Reborn as the White Wolf Queen

Ashley The scent of pine and rain usually brought me peace. Tonight, it felt like a funeral shroud. I stood at the edge of the Moonstone Altar, the sacred ground where the pack gathered under the Blood Moon. This was the Luna Ceremony. My ceremony. I was the fated mate of Kael Blackwood, Alpha of the Silver Crescent Pack. Or at least, I was supposed to be. Before me, Kael stood in his ceremonial robes, his broad shoulders bathed in the ethereal silver light of the Moon Goddess. But his gaze wasn't on me. He held the ancient Luna’s Ring—a relic carved from the bone of the first Luna—and was sliding it onto the finger of another woman. Fina. My adopted sister. The one whose sickeningly sweet scent of roses always carried a faint, rotten undertone only I seemed to notice. "A wolfless omega can't shoulder the weight of a Luna," Kael’s voice boomed, carrying across the silent clearing. He didn't even look at me. His eyes were locked on Fina's flushed face. "Ashley is a defective. Fina, with her pure Alpha bloodline, is the only one fit to be my true Luna." The pack erupted in low murmurs, but no one stepped forward to defend me. *Reject him,* a voice whispered in my mind. Not my inner wolf—she had been dormant since birth, the reason they called me a wolfless freak—but the ghost of a memory. Because I had lived this nightmare before. In my past life, I had stood here paralyzed by the mate bond, begging him to choose me. I had let him complete the bond later in secret, only to become a walking blood bag. Fina’s "pure bloodline" was a lie. Her inner wolf was decaying, and Kael had used our mate bond to siphon my life force, my very essence, to keep his precious Fina alive. I had died a husk, forced to watch Fina’s son torment my own pup because he inherited my "impure" blood. *Never again.* I blinked against the sudden onslaught of the memory, the phantom pain of my pup’s cries still echoing in my ears. I drew in a shaky breath, the crisp night air filling my lungs. I was back. The Goddess had spun the wheel of time, dropping me right back to the moment of my execution. "I, Kael Blackwood, Alpha of the Silver Crescent Pack—" Kael began, his jaw tight as he finally turned his cold, silver eyes toward me. "—reject you, Ashley, as my fated mate and Luna." The words hit me like a silver bullet to the chest. The mate bond—a literal tether of energy tying my soul to his—snapped. White-hot agony ripped through my veins. My knees buckled as I coughed, the metallic taste of blood flooding my mouth. But I didn't fall. I wiped the blood from my lips with the back of my hand, my nails biting into my palms. *Fight.* As the Goddess’s light cascaded over us, sealing his rejection, I reached into the folds of my dress. My fingers wrapped around the hilt of a silver dagger. The metal burned against my skin—a reminder of the curse of our kind—but the physical pain grounded me. I raised the blade, the silver catching the moonlight. Gasps rippled through the pack as I pressed the tip directly into the center of my left palm, right over the crescent-shaped mate mark that tied me to Kael. "Ashley! What the hell are you doing?!" Kael barked, taking a step forward. I didn't answer. I drove the dagger through the flesh. *Shhhhk.* The pain was blinding, but I forced a smile. I twisted the blade, obliterating the mark. "I, Ashley," I breathed, my voice trembling but carrying an undeniable edge of steel, "refuse to submit to fate. I accept your rejection, Kael, and sever this bond." The magical backlash was instantaneous. Since I had willingly severed a bond he initiated, the Goddess’s law demanded a toll. Kael gasped, staggering backward as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a rogue bear. His wolf form vibrated violently beneath his skin, trying to force a shift, and a thick stream of dark blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. "Ashley, have you lost your damn mind?" Kael roared, clutching his chest. I yanked the dagger from my hand, letting the blood drip onto the sacred stone. "I’ve never been more lucid, Kael. I’m done being your stepping stone." Fina shrieked, instantly clinging to Kael’s arm. "Ashley! How could you do this to Alpha Kael?" she cried, her voice trembling with manufactured tears. "He is the Alpha! You’re just a wolfless omega, a burden! How dare you defy the Moon Goddess's will?" *There it is,* I thought. *The helpless victim act.* Kael’s eyes flashed with his Alpha aura, a heavy, suffocating pressure that forced the weaker wolves in the pack to drop to their knees. He directed it entirely at me. "Playing hard to get?" he sneered, wiping the blood from his chin. "You think a pathetic stunt like this will make me realize your worth? Make me beg for you to be my Luna? You’re nothing without me, Ashley. Your wolf is dead, your blood is weak. You’re only fit to serve Fina!" The Alpha command pressed against my skull like a vice. Without a wolf to shield me, my human bones groaned under the pressure. But I refused to kneel. I pulled a leather cord from my neck. Dangling from it was the Wolf-bone Key—the relic my parents had earned by dying for this very pack in the border wars. "I don't want you, Kael," I spat, throwing the heavy bone relic directly at his face. It grazed his cheek, leaving a thin, bloody scratch before clattering onto the altar. "My parents died for this pack. You’ve repaid their sacrifice with betrayal. We are even. I am no longer Silver Crescent." Silence fell over the clearing. The tension in the air could have snapped bone. Then, a low, dark chuckle rumbled from the shadows beyond the altar. The sound didn't just vibrate in the air; it vibrated in our chests. A massive figure stepped into the moonlight. Blake. The Rogue King. Alpha of the Obsidian Pack, a man who had built an empire out of castaways and killers. He didn't even need to flare his aura. The sheer, suffocating scent of ozone, blood, and dark cedar rolled off him in waves, instantly crushing Kael’s pathetic Alpha presence into nothing. The pressure on my chest vanished. Blake walked up the steps with the lazy, predatory grace of an apex predator. He didn't even look at Kael or Fina. He bent down, picked up the bone key, and brushed the dirt off it with a massive, scarred thumb. Then, he turned to me. His eyes were pure, molten gold. Without a word, his large, warm hand clamped around my waist, pulling my bruised and battered body flush against his solid chest. Heat seeped through my thin dress. He tilted his head toward Kael, a dark, lethal smile curving his lips. "Your 'defective' omega, Kael," Blake’s voice was a deep, guttural purr that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "From this moment on, she is my Queen."