The Rejected Plump Mate Who Became Queen

Sera's POV  The Moon Festival smelled like roasted meat, honey bread, and smoke. I should know. I had been cooking for it since four o'clock that morning. My arms ached. My apron was stained with gravy. A strand of hair had slipped out of my braid and stuck to my sweaty cheek. I pushed it back with my wrist and lifted another heavy tray of venison pies. "Move, Sera," a kitchen girl hissed as she bumped my shoulder. "You're blocking the door." "Sorry," I whispered. I was always sorry. It was a habit by now. I carried the tray out into the great courtyard. Hundreds of silver lanterns hung over the stone ground. The whole Silvermoon Pack was gathered under them, laughing and drinking and waiting. Tonight was Prince Kael's twenty-sixth birthday. Tonight was also the night the Moon Goddess was said to reveal the mates of our wolves. Every unmated wolf in the pack was dressed in their best clothes. I was wearing my gray work dress and a pair of worn shoes. I kept to the back wall, near the food tables, where nobody looked. That was where I liked to stand. When you are bigger than every other girl in the pack, you learn that the back wall is safe. Across the courtyard, I could see my stepsister Lyra. She stood near the front in a pale blue silk gown that hugged her tiny waist. Her blond hair was pinned up with silver combs. Three young warriors were fighting for her attention. I was twenty-two years old. My wolf, Ember, had never once shifted. Most she-wolves met their wolves at sixteen. Mine stayed quiet and still inside me, like a candle that never got lit. The pack said it meant I was weak. Lyra said it meant the Goddess had forgotten me. Some nights, I almost believed her. My father used to say something different. He was the old Beta, and he had big hands and a bigger laugh. When I was little, he would sit me on his knee and tell me that a slow flame burns the longest. He died when I was fifteen. After that, nobody told me anything kind. A horn sounded. The crowd went quiet. Alpha King Roderick stepped up onto the stone platform at the head of the courtyard. He was a tall man with silver hair and eyes like frozen lakes. He raised one hand, and the whole pack bowed their heads. "Tonight, we honor the Moon," the King said. His voice rolled across the stones. "And we honor my son, Kael, the strongest wolf of his generation." Prince Kael walked up beside his father. I had seen him a thousand times. Everyone had. He was six feet four inches of muscle and black hair, with a hard jaw and golden eyes that never smiled. He led the royal warriors. He had never lost a fight. The pack whispered that he did not even know how to be afraid. I had never once spoken to him. He had never once looked at me. The King said a blessing. The pack howled. Music started, and the dancing began. I sighed with relief and turned back to my trays. That was when the scent hit me. Pine. Smoke. Rain on warm stone. My knees went weak so fast that I almost dropped the pies. I grabbed the edge of the table with my free hand. My heart slammed against my ribs. Deep inside my chest, something stirred. Something that had slept for six years opened its eyes. Ember lifted her head and howled one word inside my mind. She said it so loud that my ears rang. Mate. I stopped breathing. No. That was impossible. The Goddess did not give mates to girls like me. I was the cook. I was the joke. I was the girl in the gray dress at the back wall. But the scent kept pulling at me, like a rope tied around my ribs. I turned my head. I could not stop myself. Across the courtyard, through the dancing crowd, Kael stood frozen on the platform. He was staring straight at me. His golden eyes were wide. His lips were parted. For one single heartbeat, he looked soft and shocked and almost afraid, as if the ground had vanished under his feet. Hope rushed through me so hard that it hurt. He felt it too. He had to. He was looking at me like I was the only person in the world. Then something changed. His eyes went flat. They went cold as a winter river. His jaw hardened until a muscle jumped in his cheek. He stepped down from the platform. The crowd parted for him without a word. People stopped dancing. The musicians stopped playing. One by one, every head in the courtyard turned to follow him. He was walking toward me. My hands shook around the tray. My mouth was dry. I wanted to smile, but my face would not move. I wanted to run, but my feet would not listen. Please, I thought. Please, Goddess, just this once. Kael stopped an arm's length away. Up close, he was even bigger than I had imagined. He smelled like pine and smoke, and every part of me leaned toward him. Ember was howling in my head. She was begging me to reach out. He looked at my face. He looked at my work dress, my apron, my wide hips, and my gravy-stained hands. Then he spoke in a loud, clear voice that carried across the entire courtyard. "I, Kael Ravenmoor, Alpha Prince of the Silvermoon Pack, reject you as my mate." The world went quiet. I did not understand him. The words floated in the air like smoke. "I reject you," he said again, slower this time, as if I were stupid. "Sera Thorne. You are not my mate." The bond snapped. I felt it break. It was like a bone cracking inside my chest, but deeper, and wetter, and worse. A scream tore out of my throat. The tray fell from my hands, and the pies hit the stones with a wet crash. My knees gave way, and I dropped to the ground, clutching my ribs. It hurt. Goddess, it hurt so much. Ember shrieked inside me, a long, broken sound that made me sick. For one second, nobody in the courtyard made a noise. Then somebody laughed. It was a small laugh at first. Then another joined it. Then a whole wave of them rolled across the crowd until the courtyard shook with it. "The cook!" a man shouted. "The Goddess has a sense of humor tonight!" "Did you see her face?" someone wheezed. "She thought he meant it!" I looked up through my tears. Lyra was laughing the loudest. She held one hand over her chest, her eyes sparkling with joy, and she did not even try to hide it. My eyes found Kael one last time. He was already turning away. His back was straight and cold. He did not look at me. He did not look sorry. He walked through the crowd, and it closed behind him like a door. I stayed on the ground in the middle of the spilled food, with the whole pack laughing over my head. Nobody helped me up. So, I crawled. I crawled across the stones on my hands and knees, past the lanterns, past the dancers, past the pies that I had spent all day making. When I finally reached the dark edge of the courtyard, I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled into the night. I did not cry until I was out of sight. I made it as far as the edge of the woods before my legs gave out. I fell against a tree, clutching my chest, and sobbed until my throat was raw. The pain did not fade. It got worse. It spread through my ribs and down my arms, hot and wrong, like my blood was turning to fire. Something was happening to me. A normal rejection did not feel like this. I pressed my forehead against the rough bark and gasped for air. My vision swam. And just before the darkness swallowed me, I heard a low, broken sound from somewhere behind me in the trees. It was the howl of a wolf, and it sounded like it was crying too.