The Last Nightshade

The first time I died, I was nineteen years old and standing in the middle of the Moonlight Pack's ceremonial circle, wearing a white dress that cost more than my entire life was worth. Not literally, of course. But close enough. The dress was a gift from the Luna. A bribe, really, to make me presentable for the claiming ceremony. Silk the color of fresh snow, embroidered with silver thread that caught the bonfire light like trapped stars. It was beautiful. It was also a lie. Because everyone in that circle knew exactly what I was. Raven Nightshade. The orphan. The charity case. The girl who scrubbed floors and mended nets and kept her eyes down so no one would remember she existed. Until tonight. Tonight, I was supposed to become someone. Supposed to. I should've known better. Hope was a luxury I couldn't afford, hadn't been able to afford since I was eight years old and my mother died with my name on her lips and nothing else to give me. But standing there, with the bonfire crackling and the pack watching and the full moon hanging fat and silver overhead, I let myself believe. Just for a second. Just long enough to feel it. The bond hit me like a wave. Warm. Electric. Pulling me toward the center of the circle where he stood. Jaxon Blackwood. The Alpha's son. The golden boy. The future Alpha of the Moonlight Pack. My fated mate. I felt it in my bones. In my blood. In the part of me I'd kept locked away since childhood, the part that whispered you're not nothing, you're not nothing, you're Jaxon turned. And I saw it in his eyes. The same recognition. The same pull. The same electric yes that had just lit me up from the inside. For one heartbeat, I thought: This is it. This is where my life actually starts. Then his face twisted. "No," he said. The word rang out across the clearing. Loud. Sharp. Final. The pack went silent. The bonfire snapped and crackled. Somewhere behind me, a baby started crying and was quickly hushed. I didn't move. Couldn't move. My feet were rooted to the frozen earth like I'd been planted there, like I was part of the dirt and the stones and the nothing. "No," Jaxon said again, louder this time. He turned to face the crowd, and I watched the way his shoulders squared, the way his chin lifted. The way he performed for them. "I reject this bond. I reject her." The words hit me like a physical blow. Right in the sternum. Right where the bond had sparked to life just seconds ago. "No," I whispered. But no one heard me. Or maybe they did, and they just didn't care. Jaxon kept talking. He was good at this. Public speaking, commanding attention, making people believe whatever came out of his pretty mouth. "She's nothing. She's a servant. She has no family, no status, no wolf to speak of." He laughed, and it was a cruel, ugly sound. "Did you really think I'd bind myself to that? To her?" The crowd murmured. Some of them laughed. Others just watched, the way people watch a car crash, horror and fascination tangled together. I wanted to run. I wanted to disappear. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. But I couldn't move. Because the bond, the beautiful, terrifying, life-changing bond, was still there. Still pulsing. Still aching. And it hurt. God, it hurt so much worse than I ever imagined. "You can't," I heard myself say. My voice cracked on the second word, and I hated myself for it. "You can't just. The Moon Goddess chose us. She" "The Moon Goddess made a mistake," Jaxon snapped. He finally looked at me. Really looked at me. And the disgust in his eyes made me want to vomit. "Or maybe she was playing a joke. Either way, I'm not accepting it. I'm not accepting you." He stepped toward me. The crowd parted like water. And for a second, just a second, I thought maybe he'd apologize. Maybe this was some kind of test, some kind of cruel joke that would end with him pulling me into his arms and telling me he didn't mean it. Instead, he grabbed my wrist. His fingers dug into my skin, hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to hurt. "I, Jaxon Blackwood, future Alpha of the Moonlight Pack, reject you, Raven Nightshade, as my fated mate and Luna." His voice was cold and formal now, like he was reciting lines from a play. "I sever this bond. I cast you out. You are nothing to me. You will always be nothing." The bond screamed. I don't know how else to describe it. It was like someone had reached inside my chest and ripped out something vital. Something I needed to breathe, to live, to be. The pain was white-hot and all-consuming, and I felt myself crumple, felt my knees hit the frozen ground, felt the snow seep through the silk of my dress. But I didn't cry. I don't know why. Maybe because I'd spent eleven years learning how to swallow tears. Maybe because some small, stubborn part of me refused to give him the satisfaction. Or maybe because I was too broken to cry. Jaxon released my wrist. He stepped back. He looked down at me, crumpled in the snow, shivering, nothing, and smiled. "Someone get her out of here," he said. "She's ruining the ceremony." I don't remember much after that. Fragments. Flashes. The cold bite of the wind against my cheeks. Hands grabbing my arms, hauling me to my feet. Voices. Some sympathetic, most not. The wet sound of my own breathing. And underneath it all, the ache. The hollow, gaping wound where the bond used to be. They dragged me to the edge of the territory. To the border. The place where Moonlight Pack land ended and the neutral zone began. "Don't come back," someone said. I think it was one of Jaxon's friends. Marcus? Matthew? I couldn't remember. Couldn't care. "You're not welcome here anymore." They shoved me forward. I stumbled, caught myself on a tree trunk, felt the rough bark scrape my palms. And then they were gone. I was alone. The snow was falling harder now. Big, fat flakes that clung to my hair and my dress and my eyelashes. The dress. I was still wearing the dress. The beautiful, stupid, liar of a dress. I laughed. It came out broken and wrong, more like a sob than anything else. "Stupid," I whispered. To myself. To the trees. To the Moon Goddess who had apparently decided to destroy me tonight. "So stupid. You knew. You knew better." Because I had known. I'd known my whole life that I was nothing. That I would always be nothing. And for one stupid, reckless, hopeful moment, I'd let myself believe otherwise. Never again. I pushed off the tree. My legs were shaking. My whole body was shaking. But I forced myself to move. One step. Then another. Then another. Into the neutral zone. Into the dark. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't care. I just needed to get away. I smelled them before I saw them. Alpha. Dominant. Dangerous. Three of them, emerging from the treeline like shadows given form. They moved with a predator's grace. Silent. Deliberate. Inevitable. And at the center of them, taller than the others, with eyes like frozen mercury and a face carved from stone. I stopped walking. Not because I wanted to. Because my body refused to move. The man in the center tilted his head. He studied me the way a scientist studies a specimen. Cold. Detached. Curious. "Raven Nightshade," he said. It wasn't a question. He knew exactly who I was. I swallowed. My throat was raw from the cold, from the screaming I hadn't done, from everything I'd swallowed down. "Who are you?" The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Not quite anything. "Kael Draven," he said. "Alpha of the Blackmoon Pack." The name hit me like ice water. Blackmoon. The enemy pack. The monsters who lived in the dark forest and raided our borders and, according to the stories, ate children for breakfast. I took a step back. Kael's eyes tracked the movement. "You're running from something." It wasn't a question. I didn't answer. "The Moonlight Pack rejected you," he continued. "Publicly. Brutally. Their Alpha's son claimed you as his mate and then threw you away like garbage." My chest constricted. "How do you" "I know everything that happens in my territory." He stepped closer. I stepped back. He stepped closer again. "Including the fact that you're not what they think you are." I froze. "What?" His eyes, those terrible, beautiful, silver eyes, dropped to my hands. To the way my fingers were curled into fists. To the faint, almost invisible glow that pulsed beneath my skin. The glow I'd been hiding my whole life. "You've been suppressing it," Kael said. "Your wolf. Your power. Your birthright." His voice was soft, almost gentle, and somehow that was worse than if he'd shouted. "They beat it out of you. Trained you to be small. To be nothing." I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but stare at him and wonder how. How. "But I see it," he said. "I've always seen it." He stopped in front of me. Close enough to touch. Close enough that I could smell him. Pine and snow and something dark and electric that made my skin prickle. "You're not nothing, Raven Nightshade," he said. "You're a weapon. And I'm going to teach you how to be one." My heart stuttered. "What" "The Moonlight Pack cast you out. That makes you fair game." He smiled, and it was sharp and cold and terrifying. "You belong to me now." I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "I won't," I managed. "I won't go with you. I won't" "You will." The command hit me like a physical force. My knees buckled. My wolf, the wolf I'd buried so deep I'd almost forgotten she existed, howled. Kael caught my elbow before I could fall. His grip was firm but not cruel. Controlled. "You have two choices," he said. "Come with me willingly. Or I carry you over my shoulder like a sack of grain." I stared at him. At his cold, beautiful face. At his eyes that saw too much. "You're a monster," I whispered. Something flickered in his gaze. Pain? Regret? It was gone before I could name it. "Yes," he said. "I am." He released my elbow. Turned. Started walking. I stood there, frozen, for three heartbeats. Then I followed. Because I had nowhere else to go. Because I was tired of running. Because some small, broken part of me wanted to know what it felt like to be seen.