MOONMARKED

Rejected

The Moon Stone steadied itself just before the ceremony began, and for one fragile moment, Serena let herself believe the strangeness of the day was over.

She should have known better.

"Students of Mooncrest," Headmistress Lyra announced, her voice carrying across the plaza despite the tightness Serena had seen in her face only minutes ago, "tonight the Moon reveals what fate has already decided."

The crowd's excitement swelled back to life, fear folding into anticipation as quickly as it had appeared. Families leaned forward. Students gripped each other's hands. Somewhere near the front, a girl was already crying happy tears before her name had even been called.

"It's starting," Mira whispered, gripping Serena's arm. "Just breathe. Whatever happens—"

"I know." Serena didn't know. Her pulse was a drumbeat in her ears, hope and dread tangled so tightly together she couldn't tell which one was winning.

---

One by one, students stepped forward when their names were called, and one by one, the Moon Stone answered.

A thread of silver light would rise from the stone, arc through the crowd, and settle between two people—sometimes strangers who gasped in shock, sometimes friends who'd secretly hoped, sometimes rivals who groaned while everyone around them laughed. Each connection was met with cheers, tears, and embraces.

Serena watched a boy fall to his knees when the thread found the girl he'd apparently loved since childhood. She watched two rival packs' heirs stare at each other in horrified disbelief, then start laughing despite themselves. Joy rippled through the plaza in wave after wave, each pairing a small, complete story of its own.

She almost forgot to be afraid.

Almost.

"Ashwood, Serena."

Her name landed like a stone dropped into still water.

The plaza went quiet in an instant—not the reverent hush that had followed every other name, but something sharper. Curious. Cruel.

*They want to see me fail,* Serena thought, forcing her feet to move. *They want to watch the wolfless girl get nothing.*

She stepped into the open space before the Moon Stone, alone, the silver bracelet suddenly heavy on her wrist.

---

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the Moon Stone flared.

Not the gentle glow of a normal pairing—a violent surge of light, blinding white, that made half the crowd shield their eyes. Serena staggered back, gasping, as a thread of silver tore free from the stone and shot across the plaza faster than any of the others had moved.

It struck Rowan Blackthorne square in the chest.

The crowd's gasp was a single, collective sound.

"No," someone breathed. "That's not possible—"

Serena stood frozen, staring at the thread of light connecting her to the future Alpha of the Blackthorne Pack, and for one full heartbeat, something inside her chest cracked open with a feeling she didn't have a name for.

*Fate chose me.*

*The Moon didn't skip me after all.*

Rowan's face had gone pale, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on the glowing thread like it was a blade pointed at his throat.

---

"Rowan?" Headmistress Lyra's voice carried a warning Serena didn't understand yet. "Do you accept the bond?"

The silence stretched. Serena's heart pounded so hard she thought the whole plaza must be able to hear it.

*Say yes. Please say yes.*

Rowan looked at her—really looked at her, the same searching, unreadable look from the courtyard, from the training arena—and something in his expression flickered, uncertain, almost pained.

Then it hardened.

"No."

The word cut through the plaza like a blade.

"I reject this bond." His voice rose, steady and cold, carrying to every corner of the crowd. "I cannot accept a mate who has no wolf. My pack needs an heir who can lead beside me—not someone the Moon Stone made a mistake with."

The thread of light between them shattered.

---

The crowd's reaction came in pieces—first a stunned silence, then a low murmur, then, unmistakably, laughter.

"Rejected," someone said, gleeful. "In front of the whole school."

"Guess even the Moon Stone can't fix wolfless."

"Poor girl. Imagine the humiliation."

Serena stood in the center of the plaza, the silver thread's shattered light still fading around her like ash, and she made herself do the only thing she had left.

She didn't cry.

She held herself perfectly still, spine straight, chin level, while three hundred students watched the worst moment of her life unfold in real time. Somewhere in the crowd, she heard Mira shove past someone, already fighting her way toward the front.

"Serena—" Mira reached her first, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, glaring at anyone who dared to laugh too loud. "Don't listen to them. Don't you dare listen to them."

"I'm fine," Serena said, and her voice didn't shake, though everything underneath it had.

She turned and walked away from the plaza's center, away from Rowan, away from the laughter, refusing to let a single tear fall until she was out of their sight.

*I promised Mom I wouldn't break. Not here. Not in front of them.*

---

She'd made it almost to the edge of the plaza when the Moon Stone did something no ceremony in the academy's history had ever recorded.

It refused to go dark.

Behind her, the murmurs shifted—confusion replacing cruelty as the stone's light, instead of fading after the rejection like it always did, began to grow. Brighter. Then brighter still, pulsing with a violent urgency that had nothing to do with joyful pairings or heartbroken rejections.

"That's not right," someone said. "The ceremony's over. Why isn't it stopping?"

Serena turned back despite herself, drawn by the same dread that had settled into her chest since the fractured statue, since the old man's warning, since Lyra's whispered words at sundown.

*He's coming.*

The elders on the dais were on their feet now, faces white with something far past confusion. Headmistress Lyra's hands were braced against the podium as if she needed it to stay upright.

"The ceremony is not over," she said, and her voice—usually so composed—trembled.

---

Then the howl came.

It rolled out of the Forbidden Forest at the edge of the academy grounds, deep and ancient, vibrating through the ground itself, silencing every whisper in the plaza instantly.

It didn't sound like any wolf Serena had ever heard.

The elders froze where they stood. Somewhere near the dais, an old man's voice cracked through the stunned silence, thin with disbelief.

"That's impossible…"

Serena's bracelet burned hot against her skin, and the Moon Stone's light surged one final time—blinding, furious, alive—as every eye in the plaza turned toward the darkness of the trees, waiting for whatever was about to walk out of it.