Rejected by the Moon, Claimed by Night

The Fool’s False Courage

Alfred tried to sound like the strongest alpha in the northern territories, but the harder he pushed, the more brittle he looked.

He stood on the grand balcony above the western training grounds, midday sun flashing off the silver accents on his uniform, his chest puffed out like he could scare the whole world with volume alone.

“Our borders are impenetrable, and our wolves are the fiercest in the northern territories,” Alfred bellowed.

A hundred seasoned warriors stood below in tight formation, but the silence that answered him was heavy with doubt. Yesterday’s border disaster still hung over everyone like smoke, and no amount of dramatic shouting could hide the fact that their leader had cowered in the dirt before a single rogue.

Trying to salvage his pride, Alfred turned vicious.

“The recent failures at the boundary line were not due to lack of preparation,” Alfred declared, his handsome face twisting into something ugly and desperate as he searched for someone to blame. “They are the direct result of bad omens left behind by Arieth Caspian’s corrupted birth. Her lingering, unnatural presence has infected our lands, and we must purge every trace of her memory to restore our ancestral favor.”

“The absolute clown,” Mina Hart whispered beside me.

We were hidden behind the old storage sheds, and I had to bite down on a laugh. Mina leaned against the weathered wood, arms folded, eyes bright with cruel amusement as she watched Alfred flail through his own speech.

“Look at him, Arieth. He is sweating through his tailored uniform so fast I can smell his desperation from here. If he puffs his chest out any further, he is going to snap his own spine.”

I let out a sharp breath through my nose. Humiliation prickled, yes, but it burned away fast, replaced by something harder.

“He is desperate. He knows the council is starting to look closely at the border security records.”

“Desperate? He is an absolute theatrical disaster,” Mina said, and then she copied Alfred’s grand stance with a wicked grin. “ ‘Oh, look at me, I am Alpha Alfred, I fear no wolf except the small, unshifted female I threw out into the freezing mud last Tuesday.’ Truly, a performance for the history books. Bestseller material, really.”

That almost broke me. For a heartbeat, the whole tension of the courtyard loosened under Mina’s mockery. It was impossible to feel small when she was tearing his act apart so cleanly.

But the moment didn’t last.

Alfred raised his hand and ordered his personal guard to double the border patrols, forcing exhausted wolves back into dangerous territory without rest. The move was reckless, even cruel, and the elders in the front row exchanged grim looks that said more than words ever could.

He was not protecting the pack. He was protecting his ego.

Then, with a sharp snap of his fingers, Alfred dismissed the assembly and disappeared into the pack hall before anyone could challenge him.

I stepped away from the sheds, my thoughts already turning to the corroded black-stained hunting blade I had hidden near the river boundary. Alfred was hiding something. His frantic need to call my birth a curse only made one thing clearer: my awakening magic was a threat he could not control.

I moved through the forest borders fast and low, slipping back toward the reinforced lycan den before the tracking teams could catch my scent.

The moment I entered the main stone hall, the air changed.

Blood. Rust. Steel. The space was thick with it, silent except for the faint sounds of breathing and shifting chains. In the center of the room sat a heavy iron cage, and inside it crouched a battered rogue prisoner still bleeding from the dawn skirmish.

Noah Reed stood just outside the bars, wiping a bloodied hunting knife on his leather trousers. His rugged face held the kind of grim satisfaction that made him look dangerous even when he was still.

Lucien Xander stood in the shadows near the hearth, broad shoulders unmoving, silver-gray eyes fixed on me the second I crossed the threshold. His stillness was worse than motion. It pressed into the room and made everything feel tighter.

“He finally started talking, Boss,” Noah said, his rough voice cutting through the silence.

I stepped closer to the cage. The rogue lifted his head, and a twisted smirk pulled at his torn mouth. Not wild. Not lost. Just calculated.

He had come here for a reason.

“Your little boyfriend across the river isn’t as clever as he thinks he is,” the captured rogue rasped, coughing wetly as the words scraped out of him.

“Speak clearly before I let Noah take another piece of your skin,” Lucien commanded.

The prisoner flinched instantly. His smirk vanished under Lucien’s stare, and when he looked at me again, there was dread in his eyes now, mixed with something darker.

“Alfred Edward made an official pact with our handlers,” the rogue confessed, the words landing like a death sentence in the cold stone hall. “The fool personally promised our faction absolute, unrestricted access to the pack’s sealed lower vaults under the next full moon, in exchange for ensuring Arieth Caspian never makes it out of this forest alive.”