Amara
The moon hung like a blade in the sky—sharp, silver, and watching.
Its glow turned the forest clearing into something otherworldly. Cold. Hollow. The sacred ritual stone stood at the center of it all, worn smooth by generations of feet and fate, and I stood barefoot upon it, the icy stone biting into my skin. The soft crunch of gravel echoed from where the pack gathered in a wide, watchful circle, every wolf cloaked in ceremonial garb, every eye trained on me.
Tonight was supposed to change my life.
It was the night I would be claimed by my mate.
I'd dreamt of this moment since I was a child curled against my mother's chest, listening to stories of fated bonds and divine callings. Now that it had come, the silence settled like a noose around my throat.
The Crescent Hollow Pack was never loud, not during rituals. But this silence? This wasn't reverent. It was tense. Thick. Breathless.
Some part of me—the part trained to read battlefield air—knew it wasn't just anticipation. It was suspicion.
Something was wrong.
But I held still.
I had to.
Because I was Amara Locke—youngest daughter of the Locke line. A warrior bred in blood and discipline. My mother, Commander of the Eastern Border, was all feral strength and precision. My father trained enforcers with a voice like thunder and hands that bore the callouses of a lifetime in service to our pack.
I was their legacy. Their only daughter.
My body bore the scars of sparring matches and the fire of expectation. I could disarm a male twice my size, run the northern ridge in under five minutes, and track a scent trail through three miles of forest without a break.
But tonight, none of that mattered.
Tonight, I was draped in ceremonial white—a soft, gauzy fabric that clung to my body and whispered of submission. My hair had been braided with silver thread, kohl lined my eyes, and a crescent-shaped mark glowed just beneath my collarbone, thrumming in time with the mate bond.
Or what I believed to be my claiming mark.
It had appeared when I was sixteen.
For most wolves, it happened once the bond was solidified. But mine showed early. It was rare—whispers had called it a blessing. A prophecy. The mark pulsed now like a heartbeat, reacting to something... or someone.
Because he was near.
Cassian Blackwood.
My Alpha. My mate.
Or so I believed.
He wasn't just the Alpha of Crescent Hollow—he was the embodiment of power itself. Cold, beautiful, and carved from shadow. His leadership was unquestioned. His approval, scarce. And for as long as I could remember, I'd belonged to him in a way that transcended choice.
Fate had tied me to him. That had to mean something.
A ripple moved through the pack, and I raised my head. He stepped forward through the parting wolves, dressed in traditional black.
The contrast against my white was stark, symbolic. The masculine and the feminine. Alpha and Luna. Fire and frost.
He didn't smile.
Didn't blink.
His eyes—icy, pale, unreadable—locked onto mine, and something inside me... wavered.
"Cassian," Elder Marek said, voice deep and solemn, "do you recognize the bond of the Moon?"
The question echoed. Ritualistic. Sacred.
Time stalled. A breeze rustled through the trees. Somewhere, an owl called out, then silence again.
Cassian's jaw tightened.
And then he said it.
Flat. Emotionless. Final.
"I reject her."
The world splintered.
My knees nearly buckled. I couldn't hear. Couldn't breathe. Gasps broke around me, and yet all I could focus on was the sudden, searing pain in my chest as the bond unraveled. The mark on my skin flared white-hot, then dimmed—like a candle snuffed by wind.
Cassian turned and walked away.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't look back.
He just left me there—barefoot, abandoned, broken.
I don't remember when my feet moved.
I don't remember throwing off the ceremonial shawl, or bolting from the stone, or the way the branches tore at my skin as I ran through the forest. My lungs ached. My vision blurred. The howl of my wolf, Sera, roared in my blood but couldn't break free.
I didn't shift.
I couldn't.
I was too raw. Too shattered.
The earth finally gave out beneath me, and I collapsed.
Tears soaked the dirt. My hands clawed at leaves. My body shook with a kind of grief I hadn't known existed.
This wasn't just heartbreak.
It was betrayal by the Moon herself.
I pressed my face into the cold soil and sobbed until I could no longer hear my own cries. Until only silence remained.
Until I wasn't alone.
A voice cut through the trees—gravelly, rough-edged, dark.
"You're not supposed to be out here, little Luna."
I froze.
That voice didn't belong to Cassian. It didn't belong to anyone who should have been at the ceremony.
I looked up.
He stepped out of the darkness like a curse made flesh.
Grayson Blackwood.
Grayson
I shouldn't have been there.
But the Moon pulled me north, and I've never been good at ignoring her.
Hidden in the trees, I watched the farce unfold. The claiming ceremony, the pomp, the useless tradition. Cassian, my half-brother, standing like a prince among peasants.
He had everything—title, power, the favor of our father.
And he was about to destroy the one thing he didn't deserve.
Amara Locke.
I'd seen her from afar during the blood trials a few summers ago—barely eighteen, fast as hell, with eyes like wildfire and a blade-hand as sharp as her tongue. But now… she looked like a goddess carved from the moonlight.
And Cassian—fucking Cassian—rejected her.
My wolf, Kael, lost his mind.
The second she ran, I followed. Silently. Swiftly. Until I found her collapsed in the dirt like something precious shattered.
She was curled into herself, shoulders trembling, moonlight casting silver across her bare back.
My instincts warred. I should've turned away.
But I didn't.
I stepped from the shadows.
"You're not supposed to be out here, little Luna."
She froze. Lifted her head.
Eyes wild. Tears streaked. Beautiful, even in ruin.
And in that instant—my mark flared to life.
So did hers.
Fate didn't just whisper that night.
It roared.
Amara
The voice was gravel and steel—unexpected and dark enough to slice through the fog in my brain.
I blinked, trying to lift myself from the dirt. My limbs trembled beneath me, weak from adrenaline and heartbreak. I turned toward
the sound, heart still in my throat.
He stepped forward, out of the trees like a shadow peeled off the forest itself.
Grayson Blackwood.
Cassian's brother. Or rather, the one our pack whispered about like a cautionary tale. The exiled one. The dangerous one. The one
who disappeared into the rogue lands years ago and never came back.
Until now.
His hair was longer than I remembered—dark, disheveled, and half-tied at the nape of his neck. His jaw was sharp, dusted with stubble, and a pale scar curved from his cheek to just under his right eye like a signature left by battle.
He didn't smile.
Didn't blink.
Just watched me, eyes like smoke, posture half-predator.
"I said," he repeated, voice lower now, almost amused, "you're not supposed to be out here, little Luna."
Something inside me snapped.
"I'm not anyone's Luna," I spat, dragging myself upright until I was kneeling. "Didn't you hear? Your brother made that very clear."
Grayson's brow twitched. Not quite a wince, not quite a smirk.
"I heard," he said, stepping closer. "And I saw."
He stopped a few feet away—close enough that I could smell him.
Woods and rain. Steel and ash. Male.
"You shouldn't be here," I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. "You're not even part of the pack anymore."
"And yet," he murmured, "here I am."
His gaze dipped to the hollow of my throat, where my supposed bond-mark had dimmed to nothing. And then his eyes lifted—
sharper now, more calculating.
"You felt it too, didn't you?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
Because I had.
The moment I'd looked at him—really looked—the pulse I'd known all my life had surged to life again, fiercer than anything I'd ever felt with Cassian. Raw. Wild. Unapologetic.
"No," I lied. "I didn't feel anything."
He smiled then—slow and dangerous.
"Liar."