A LUNA'S SEDUCTION

The first time Kian Blackwood rejected me, it snowed. I was eighteen, kneeling in a thin gray dress that wasn't mine, and my knees had gone numb against the frost. The entire Nightfang pack had formed a circle in the clearing. They do that for an Alpha's mate ceremony. Everyone watches. Everyone holds their breath. Kian had just shifted back. He stood in the center, barefoot in the snow, steam rising off his shoulders. His chest was still heaving. Gold bled into his eyes. He looked like a god. He looked like the boy who used to let me steal apples from the Alpha kitchen when I was ten. He looked right at me. It hit me a second before he spoke. A hot, sharp pull behind my ribs, like a wire being yanked tight. My mouth went dry. My hands started to shake. Mine. I didn't even have a wolf yet. But my body knew him. I took a step forward. Snow crunched under my bare feet. His eyes flickered down to my throat. To my mouth. Then back up. And his face twisted. "No." The word wasn't loud. He didn't have to be loud. The circle broke into whispers. Someone behind me giggled. Vivian. Of course it was Vivian. "Goddess wouldn't be that cruel," she said, sweet and loud enough for everyone to hear. "Giving an Alpha a wolfless Omega as a Luna." My knees hit the snow again. Harder this time. Kian didn't look at me again. He turned to his Beta. To Marcus. "Get her out of my sight." That night, I ran. I ran with no shoes, no coat, no wolf to keep me warm. I ran into the woods and the snow swallowed my footprints. I should have died there. But I didn't. Three years. Three years since I left my dress in the snow and ran until my feet bled. They said the girl who ran that night died in the woods. That the Omega with no wolf froze before dawn. That Nightfang had one less mouth to feed. They were half right. I did die. The girl who knelt is gone. The woman who came back doesn't kneel. The black SUV stopped at the edge of the Nightfang border. The driver got out and opened my door. "Are you sure you want to do this, Miss Elara?" I looked at the trees. Same trees. Same scent of pine and damp earth and pack. My stomach twisted. "No," I said honestly. "But I'm doing it anyway." I stepped out. My heels sank a little into the soft ground. I was wearing red. Vivian always hated red on me. She said it made my skin look sallow. She said a lot of things. My hair was longer now. My back was straight. And behind my ribs, where there had only been silence for eighteen years, something stretched and purred. _Finally,_ she whispered. _My turn._ My wolf had come. Late. Furious. Powerful. Three weeks after I ran, in a human city with no pack to hear me scream, she ripped her way out of me. She didn't whimper. She howled. Her name is Nyx. _He will smell us now,_ Nyx said as we walked toward the pack house. _I know._ _He will want us._ _I know that too._ That was the point. The pack house looked smaller. Or maybe I had just seen bigger things. In the city, I built something from nothing. A boutique. Then two. Then a contract with a company in Milan that paid me more in a month than Nightfang made in a year selling lumber. I didn't need them. But I had a promise to keep. The front door opened before I could knock. Marcus. Kian's Beta. Older now. A scar through his eyebrow I didn't remember. His mouth opened. Closed. "Elara?" "Hi, Marcus." He stared like he was seeing a ghost. Maybe he was. "You... we thought..." "You thought wrong." Behind him, footsteps. Heavy. Unhurried. The kind of footsteps that make everyone else move out of the way. My heart started pounding so hard I thought Nyx would burst out of my chest. Kian Blackwood came down the stairs. He was bigger. Broader. His hair was cut shorter, his jaw sharper. He wore a black shirt, sleeves pushed up, tattoos I had never seen crawling up his forearm. Alpha ink. He got it when he took full control after his father died. He stopped when he saw me. For a second, nothing moved. His eyes - still that impossible gold-flecked gray - dragged down my body. Slowly. From my face to my throat to the red dress clinging to my hips. To my heels. Back up. His nostrils flared. I felt it then. That same hot wire from three years ago. Only this time it wasn't a pull. It was a slam. Mate. His eyes flashed gold. Fully. Completely. His wolf pushing forward. "Elara," he said. His voice was rougher than I remembered. "Kian." Nyx rose under my skin. _Mine,_ she growled, but it wasn't soft like before. It was possessive. Angry. His wolf answered. I heard it, low in his chest. "Mine," he whispered. The word he refused to say three years ago. Marcus took a step back, wisely. I smiled. I had practiced this smile in the mirror for months. Sweet. Cold. "I'm not yours, Alpha," I said. "I haven't been yours for a long time." His jaw clenched. "You're on my territory. You're in my pack house." "I was invited. By the Luna." That got his attention. His eyebrows pulled together. "What Luna?" Just then, Vivian appeared at the top of the stairs. Perfect hair. Perfect white dress. Perfect fake smile that dropped the second she saw me. Her hand went to her stomach. She was pregnant. Barely showing, but there. Oh. So that's how he moved on. "Surprise," I said.The silence in the pack house was so thick I could hear the clock ticking in the hall. Vivian's hand was still on her small bump. Her eyes were wide, wet, already performing. "Kian," she whispered. "Who is this?" Kian didn't answer her. He was still looking at me. His eyes were still gold. "Vivian, go upstairs," he said, his voice low. "But-" "Go. Upstairs. Now." It wasn't a request. It was an Alpha command. I felt it ripple through the air and hit even me, even though I wasn't part of his pack anymore. My knees wanted to bend. Nyx snarled inside me and held us straight. Vivian flinched. Then she obeyed, but not before throwing me a look so full of hate it could have curdled milk. She waddled up the stairs, slow, making sure Kian watched her. He didn't. When her door slammed, Marcus cleared his throat. "Alpha, the council-" "Out," Kian said. Marcus didn't need to be told twice. He left, pulling the front door shut behind him. Now it was just me and Kian in the entryway. Three years I had waited for this moment. I had imagined it a thousand ways. Me screaming. Me crying. Me slapping him. I did none of that. "Nice to see you too," I said, and walked past him into the living room like I owned it. I could feel him behind me. Feel his eyes on my back, on the zipper of my red dress. "You were dead," he said. "No. You just wished I was." "We searched for two weeks. In that blizzard-" "You sent Marcus to get me out of your sight. He did. You should thank him. He did his job." He was in front of me in a second. Too fast. Alpha fast. One second he was by the door, the next his hands were on my arms, turning me around. "Don't do that." "Don't do what?" "Act like you don't feel it." His hands were hot. Burning through the thin fabric. That pull behind my ribs was now a live wire, buzzing, hurting. I looked up at him. Up close, I could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the small scar under his left eye from when we were kids and he fell out of the apple tree I dared him to climb. "Feel what, Alpha? The rejection? Oh, I felt that. I felt it for three years." His grip tightened. "My wolf-" "Your wolf rejected me. I remember." "No." His voice broke. "I rejected you. Not him. I was eighteen. I was stupid. My father had just told me Vivian's family would merge packs, that it would make us strongest in the north. And you... you had no wolf. I thought-" "You thought I was weak." "I thought I was protecting the pack." I laughed. It sounded sharp even to me. "And now? Is Vivian's merge making you strong? Because from where I stand, your Luna is so insecure she has to get pregnant to keep you." His face went white. "Don't talk about my child." "Why not? Are you happy, Kian? Is this the strong pack you wanted?" He let go of me like I burned him. He stepped back, ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. "Why did you come back, Elara?" Finally. The question I wanted. I sat down on his expensive leather couch, crossed my legs, and smiled. "Because Vivian invited me. Or rather, the Luna office did. She sent a formal invitation to all former pack members for the Moon Goddess Festival. She wants to show off her bump. And I got an invitation forwarded to me in the city." He frowned. "Vivian doesn't know-" "That I own the company making her maternity dresses? No, she doesn't. My brand, LUNA, we supply the boutique she shops at. Small world." His eyes widened. LUNA was not small. It was in Vogue last month. "You're..." "Rich now? Yes. Successful? Yes. Still that wolfless Omega you threw in the snow? No. Not anymore." Nyx pushed forward. My eyes flashed silver. I knew they did because Kian sucked in a breath. "You have a wolf," he whispered. "Late bloomer. Like I said, a lot changed." He knelt. Actually knelt. In front of me. The Alpha of Nightfang, on his knees where I had once knelt for him. "Elara, I made a mistake." "Yes, you did." "Give me a chance to fix it." I leaned forward, until our faces were inches apart. Until I could smell him - pine and snow and something darker, something that was just Kian. My mate. Still my mate, even after everything. I put my hand on his cheek. He leaned into it instantly, eyes closing. Then I whispered, right against his mouth: "No." And I stood up and walked out, leaving him on his knees in his own living room.