The Rejected Mate’s Return

"I, Damon Blackthorn, Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack, reject you, Elara Moonshade, as my mate." The hall went silent. Hundreds of wolves watched. Elara's heart stopped. Her hands were still holding the silver cup she was meant to give him for the marking ceremony. "Damon," she whispered. "Why?" He didn't look at her. He looked at Selene, who stood smiling in a white dress that was supposed to be Elara's. "You betrayed this pack," Damon said coldly. "You've been passing our secrets to the rogues. I have proof." "That's a lie! I never..." "Enough!" His voice shook the walls. "You are banished. Leave before sunrise, or you'll be killed." The cup slipped from her fingers and rang against the floor. Then the bond snapped like a rope tearing inside her chest, and Elara fell to her knees, screaming. Her wolf didn't answer. It never had. And in the crowd, someone smiled. Nobody helped her up. The same wolves who had eaten at her table, the ones she'd nursed when they were sick, turned their faces away. Two guards grabbed her arms and dragged her through the hall. "Please," she begged, twisting to look back. "Damon, please, look at me. You know me." He finally looked. For one second, something flickered in his dark eyes. Pain, maybe. Doubt. Then Selene touched his arm, and it was gone. "Take her to the border," he said. The guards threw her out at the edge of Blackthorn territory like trash. "Run, little traitor," one of them laughed. "If the rogues don't get you, the cold will." They left. The gates closed behind her with a heavy boom. Elara sat in the dirt, still in the pale blue dress she had spent three weeks sewing for tonight. She had practiced her vows in the mirror. She had imagined his hand on her cheek, his teeth on her neck, the mark that would finally make her someone. Now there was only a burning hole where the bond used to be. "I didn't do it," she said to the empty forest. Her voice cracked. "I didn't do anything." The trees said nothing. She wiped her face with her torn sleeve and stood up. Her legs shook, but she stood. Crying wouldn't save her. Her mother used to say that a Moonshade never begs twice. She had already begged once tonight. That was enough. She walked for hours. The cold bit through her thin dress, and her bare feet bled on the stones. Every step felt like pulling a knife out of her chest. Then she heard it. A twig snapped behind her. Elara froze. Another snap, to her left. Then her right. Yellow eyes glowed between the trees. One pair. Then three. Then six. Rogues. The smell reached her next, blood and rot and old, rotten fur. A huge gray wolf stepped into the moonlight, drooling, its scarred face twisted into a grin. "Well, well," it growled, shifting halfway into a man with fangs still showing. "A Blackthorn she-wolf. Alone. And no wolf scent at all. Wolfless!" The others laughed. "I'm not from Blackthorn anymore," Elara said, backing away slowly. "I was banished. Let me go." "Banished?" The rogue sniffed the air and smiled wider. "Then nobody will come looking for you." He lunged. Elara threw herself sideways and rolled, but claws raked her back, and white-hot pain tore through her. She screamed and crawled, scrambling for a rock, a stick, anything. Another rogue grabbed her ankle and dragged her backward through the dirt. "Please!" she sobbed. "Please, don't!" A heavy paw pinned her to the ground. The leader leaned over her, his breath hot on her face. "Don't worry, little wolfless," he whispered. "It'll be quick." Elara closed her eyes. I'm going to die here, she thought. Alone. Because he didn't believe me. And deep inside her, in a place she'd thought was empty her whole life, something moved. A low, ancient howl rose in her chest. It wasn't her voice. It was a wolf, huge and furious, finally waking up after twenty years of sleep. The rogue froze. "What was that?" The ground trembled. Silver light flickered under Elara's skin, running up her arms like cracks in glass. Her eyes snapped open, glowing pale blue. The rogues stumbled back. "Impossible," the leader breathed, his face going white. "That color... that's the Moonblood..." Then the pain hit her like lightning, and the light went out. Elara collapsed, barely breathing, her blood soaking into the dirt. The last thing she heard before the darkness took her was a deep, calm voice, close to her ear. "Step away from her. Now." And the last thing she saw was a pair of cold gray eyes looking down at her, and the rogues running for their lives.