REJECTED BY THE ALPHA, CHOOSEN BY THE LYCAN KING

The bonfire in the heart of Blackwood Pack burned taller than Aveline had ever seen it, gold sparks spiraling up into a sky bruised purple with the coming full moon. Tonight she turned eighteen. Tonight, according to every law her pack had ever lived by, she would be Claimed. She stood at the edge of the gathering circle in the white ceremonial dress her aunt had sewn for her, feeling the eyes of the entire pack pressing against her skin like a held breath. Somewhere beneath her ribs, Luma stirred her wolf, restless and alert in a way she couldn't explain, as if some old instinct had already sensed what was coming. Something is wrong,Luma whispered, low and urgent, in the back of her mind. Aveline pushed the thought away. Tonight was supposed to be the night Damien finally claimed her before the whole pack the boy she'd grown up beside, who used to sneak her honeycomb from his mother's kitchen, who had promised her under a different moon, years ago, that she would always be his. Damien stood at the center of the circle now, broad-shouldered and golden-eyed, Alpha in every line of his body. He did not look at her the way he used to. The Elders began the chant. The fire cracked. And Aveline stepped forward into the circle, her heart hammering so hard she was certain the whole pack could hear it. Damien, she said softly, so only he could hear. "I'm here." He didn't move to meet her. A murmur rippled through the crowd, uneasy, expectant. Damien's jaw tightened. When he finally spoke, his voice carried not for her, but for all of them. I, Damien Ashford, Alpha of Blackwood Pack He hesitated. Aveline saw it, the fraction of a second where something in him wavered, where his eyes flickered to hers with something that might have been regret. Then it was gone, buried beneath the mask of authority he wore like armor. reject Aveline Moon as my mate. The words landed like a physical blow. The fire seemed to dim. The crowd's gasp was a wave crashing over her, and Aveline felt herself go hollow, as if something vital had been carved out of her chest and left to bleed into the dirt. Rejection. In front of everyone. In front of the pack that had spent eighteen years calling her weak, unremarkable, lesser and now they would call her unwanted, too. "Damien." Her voice cracked. Why "It's done, Aveline." He wouldn't look at her now. His hands were fisted at his sides, knuckles white. "It's better this way." Better for whom? she wanted to scream. But the pack was already turning from her, whispering, some pitying, some cruelly satisfied, as if her humiliation confirmed something they'd always believed about her — that she had never truly belonged among them. Luma howled inside her, a sound of fury and grief so sharp it brought tears to Aveline's eyes. Run, Luma urged. Run before they see you break. She didn't run. She walked, spine straight, chin lifted, every step a small act of defiance even as her insides shattered. She didn't stop until the bonfire's glow was a distant flicker behind her and the black trees of the Blackwood swallowed her whole. Only then did she let herself fall to her knees in the cold moss, pressing her palm against her chest as if she could hold herself together by force. The crescent-shaped mark on her collarbone — the one she'd hidden beneath collars and scarves her whole life, the one no one else in the pack carried — burned faintly, like it was answering something in the dark. It had never done that before. Aveline stared down at it, breath catching. The silver light pulsing faintly beneath her skin didn't feel like pack magic. It didn't feel like anything Blackwood had ever taught her to understand. What am I? A twig snapped. She stilled, every sense sharpening at once and beneath her stillness, Luma went taut with an emotion Aveline had never felt from her wolf before. Not fear Reverence. Aveline rose slowly, scanning the treeline. The forest had gone unnaturally quiet, the way it did before a predator far more dangerous than any wolf made itself known. And then she saw him a shape detaching from the shadows between two ancient oaks, tall and unhurried, moving like something that had never once needed to fear discovery. Moonlight caught him first: dark hair, sharper cheekbones than should have been legal, eyes so pale gold they seemed to glow with their own cold light. He wore no pack colors. No House crest. Only black, and an aura of quiet, absolute power that made every hair on Aveline's arms rise. She didn't need an introduction to know who stood before her. Every child in Blackwood had grown up on hushed stories of him the Lycan King, ruler of Dravenhold, feared even by Alphas who feared nothing else. Vaelor Draven's gaze found the crescent mark glowing faintly at her collarbone, and something shifted in his expression recognition, sharp and unmistakable, like a man finally finding what he'd spent years searching for. "Hello, little Moon," he said quietly. "It's time you knew who you really are.