REJECTED BY ONE ALPHA, CLAIMED BY HIS DEADLIEST RIVAL

BLACKTHORN

Ariana froze. The black wolf didn't move, didn't blink, just watched her from the shadows like she was the only thing in the forest worth looking at.

"You're not supposed to be here," she said, her voice cracking.

The wolf tilted its massive head, almost amused. Then the air around it seemed to bend, fur folding into skin, until a man stood where the wolf had been. Tall. Built like every nightmare Silverfang warriors told their pups about. Dark hair, sharper cheekbones than should be legal, and eyes that hadn't lost a single degree of that black intensity even in human form.

"Neither are you," he said. "Crying alone in enemy territory. Bold choice."

"This isn't enemy territory. It's Silverfang land."

"For another hundred yards." He nodded past her shoulder, toward the tree line she'd wandered through without noticing. "Then it's mine."

Ariana's stomach dropped. She looked behind her, and sure enough, the trees had thinned into a border she recognized now, an old stone marker half buried in moss.

"I need to go back," she said, mostly to herself.

"Do you?" He tilted his head. "Because from where I'm standing, it looked like your own pack just threw you out."

Her chin snapped up. "You saw that?"

"Heard it, actually. Rejections carry." His jaw tightened, just slightly. "Kael Draven rejected his fated mate in front of his entire pack. That's not something that happens quietly."

"Don't," she said, sharper than she meant. "Don't say his name like you know anything about it."

"I know he's an idiot." Lucien's voice was flat, almost bored, but something underneath it was cold as steel. "Only a fool throws away a fated bond over politics."

"How do you know it was politics?"

"Because I know Kael Draven." A humorless smile. "And I know Selene Voss even better."

Ariana's arms wrapped tighter around herself. "Why do you care? You're Blackthorn. We're supposed to be enemies."

"We are enemies." He said it simply, no malice in it. "That doesn't mean I enjoy watching a girl get discarded in the mud by a pack that should've protected her."

"I don't need your pity."

"Good. I wasn't offering any." He took a step closer, and she noticed he moved like every motion was deliberate, nothing wasted. "I'm offering something else."

"What?"

"A choice." He stopped a few feet away, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to hold his gaze. "You can walk back through those trees, crawl into whatever corner Kael leaves you, and spend the rest of your life as the omega nobody wanted. Or you can come with me."

Ariana laughed, short and disbelieving. "Come with you. Just like that."

"Just like that."

"You don't even know me."

"I know you stood in front of your entire pack and didn't beg." His eyes flicked over her, something unreadable passing through them. "Most wolves would have broken completely. You didn't."

"Felt pretty broken to me."

"You're still standing."

She didn't have an answer for that.

"Why would you help me?" she asked instead. "What's in it for you?"

"Maybe I like the idea of Kael Draven finding out exactly what he threw away." A faint, dangerous smile. "Maybe I just don't like waste."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting tonight." He held out a hand, palm up, patient in a way that felt more unsettling than if he'd grabbed her outright. "Silverfang or Blackthorn. Choose."

Behind her, faintly, she could still hear the drums from the ceremony. The pack that had just discarded her, already celebrating like she'd never existed.

"If I go with you," she said slowly, "what happens to me?"

"You train. You get strong enough that no one ever drags you through the dirt again." His hand didn't waver. "What happens after that is up to you."

Ariana looked at his hand for a long moment. Then past him, toward the dark shape of Blackthorn territory stretching out beyond the trees, unknown and dangerous and hers to choose.

She looked back at Silverfang, at the glow of torchlight through the branches, at the life that had just ended for her in front of everyone she'd ever known.

"Okay," she whispered.

Lucien's fingers closed around hers before she finished the word, and the last thing Ariana heard before the forest swallowed them both was the sound of Kael's name being cheered somewhere far behind her, already forgotten by the pack that had chosen him over her.