CHAPTER1
1404 Words
ELARA
The air in the Blackwood courtyard was thick with the scent of trees and anticipation.
Hundreds of pack members stood in silence, their eyes fixed on the raised stone dais at the
center.
I stood in the very back, where the shadows of the trees offered a bit of cover.
My dress was simple, a charcoal grey that helped me blend into the stone walls. That was
my goal: to be unnoticed.
"Straighten your back, Elara," my father hissed without looking at me. He stood a few feet
ahead, his broad shoulders tense. "You’re representing this family. Try not to look like a
kicked pup."
"I'm trying, Father," I whispered.
"Try harder," he snapped. "The whole pack is watching. They already whisper enough about
my wolfless daughter. Don't give them a reason to point."
I swallowed the lump in my throat and stared at my boots.
At eighteen, I should have shifted. I should have been down there with the other young
wolves, ready to swear my loyalty to the new Alpha. Instead, I was a fluke. A human soul
trapped in a lineage of warriors.
A sudden silence fell over the crowd in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up.
Kaelen Thorne stepped onto the dais.
He moved like a predator reclaiming his territory. He was dressed in all black, the sleeves of
his shirt rolled up to reveal muscular forearms covered in tattoos. His hair was dark and his
eyes—sharp, piercing blue swept over the crowd.
He was twenty-four, the youngest Alpha to ever take the Blackwood throne, and easily the
most feared.
"He looks like a god," a girl nearby whispered to her friend.
"He looks like a monster," the friend whispered back, though her voice was full of awe.
Kaelen reached the center of the dais where the Elder waited with the ceremonial blade.
The sun was setting, casting long streaks of orange across the sky. This was the moment.
The transition of power.
The Elder began the chant, a low rumbling in the ancient tongue and Kaelen stood perfectly
still.
I watched him, my heart doing a strange, frantic dance in my chest. I told myself it was just
the intensity of the ceremony.
Everyone felt the Alpha’s power. It was like a physical weight pressing down on us.
Then, the Elder stepped forward and pressed the blade to Kaelen’s palm.
"With this blood, the bond is sealed," the Elder proclaimed. "The Alpha claims his pack, and
the pack claims it’s Alpha."
Kaelen let his blood drip onto the sacred stone. The power in the air doubled. A golden light
seemed to ripple out from the dais, a wave of pure energy that washed over everyone.
It was supposed to feel like a warm embrace—the pack bond snapping into place.
But when the wave hit me, it wasn't warm. It was a lightning strike.
My breath hitched. A sudden, violent heat flared in the center of my chest, spreading through
my veins like wildfire.
It didn’t feel like the pack bond.
Thump-thump.
My heart beat so hard it hurt. I gasped, clutching my chest, my knees buckling.
"Elara?" my father muttered, turning slightly. "What are you doing? Stand up."
I couldn't answer. The world was narrowing down to a single point. My vision blurred, then
snapped into sharp, terrifying focus.
Up on the dais, Kaelen Thorne froze.
He hadn't finished the prayer but his head snapped to the side, his nostrils flaring as he
caught a scent. His eyes, which had been a cold blue, suddenly bled into a dark, molten
gold.
The crowd began to murmur. This wasn't part of the ritual.
Kaelen’s gaze swept the back of the courtyard. It bypassed the high-ranking warriors. It
bypassed the beautiful daughters of the council and stopped on me.
The moment our eyes locked, the world disappeared. The heat in my chest exploded into a
pull so strong I felt like I was being hauled toward him by a chain. My soul reached out,
screaming for a connection I didn't understand.
Mate.
The word echoed in my mind, though I had no wolf to say it.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Kaelen took a step toward the edge of the dais, his eyes locked onto mine with a raw
intensity. He looked like he wanted to leap across and claim me right there in the dirt.
"What is he doing?" someone whispered.
"Who is he looking at?"
The crowd parted like the Red Sea. I felt the weight of a thousand eyes shifting toward the
back row. Toward the girl in the grey dress. Toward the wolfless disappointment.
My father’s face went pale. He looked from Kaelen to me, his jaw dropping. "No," he
breathed. "It’s impossible."
Kaelen descended the stairs of the dais. Every step he took felt like a countdown. The pack
held its breath. I felt like I was drowning in the scent of sandalwood and storm clouds.
He stopped five feet away from me.
Up close, he was towering. The dominance radiating off him was enough to make a grown
man fall to his knees. He looked at me—really looked at me and for a second, I saw a flash
of something in his eyes.
Hunger.
I waited for him to say it. I waited for him to take my hand and tell the pack that the wolfless
girl was his Queen. My heart soared with a desperate, foolish hope. Maybe this was why I
hadn't shifted. Maybe I was meant for him.
Kaelen’s lip curled. The hunger in his eyes died, replaced by a cold, sharp disgust.
"This?" he said, his voice carrying easily to the back of the courtyard.
He took another step closer, leaning down so only I could hear the venom in his tone. "A
broken, wolfless thing is supposed to be my equal?"
I flinched as if he had slapped me. "Kaelen..."
"Do not speak my name," he growled.
He turned away from me, facing the entire pack. He raised his blood-stained hand, his voice
booming like thunder.
"The Moon Goddess is a joker," Kaelen shouted. "She offers me a weakness. She offers me
a mate who cannot even shift. A mate who has no power, no wolf, and no place by my side."
The murmurs grew into a roar of shock. I saw the sneers on the faces of the women who
had wanted him. I saw the mockery in the eyes of the warriors.
"Kaelen, please," I whispered, my voice trembling. The bond was still screaming, pulling me
toward him, making me want to touch him even as he tore my heart out.
He looked back at me over his shoulder. His eyes were cold blue again. The gold was gone.
"I, Kaelen Thorne, Alpha of the Blackwood Pack, reject you," he said, each word hitting me
like a physical blow. "I reject Elara Vance as my mate. I reject the bond. You are nothing to
me."
The snap was literal. I felt something inside me break. The heat vanished, replaced by an icy
void that made my lungs seize. I stumbled back, my hand hitting the rough bark of a tree to
keep from falling.
The pack erupted. Not in protest, but in laughter and agreement.
"A wolfless Luna? Imagine the shame," someone laughed.
"He did the right thing," another added. "She’s a curse."
Kaelen didn't look at me again. He turned his back on me and walked back toward the dais
to finish his ascension. He moved as if I had already been erased from existence.
I looked at my father, hoping for a hand on my shoulder, a word of comfort.
He wouldn't even look at me. He stepped away, putting distance between us as if my
rejection was contagious. "Go home, Elara," he muttered, his voice full of shame. "Just get
out of my sight."
I stood there, alone in the center of a circle of people who used to be my family. They were
cheering for their new Alpha now, celebrating his strength and his "wise" decision.
I turned and ran. I ran until the lights of the courtyard were gone, until the sound of their
laughter was drowned out by the wind, and until the only thing I could feel was the cold,
empty hole where my soul used to be.
- Writer
