Mated to the Dragon King

They said no wolf could survive a rejection on her twenty-first birthday.They were wrong.I survived. Barely. The pack house was decorated for my birthday. Not because they loved me. Because it was tradition. Every unmated she-wolf had to stand in the center of the Moon Hall on her twenty-first birthday and wait for the Moon Goddess to reveal her mate.Everyone knew I wouldn't have one. I was wolfless. An omega. The girl who couldn't shift, couldn't fight, couldn't even hear her wolf.But the law was the law. I stood in the center of the circle in a cheap white dress my aunt had bought from the human town. My hands were shaking so badly I had to clench them into fists. Alpha Jaxon entered. He was everything an Alpha should be. Tall, broad, handsome in a cruel way. He had already been Alpha for two years, since his father died. And he had been my tormentor since I was ten. His eyes found mine across the hall. And for one stupid, heartbreaking second, I felt it. A pull. A heat. A snap in my chest like a bond forming. Mate. My breath caught. My heart hammered so loudly I was sure everyone could hear it. Then he smiled. And my world ended. "Elara Thorne," he said, his voice loud enough for all three hundred wolves to hear. "My father took you in when your parents died in a rogue attack. We fed you. We clothed you. We let a wolfless freak live among real wolves. And the Moon Goddess thinks she can reward you by making you my mate?" A cruel laugh rippled through the pack. "No," he continued, stepping closer. His blue eyes were ice. "I, Alpha Jaxon Stone of the Silver Fang Pack, reject you, Elara Thorne, as my mate and Luna." The words were a physical blow. I felt something in my chest — the fragile, thin bond that had just formed — shatter like glass. Pain exploded behind my ribs, white-hot and blinding. I fell to my knees, gasping. It felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out with their bare hands. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't scream. My vision went black at the edges. Through the haze of pain, I heard my aunt crying, "Jaxon, stop! You'll kill her!" "She's wolfless," Jaxon said coldly. "She won't feel it as much as a real wolf would. It's a mercy. Now she won't have to pretend she belongs here anymore." I pressed my forehead to the cold stone floor, my entire body shaking. The pain was too much. I should have died. A rejected wolf with no wolf to help heal should die. But I didn't. Instead, as I lay there dying, something else woke up. Deep, deep inside me, in a place where my wolf should have been, something ancient and hot uncurled. It was not a wolf. It was bigger. Older. It opened an eye. And it was angry. Heat flooded my veins, not warm, but scorching. My skin began to glow. Faintly at first, then brighter. Golden lines, like molten lava, traced themselves up my arms, over my shoulders, down my spine. The pack gasped. "What is that?" someone whispered. "What is happening to her?" Jaxon's confident smirk faded. He took a step back. "What trick is this, omega?" I lifted my head. I didn't know what was happening to me. The pain of rejection was still there, but now it was being burned away by something far more powerful. My eyes, I knew without a mirror, were no longer their normal hazel. They were gold. Pure, molten gold. And then the doors of the pack house exploded. Not opened. Exploded. Solid oak shattered into splinters as a gust of wind and smoke and pure, primal power tore through the hall. Every wolf in the room dropped to their knees, whimpering, their heads bowed involuntarily. Even Alpha Jaxon staggered, his Alpha aura completely crushed by something far, far older. A man walked through the smoke. He was impossibly tall, his black hair long and tied back, his skin tanned bronze. He wore black armor that looked like scales, and his eyes — his eyes were not human. They were vertical slits, gold and red, like a dragon's. The air around him shimmered with heat. When he breathed, smoke curled from his lips. The Dragon King. Everyone in the werewolf world knew the stories. The dragons were extinct. They had left this continent a thousand years ago after the Great War. Except for one. The King who refused to leave. The monster who slept in the mountains and demanded tribute of livestock and gold. Kael Draxos. He didn't look at the bowing wolves. His terrifying, inhuman eyes were locked only on me. On me, kneeling on the floor in my cheap white dress, glowing like a dying star. He inhaled, and his eyes widened. "Mine," he growled, his voice not a voice at all, but a roar that shook the foundations of the building. "After twenty-one years of searching... finally, mine." Jaxon, stupid, brave Jaxon, tried to stand. "Who are you? This is my pack! This girl is—" Kael didn't even look at him. He flicked his wrist. Jaxon flew across the entire hall and slammed into the stone wall, unconscious before he hit the ground. Silence. Absolute, terrified silence. Kael Draxos walked to me. Each step made the floor tremble. He stopped before me and knelt, and even kneeling, he was taller than me. He reached out a hand, his claws black and sharp, but he touched my cheek with impossible gentleness. His touch was fire and ice at once. "Little dragon," he whispered, and his voice was suddenly soft, awestruck. "You finally woke up." I stared into his dragon eyes, my own golden eyes wide. I should have been afraid. I had just been rejected, humiliated, and now a monster out of legend was touching me. But for the first time in my life, I didn't feel wolfless. I felt... powerful. "Who... who are you?" I managed to whisper. His lips curled into a possessive, dangerous smile that made my strange new heart flutter. "I am Kael Draxos, King of Dragons. And you, Elara Thorne, are my fated mate. My Queen. And I am never letting you go again." Behind him, the pack house doors slammed shut on their own, locking us in. And my birthday mark, the one every wolf gets on their twenty-first birthday, finally appeared on my wrist. It wasn't a wolf. It was a dragon, wings spread, breathing fire.