CURSED MATE,CHOSEN QUEEN

--- The wind carried the scent of pine and ash as the moon rose over Black Hollow. Bonfires crackled, laughter echoed, and the whole pack gathered beneath the sacred tree — the place where fate would speak. It was supposed to be the happiest night of my life. My eighteenth birthday. The day a wolf finds their mate. I wore the dress my mother left me before she died — a faded white gown with tiny stitched moons across the hem. I smoothed the fabric over my nervous hands, pretending it didn’t matter that everyone whispered when I passed. “She still hasn’t shifted,” someone muttered. “What if she doesn’t have a wolf?” “She’s cursed. No real Luna blood.” I kept my head up. I kept breathing. I kept hoping. Then I saw him. Alpha Kael. Tall. Cold. Untouchable. His eyes met mine across the clearing — and something inside me stirred. My wolf. She whimpered. She reached. And I knew. He was mine. I took one shaky step forward, heart slamming in my chest like thunder. But Kael’s gaze didn’t soften. He didn’t smile. Instead, he turned his head… and laughed. “The Moon Goddess made a mistake.” His voice rang through the clearing like a death sentence. “I reject you, Aria Ravenclaw. You are no mate of mine.” Gasps. Laughter. My name spat like a joke. I stood there, frozen. My lips parted, but no words came out. Something inside me cracked. And then — shattered. I turned and ran. Barefoot. Blind. Broken. Tears streamed hot and fast down my cheeks as the forest swallowed me. Branches tore at my skin. Roots reached up to trip me, as if the world itself had decided to hurt me. My lungs burned. My heart— I didn’t know if it was still beating. I didn’t stop until I fell, hard and wrong, twisting my ankle beneath me. Pain shot up my leg. I cried out, collapsing into the wet earth, dress torn, skin bloodied, soul in pieces. I lay there in the dirt, screaming into the silence. Screaming for someone to love me. Screaming for the mother I lost. Screaming because if I didn’t, I would disappear. And then, beneath the sobs, I heard it. A whisper, low and ancient, curling like mist around my ear. > “Daughter of moonlight… why do you cry?” I froze. The pain faded. The cold disappeared. Only the voice remained. > “Blood of the Moonborne... forgotten child... do you not hear us?” “I don’t know who you are,” I choked. “Please… just leave me alone.” The voice did not. It came again, from the trees, from the wind, from beneath my skin. > “You were never meant to be claimed by him. You were meant to awaken.” The ground beneath me pulsed — slow, like a heartbeat. > “The blood you carry is older than the pack that scorned you. You are not rejected, child. You are… chosen.” My breath caught. The wind twisted. The moon above darkened for a moment — eclipsed. And when the light returned, I wasn’t alone. A man stood in the shadows. Cloaked in black, eyes like frost and fire. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. But somehow… somehow, he looked at me like he had been waiting for centuries. And the strange part? I wasn’t afraid. --- End of Chapter One.