Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Lycan King

Chapter 1: The Rejection The full moon hovered above Blackmoon Pack land, bright and cold, like a silver coin pinned into the night sky. I had spent eighteen years waiting for this moment. Every she-wolf did. The night the Moon Goddess revealed your mate. The night everything inside you finally aligned, when that quiet emptiness you'd always carried disappeared. I stood at the edge of the ritual clearing, my fingers trembling inside the long sleeves of my white dress. Around the stone altar, hundreds of wolves formed a wide circle, their faces glowing in flickering torchlight. Somewhere among them stood the man destiny had chosen for me. Somewhere out there was my forever. "Aria." Selene stepped up beside me, her dress catching the moonlight as she moved. At sixteen, she wasn't old enough to take part tonight, but she'd begged our father until he gave in. "You're shaking." "I'm fine." "You're shaking like a dry leaf." A small laugh slipped out of me, but it didn't reach my chest. My throat felt too tight. "Sel… what if he doesn't want me? What if the Goddess gives me to a man who looks at me and just… walks away?" She took my hand and held it firmly. "Then he's a fool. And believe me, there are bigger wolves than fools in this world." Three long notes from the pack horn rolled across the valley. Alpha Marcus climbed onto the altar, his white beard catching the moonlight. He was the oldest alpha Blackmoon had ever known, and tonight every word he spoke felt heavier than the last. "Tonight," he called out, "the Moon Goddess speaks. Tonight, fated mates are revealed. Step forward, unmated children of Blackmoon." I walked. My legs didn't feel like mine. My heart wasn't even in my chest anymore it floated somewhere above me, hovering near the moon, holding its breath. Twelve other young wolves stepped into the circle around me. I'd grown up running these woods with most of them. But there was only one wolf my eyes were searching for. Damon Kane. The new Alpha of Blackmoon. Twenty-three years old. Built like something carved from stone. Sharp green eyes that could turn from warm to cold in a single breath. His father had stepped down two months ago, passing him the title, and ever since, every unmated she-wolf in the territory whispered his name like it was a prayer. Me included. I had loved him in silence for three years. He stood across the circle, taller than every wolf around him, arms folded over his chest. Our eyes met for one heartbeat and the bond hit me like a falling star. I gasped. The whole world tilted under my feet. Heat poured into my skin, the kind of heat that felt like sunlight pushing straight into my bones. My wolf surged up inside me, howling one word again and again. Mate. Mate. MATE. Damon felt it too. I saw it crash into him the shock that flickered across his face, the way his hands fell loose at his sides, the way his pupils blew wide and dark. He felt the bond click into place between us like a chain made of pure gold. The crowd burst into cheers. Wolves howled. Selene shrieked with joy and grabbed my arm. "Aria! It's him! It's the Alpha! You're going to be Luna!" I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. The Moon Goddess had given me Damon Kane. The Moon Goddess had named me future Luna of Blackmoon Pack. Tears filled my eyes, and I took one trembling step toward him He took a step back. I froze. The clearing fell silent. "Damon?" I whispered. He stared at me. Then his jaw locked, his eyes turned to ice, and I watched something inside him slam shut like a door. "No," he said. The word landed in the clearing like a body hitting stone. Alpha Marcus stepped forward. "Alpha Damon, the Goddess has spoken" "I said no." Damon's voice cut clean across the clearing, low and final. He didn't even look at the elder. He looked only at me. "I, Alpha Damon Kane, of Blackmoon Pack, reject Aria Vale as my mate." The bond ripped. I screamed. I had never felt pain like this. Not when I broke my arm at twelve. Not when my mother died. Nothing came close. The bond between fated mates is woven into your very soul, and Damon was tearing it out of me with his bare hands. My knees hit the stone. Inside me, my wolf howled a sound like an animal being skinned alive. "Damon, please" I gasped. "I reject you, Aria Vale, as my mate." Each word was a hammer. "I reject you, Aria Vale, as my mate. I reject you, Aria Vale" Three times. The rejection was complete with three. I was sobbing on the stone now. My white dress was stained where my knees had scraped raw against it. The whole pack was watching. Three hundred wolves staring as their alpha threw their future Luna away like spoiled meat. "Why?" I forced out. "Why?" Damon stepped closer. He stopped at the edge of the altar and looked down at me the way a man looks at a stain. "Because I have already chosen my Luna," he said. He turned. He held out his hand. And my sister Selene sixteen-year-old Selene, who had squeezed my hand five minutes ago stepped out of the crowd, took his hand, and climbed onto the altar beside him. She did not look at me. "I, Alpha Damon Kane," he announced, his voice loud now, filling the clearing, "claim Selene Vale as my chosen Luna of Blackmoon Pack." The pack did not cheer. The pack did not move. And somewhere deep in the Blackwood forest, far past the torchlight, a wolf howled a wolf that didn't belong to any pack I knew. A wolf with a voice like thunder rolling across a mountain. A wolf that was coming for me.