REJECTED BY THE ALPHA, DESIRED BY THE KING

The mirror in the attic room was cracked across the bottom left corner, forcing Aria to tilt her head just to see her own collarbone. The dress was wrong. It was a faded, off-white linen thing she had borrowed from Martha, the old cook who ran the packhouse kitchen. It smelled faintly of pork fat and harsh laundry bleach, no matter how many times Aria had scrubbed it in the deep concrete tub in the basement. The sleeves were a little too loose around her wrists, and the hem dragged in the dust of the floorboards, but it was the only clean thing she owned that didn't look like an oversized grey sweatshirt. "You're shaking, girl," a heavy voice said from the doorway. Martha was leaning against the oak frame, her thick hands tucked deep into the grease-stained pockets of her canvas apron. Her wolf was old, graying heavily at the muzzle, and she carried the comforting, heavy scent of fried dough, chicory, and woodsmoke. She was one of the few people in the Blood Moon pack who didn't look at Aria like she was a stain on the floorboards. "It’s just cold up here," Aria lied. She smoothed the front of the skirt, her palms damp against the rough fabric. "The wind comes right through the slats under the eaves." "It’s not the cold, and you know it." Martha walked into the small room, the old pine floorboards groaning under her weight. She stopped right behind Aria, looking at their joined reflection in the ruined glass. "Damien’s been locked in the study with the elders since five this morning. They brought the heavy leather ledger books, Aria." Aria’s stomach gave a sharp, uncomfortable twitch. "The lineage logs." "Aye. The ones with the gold seals." Martha took a thick wooden brush from the top of the dresser and began working through the tangles in Aria's hair. "They're looking at the eastern borders. The North Ridge pack is moving closer every night. Damien is twenty-four. He’s been Alpha for two years now, but the young males are getting restless. They want a Luna who can run the perimeter. They want a wolf who can bite." "I have a wolf," Aria whispered, her voice sounding small and paper-thin even to herself. "She's just... quiet. Dr. Evans said some bloodlines take until twenty-one to fully wake up." "A normal pack wolf sparks at sixteen," Martha said** bluntly. "An Alpha's true mate sparks by fourteen. You're nineteen, Aria. Tonight is the Blood Moon ceremony. If your wolf doesn't show herself when the moonlight hits the central stone, Damien has to make a choice. And he’s an Alpha before he’s a man. Don't you ever forget that." Aria looked down at her hands. Her fingers were short, her nails trimmed brief from working the scullery, completely lacking the thick, lethal claws that Tanya or the other warrior females could sprout with a simple thought. Beneath the cheap fabric of her skirt, her fingers traced the slight curve of her hip. She hadn't told Martha yet. She hadn't told a soul. For the past three weeks, her body hadn't felt like her own. There was no silver heat in her veins, no growl rising in her throat. Instead, there was a strange, deep, heavy stillness right behind her navel. Two days ago, she had missed her monthly cycle completely. This was the mate bond. Three months ago, during the summer solstice, Damien had taken her to the small cabin by the upper lake, far away from the elders and his uncle's watchful eyes. He had held her face in his massive hands, his skin hot enough to burn, and told her she was his entire world. He had loved her under the dark pines, leaving a faint mark that had taken two weeks to fade because her human skin didn't heal within hours like a shifter's. I carry his pup, she thought, her heart hammering against her ribs. A real shifter pup. I can feel the weight of him. "He won't leave me," Aria said aloud. "He promised me by the lake." Martha stopped brushing. She met Aria's eyes in the cracked mirror, her expression full of a heavy, dark pity. "Promises made in the dark don't mean a damn thing when the sun comes up, child. Go on down to the courtyard. They're already lighting the torches." ------------------------------ The stairs leading down from the attic were narrow and steep. Aria held the rough wooden railing tightly. When she reached the back hallway of the kitchen, the heat hit her first. Huge silver pots of boiling potatoes and roasted deer meat were steaming up the windows, but underneath lay the raw, musky scent of the pack. To Aria, it felt like standing too close to a roaring furnace. Aria took a deep breath and stepped through the back door into the open air. The courtyard was a wide, gravel-covered expanse. The sun had already dipped below the ridge, leaving the sky a deep, bruised purple. Huge iron basins filled with cedar logs and pitch had been set up in a wide circle, and young omegas were running around with burning torches, setting the wood ablaze. Aria tried to make herself as small as possible as she drifted toward the edge of the kitchen awning. She didn't belong in the center of the yard. "Well, look what crawled out of the rafters," a sharp voice sneered from her left. It was Tanya. The Beta’s sister was standing by the stone well, wearing a deep crimson dress that revealed the jagged silver scars on her thighs—reminders of the border clash with the North Ridge pack. She wore those scars like diamonds. "I thought Alpha Damien told you to stay in the kitchen tonight, Aria," Tanya said, stepping forward with predatory grace. "Or did you think the moon was going to magically give you a tail if you stood out in the dirt long enough?" The girls behind Tanya chuckled in the orange torchlight. "I have a right to be here," Aria said, keeping her chin up. "Every member of the Blood Moon pack attends the solstice ritual." "Member?" Tanya laughed. "An omega who can't even shift isn't a member, Aria. You’re a charity case. Your father happened to take a claw to the throat for the old Alpha, but that credit ran out a long time ago." Tanya stepped closer, deliberately releasing a wave of her dominant wolf scent. It was heavy, sour with aggression, and smelled like burnt copper. To Aria, the scent felt like an invisible hand pressing down on her windpipe. "Damien hasn't complained about my scent," Aria whispered, her voice tight but steady. Tanya’s eyes narrowed into slits, the silver around her pupils flaring with sudden heat. "Don't you use his name like you own it, human. You smell like plain water, Aria. You’re empty. Tonight, he takes a real mate. He’s not going to ruin his lineage with a broken human who will die the first time a rogue decides to raid the eastern wall." Before Aria could reply, a sudden, heavy silence fell over the entire courtyard. The whispering stopped instantly. The heavy oak doors of the main packhouse swung open. Alpha Damien stepped out onto the wide stone porch, completely alone. ------------------------------ Damien stood on the top step in his black leather jacket, dark jeans, and heavy work boots. He looked massive, his features hacked out of granite, and his eyes were a bright, piercing silver—the terrifying mark of the Blood Moon Alpha bloodline. He didn't look toward the kitchen. He walked down the steps, his boots crunching loudly in the quiet yard, and headed straight for the central stone altar where his uncle stood with a clay bowl filled with thick, red pine sap. Damien dipped his thick fingers into the sap. When he turned around to face the crowd, his silver eyes swept over the ranks of warriors, finally locking onto Aria. For a fraction of a second, the coldness in Damien's face cracked. Aria felt a sudden, heavy tug at the center of her chest. The golden thread of the mate bond twitched violently, trying to pull him toward her. She took a step out from under the awning, her hand moving toward her stomach. Look at me. Remember the lake. But Damien’s jaw hardened. He looked past her, his gaze settling squarely on Tanya. Tanya immediately straightened her spine, her chest heaving with pride. Right then, the sky above them finally broke. A sudden, violent downpour slammed into the courtyard, hissing loudly as it hit the hot iron braziers. Damien stepped down from the stone platform and walked through the crowd. He stopped five feet from Aria, right where the gravel turned to slick, dark mud. "Look at me, Aria." His voice didn't sound angry. He sounded completely bored. "I'm looking," Aria said. Her teeth clapped together from the cold, but she kept her chin up. "The elders checked the logs again this morning," Damien said, his voice carrying easily over the roar of the rain. "You’re nineteen, Aria. No shift. No scent. A Blood Moon Luna needs to be a shield. You’re glass, Aria. If I take you as my mate, the neighboring packs will smell the weakness on us before the week is out. I need an Alpha female. Not a human placeholder." He took a deep, heavy breath. "I, Alpha Damien of the Blood Moon Pack, reject you, Aria Vance, as my mate." The moment the last word left his mouth, a sudden, sickening tear ripped through the center of Aria's chest. It felt like a cold, rusty blade pulling through her ribs, dragging everything raw out into the rain. The golden thread snapped with a physical force that knocked the wind completely out of her lungs. She staggered back, her boots slipping in the turning mud. She hit the ground hard, her knees slamming into the sharp gravel. Tanya let out a short, sharp laugh from the sidelines, and a dozen other wolves joined in, their snickers cutting through the sound of the storm. Aria clutched her chest, her head bowing toward the wet dirt as the agony of the broken bond washed over her. But as she knelt there, her hand instinctively dropped lower, pressing flat against her lower belly to keep her balance. And then, she felt it. Deep behind her navel, completely untouched by the agony of the rejection, a tiny, warm flutter answered her palm. It was a heartbeat. Distinct. Steady. A fierce, icy realization washed over her, freezing the tears in her eyes. She carried his heir. A real, living shifter child. Two weeks ago, she would have begged him to look. Now, hearing the mocking whispers of the pack, a cold, hard wall slid up inside her mind. Damien didn't notice the change in her. He had already turned his back, calling out to his Beta about the eastern border patrols as if she were just a piece of old trash being cleared from the yard. Aria forced herself to stand up. Her knees bled into the mud, but her spine was perfectly straight. She didn't cry. She didn't beg. She wiped the rain from her forehead with the back of her hand, turned her back on the pack house, and started walking toward the highway. She was done playing weak. They wanted her gone, and she would go—but she was taking his future with her.