THE REJECTION NIGHT
The moon was a bleeding circle in the sky.
Two hundred wolves stood in a circle around the stone altar, their breath misting in the cold night air. Drums beat once. Twice. My heart beat faster.
Today was my 18th birthday.
Today was _Awakening Night_.
Every she-wolf in the Blackwood Pack finds her fated mate tonight. The Moon Goddess decides. No exceptions.
My palms were sweating. Across the circle, he was already looking at me.
Alpha Kael Blackwood.
18 years old. Youngest Alpha in 100 years. Broad shoulders, black hair, eyes like storm clouds. The boy who used to chase me through the woods when we were 10. The boy who told me last week, “I’ve always known it would be you, Luna.”
The High Priestess raised her hands. “Let the chosen come forward.”
My legs moved on their own.
One step. Two.
The pull was real. A silver thread I couldn’t see, yanking me straight to him.
Kael’s jaw ticked. He was breathing hard. Good. He felt it too.
We stopped a foot apart. The whole pack was silent.
I tilted my chin up, waiting for him to claim me. To say the words every wolf dreams of: _You are mine._
Kael inhaled. His eyes narrowed.
And then he recoiled like I smelled like death.
“What is this?” he muttered. Loud enough for everyone to hear.
The priestess frowned. “Do you accept your mate, Alpha Kael?”
He looked me up and down. At my plain dress. At my bare neck.
Then he laughed. One short, ugly sound.
“No wolf.”
My blood froze.
“What?”
Kael took a step back. “I don’t smell her wolf. She’s empty. Wolf-less.”
Gasps ripped through the crowd. Someone whispered, “A defect.”
“It’s not possible,” the priestess said. “The Goddess doesn’t make mistakes.”
“The Goddess made one tonight,” Kael said, and his storm-cloud eyes met mine. Cold. Empty.
“I, Alpha Kael Blackwood, reject you, Luna Carter. As my mate. As my Luna.”
The words hit me like claws.
_Reject._
_Wolf-less._
_Nothing._
Pain exploded in my chest like my ribs were cracking. The mate bond tried to form and then snapped. I tasted blood.
“Leave,” Kael said quietly. “Before I have you thrown out.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.
I turned and ran.
Behind me, I heard the pack erupt. Laughter. Whispers.
_Defective._
_Shame of the pack._
_No wolf._
The forest blurred. Branches tore at my arms. I didn’t stop until I hit the border of pack territory, until the wards burned my skin.
I collapsed to my knees in the dirt, clutching my chest where the bond had been.
It was supposed to be him.
It was supposed to be me.
The moon watched me cry.
And in the distance, I swore I heard another howl.
Deeper. Older. Angrier.
Like someone else was watching too.
*[To be continued...]*
