Chapter One
Chapter One The Night the Moon Turned Away
I used to think the moon was kind.
When I was a little pup, my mother sat with me on the back steps of our small cabin. She told me the moon only chose the strongest hearts to carry the heaviest mates. She said a true mate was a gift, a second soul that would never leave you out in the cold. I held onto that story like a prayer because I needed it.
My father died when I was seven, killed by rogues on the pack border. My mother died two winters later, sick and broken. After that, I belonged to no one. The pack took me in—they fed me, trained me, and gave me a roof—but love was something other wolves received. I only watched it from far away.
I grew up quiet and useful. I never caused trouble and never asked for more than I was given. But when the Alpha’s son first looked at me across the training grounds, I thought the moon had finally remembered my name. He was everything the old stories promised: tall, strong, and carrying the weight of the pack. He smiled at me like I was rare. He courted me the old way—running through the forest together, sharing kills, and whispering soft words under the trees.
When the mate bond finally snapped into place on my twentieth birthday, I cried from relief. I thought my lonely years were over. I thought I had truly been chosen.
I became his Luna three months later.
The wedding ceremony was beautiful. The pack celebrated for two whole days. I wore a white dress and the Alpha’s mark on my neck like a crown. For a while, it felt real. I learned my duties. I settled arguments. I stood at his side during meetings and smiled when the elders praised my gentle voice. At night, he held me like I was precious. I loved him with a desperate, grateful heart because I had spent so much of my life unwanted. I thought that was enough.
It was not.
The first cracks started small. He stayed later and later at the training grounds. He stopped asking how my day went. The mark on my neck began to ache in a strange, heavy way, giving me a warning I tried to ignore. Then the rumors started about a new she-wolf from a nearby pack. She was beautiful, strong, and did not carry the quiet, ordinary history I had. I told myself it was nothing. Mates do not stray. The bond would not allow it.
I was wrong.
On the night of the Blood Moon, the whole pack gathered in the clearing. Torches burned in a big circle. The air smelled of pine trees and nervous energy. I stood at the front in my Luna colors, hands folded, my heart feeling heavy. My husband—my mate—had been distant all day. When he finally stepped into the center of the crowd, everyone went quiet.
He did not look at me.
“I have an announcement,” he said, his voice carrying easily over the crowd. “The bond I share with Sienna was a mistake.”
His words hit me like a physical punch. I felt every head turn to look at me. My lungs forgot how to breathe.
He kept talking, calm and sure of himself. “The moon chose wrong. Tonight, under the Blood Moon, I reject Sienna as my mate and as the Luna of the Blood Moon Pack.”
Everyone in the clearing gasped. Someone whispered my name. I could not move. I could not speak. The mark on my neck turned white-hot, then ripped open with a pain so sharp I almost fell to my knees. Blood welled up under my collar and ran down my skin in a warm, thin line.
He turned to the woman standing right behind him—the one from the rumors. She stepped forward with her head held high, wearing the face of someone who had already won.
“I claim her instead,” he said. “She will be the new Luna.”
The bond between us broke.
It felt like someone was ripping a vital piece right out of my chest while the whole pack watched. My inner wolf screamed, a loud sound of pure agony that never made it past my throat. I stood frozen as he bit into the new woman's neck, as the pack began to murmur, and as the life I built fell apart in front of everyone I knew.
No one stepped forward.
No one spoke up for me.
I was the rejected Luna now—public, permanent, and completely alone under a moon that had finally shown me its true face.
I did not cry. Not right then. Not while they all stared at me. I just stood there with blood running down my throat and the pieces of a broken bond cutting me from the inside. I finally understood with crystal clear truth that the stories my mother told me were lies.
The moon was not kind.
It was only waiting to take everything back.
