hanging open. The guests erupt into scandalized whispers. And Alpha Ethan’s golden eyes narrow dangerously as fury flashes across his face while everyone in the cathedral stares at me in stunned silence.