MATED TO MY EX-ALPHA'S JILTED BROTHER

Rejection Night Moth POV The Moon Shrine is cold under my bare feet. I stand in the white dress the pack gave me, the one every unmated she-wolf wears on blessing night. It's too thin. The fog from Hollow Reach crawls up the stone steps and wraps around my ankles like it wants to hold me in place. I don't mind. I'm not going anywhere. Tonight, the Moon Goddess is going to bless my bond with Brask Blackthorn, and after that, I will never be a nobody again. My hands shake. I press them flat against my stomach and breathe in slowly. The whole pack is gathered below the altar. Hundreds of wolves in dark cloaks, their eyes glowing gold and amber in the torchlight. They're whispering. I can hear every word. "Look at her, so small." "The Alpha could have chosen anyone." "The Goddess has a cruel sense of humor."* I swallow the lump in my throat and keep my chin up. I am Moth. Lowest rank in Blackthorn. No family name, no powerful father, no wolf that has ever answered when I call her. I clean the healers' floors and carry water for the warriors. For twenty-two years, I've been the girl people step around without seeing. And then, six months ago, I touched Brask's hand at the harvest gathering, and the whole world lit up. Sparks. Heat. A pull so strong my knees gave out. The scent of him hit me like a fist: pine smoke, cold rain, and something sweet underneath. *Mate,* a voice whispered inside my chest. It wasn't my wolf. My wolf has been silent my whole life. It was the bond itself, speaking for the first time. Brask looked down at me, golden and perfect, with the kind of face people write songs about. His jaw went tight. His eyes went flat. He said nothing. He just walked away. I told myself he was shocked. Alphas don't expect to be matched to girls like me. He needed time. Six months of time, apparently. In six months, he spoke to me twice. Both times, he was cold. Both times, I made excuses for him. He's carrying the pack on his shoulders. He's afraid of how much he wants me. The Goddess doesn't make mistakes. I believed every lie I told myself. That's the part I'll never forgive. A horn sounds from the bottom of the steps. The crowd goes quiet. My heart is pounding so hard it makes me dizzy. He's here. Brask climbs the shrine steps slowly, his black cloak dragging behind him. His golden hair catches the torchlight. He is so beautiful it hurts to look at him. But he isn't alone. A woman walks beside him, her hand tucked into the bend of his arm. Small, soft-faced, with ribbons in her hair and a smile as bright as a lantern. She wears a dress the color of cream, and a silver circlet sits on her brow. A Luna's circlet. My stomach drops. I know her. Everyone does. Pim. The quiet newcomer who arrived with Brask two years ago, who bakes honey cakes for the pack children and never stops smiling. Why is she wearing that? "Brask?" My voice comes out cracked. "What is this?" He doesn't answer. He stops at the top of the steps, three feet from me. Pim squeezes his arm and smiles at me with so much warmth it makes my skin crawl. "Hello, Moth," she says softly. "You look lovely." My nausea rises. I look at Brask. "Why is she wearing the circlet?" Finally, his eyes meet mine. Pale gold. Cold as winter water. "Moth," he says, and his voice carries over the whole silent pack. "Daughter of no one. Servant of this house." The air leaves my lungs. "Don't," I whisper. He keeps going. "The Goddess has seen fit to match me to you. I have carried that burden for six months." Burden. The word cuts through me like a blade. "I stand before my pack tonight to say what I have been too gentle to say." He raises his voice. "I, Brask Blackthorn, Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack, REJECT YOU, MOTH, AS MY MATE AND MY LUNA." The world goes silent. For one second, nothing happens. Then the pain hits. It starts in my chest and rips outward, like someone has reached inside me and pulled out my ribs one by one. I scream. I can't stop it. My knees slam into the stone and my hands claw at the front of my dress, as if I can hold myself together. "I ACCEPT THE SEVERING," Brask says, his voice flat. "Let it be done." The bond snaps. I feel it tear. A hot, wet, final rip, like a rope pulled out of my heart. Blood floods my mouth. My vision goes white at the edges. I'm dying. That's all I can think of. Rejected mates die. Everyone knows the stories. Wolves who lose their fated bond waste away in days, or lose their minds, or walk into the woods and never return. I'm twenty-two years old and I'm going to die on the cold floor of the Moon Shrine in front of everyone I have ever known. "Please," I choke out. "Brask, please. Why?" He looks down at me, and for a moment, something crosses his face. A flicker. Gone before I can name it. "Because you were never meant to be my mate," he says quietly. Only I can hear it. Then he lifts his head and speaks to the crowd again. "She is a mistake of the Goddess. I choose my Luna by my own will." He pulls Pim close. "My true Luna. Pim." The pack erupts. Some cheer. Most gasp. Pim leans against his shoulder, her smile never wavering, and I swear her eyes slide to me just for a second, bright and steady and unreadable. *She isn't surprised,* I realize through the agony. *She knew.* "You're a COWARD," I scream. The sound tears out of my throat. "Six months! You let me wait SIX MONTHS! You let me DREAM!" "Moth," Brask warns. "YOU LOOKED AT ME AND KNEW, AND YOU LET ME HOPE!" Tears pour down my face. I don't care who sees. "I HOPE THE GODDESS TEACHES YOU WHAT IT FEELS LIKE, YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD!" A ripple goes through the crowd. Gasps. Someone laughs, a short cruel sound. I spot Tally at the edge of the torchlight, my best friend and the pack's youngest healer. She's covering her mouth with both hands. Tears streak down her face. She takes one step forward, and Dunn, Brask's Beta, catches her arm and holds her back. I'm alone. I've always been alone. I just didn't know it until now. My vision narrows. The cold is spreading from my chest down into my arms and legs. My heartbeat is slowing, thudding like a drum underwater. This is it. I close my eyes. I think of my mother, who vanished when I was nine. I think of the empty cottage at the edge of the pack where I grew up. I think of everything I never got to be. I'm sorry, I think, to no one. Brask turns away. His cloak whips behind him. Pim glances back once, smiling. "Take her body to the woods," he says to Dunn. "Quietly." Dunn's face goes pale. I'm drifting. The torches blur into gold smears. The whispers become static. Then something moves in my chest. It isn't the pain. It isn't my silent wolf. It's a pull. Faint at first, like a thread tugged from the other side of the world. Then it grows, sharp and hot and desperate. It burns through the numbness, through the cold, through the blood in my mouth. My eyes fly open. "What—" I gasp. Something *snaps* into place inside me. Another bond. I feel it locked into the empty space where Brask used to be, perfectly, as if it had been waiting there the whole time. Heat explodes through my body. My back arches off the stone. I scream again, but this time it's not just pain. It's something wilder. Something alive. The torches roar higher. The fog shivers and spins. Every wolf in the pack takes a step back. "What is she doing?" someone shrieks. "That's not possible!" "A second bond? A SECOND?" Brask spins around. For the first time tonight, his perfect face cracks. His golden eyes widened. All the color drains out of his skin. "No," he whispers. "No, no, no." The bond pulses in my chest like a second heartbeat, steady and strong. It isn't Brask's. It doesn't taste like pine smoke or cold rain. This one smells like old rain on dead leaves, wet stone, and smoke from a fire that has burned alone for a long, long time. Someone is out there. Someone just claimed me. I try to stand. My legs buckle. Tally breaks free from Dunn and lunges forward, but the bond yanks at me again, sharper this time, and I hear myself gasp a single word. "Where?*" At the far edge of the shrine, the fog begins to move. It parts like a curtain. A shape stands inside it, tall and dark and utterly still. A man. Broad shoulders. A long coat soaked with mist. His face is hidden in shadow, but his eyes burn through the dark, bright and silver, fixed on me and only me. The whole pack goes dead silent. Pim' s smile finally slips. And Brask, the golden Alpha who just destroyed me in front of everyone, takes one shaking step backward and breathes a name I have never heard anyone say out loud. "Vale."