The Moon did not ask for my consent.
It simply claimed me.
A stillness deeper than sleep had fallen over the Whispering Woods. No cricket chirped, no owl hooted. Even the wind held its breath, as if the world itself knelt in terrified anticipation. The air tasted of ozone and wet stone, thick with a power that pressed against the skin like an incoming storm.
Silver light, cold and absolute, poured from the zenith, a column of liquid mercury that drowned the ancient stones of the Moonstone Amphitheater. It illuminated the faces of the gathered Alphas, etching lines of awe and rigid obedience into their features. One by one, they lowered their heads—not in reverence, I realized, but under a tangible weight. The Alpha of the Frostfang Pack, a brute known for his temper, actually trembled as he knelt. The air didn't just vibrate with power; it thrummed with ownership.
My wolf stirred beneath my skin, a low, continuous growl that vibrated in my bones. Wrong. This is wrong.
I stood at the edge of the central circle, my boots planted on stone worn smooth by centuries of submitted knees. I wore no ceremonial white. Only a long black coat over a dark shirt, open at the throat. A deliberate silence in a symphony of compliance.
The Moon Priestess, Selene, raised her staff of aged rowan. The crystal at its tip ignited, drinking the moonlight and bleeding it back out, colder, sharper. Her eyes, fully silvered by the ritual, swept over the assembly and landed on me.
"Kael Ravencroft." Her voice was no longer entirely her own; it echoed with the chill of the void between stars. "High Alpha of the Blackridge Pack."
A ripple went through the crowd. Whispers, hastily stifled. I saw it in their sidelong glances: fear, a hungry sort of awe, and the keen interest of predators watching a rival step onto unstable ground. To my left, Elias, an Alpha from the eastern packs known for his ambition, didn't bother to hide his smirk. To my right, Old Man Theron of the Stonehaven Pack watched me with pity in his aged eyes. The political landscape of the entire territory shifted in that single moment of recognition.
"Step forward," Selene commanded, the words leaving frost in the air.
I did not move.
A fissure of surprise cracked her placid mask before she smoothed it over. "The Moon has chosen you," she intoned, the script of the ritual unspooling. "Tonight, your mate bond will be revealed. A gift. A completion."
A beautiful lie, wrapped in sanctimony and stagecraft. I had seen the truth of that "gift." My father, a High Alpha whose will had been iron, reduced to a hollow-eyed puppet, jumping at the whisper of his mate's displeasure. I had watched the light of fierce independence in my aunt's eyes gutter and die after the bond snapped into place. It wasn't union; it was assimilation. The slow, sweet poison of predestined surrender.
The coiling silver light found me. It ignored the others, focusing, intent. It wrapped around my chest, not warm, but invasive, like roots seeking to burrow into my heart and anchor me to a will not my own.
My breath hitched. Not from fear. From a fury so cold it burned.
The Priestess's staff pulsed. "Do you feel her touch? The pull of your destined half?"
I felt it. A psychic hook sinking deep, trying to reel in my soul. Images, unwanted, intimate, flashed behind my eyes: the scent of jasmine and iron, a laugh like breaking glass, a possessive hand on the back of my neck. My wolf roared in defiance, thrashing against the confines of my flesh, fighting a leash it sensed before it was fully formed.
The Priestess lifted her chin, a conqueror offering terms. "Do you accept the bond granted by the Moon Goddess?"
Silence.
A deafening, absolute void of sound. Every wolf in the amphitheater leaned forward, their collective breath held. The moonlight seemed to sharpen, waiting. I could feel the expectation of the Goddess herself—a vast, patient, and utterly arrogant presence—leaning on the scales of my choice.
I tilted my head back, ignoring the Priestess, the pack, the world. I looked directly into the heart of the full moon, into that cold, silver eye.
I saw it not as a deity, but as a warden. I felt its claim, its assumption of ownership. It hadn't chosen a partner for me. It had chosen a keeper for it.
The word left me, not as a shout, but as a final, irrevocable truth, clean as a scalpel cut.
"No."
It didn't echo. It was absorbed by the stunned air, then detonated.
Gasps were knives. Elias's smirk vanished, replaced by naked shock. Old Theron closed his eyes in sorrow. Selene, the Priestess, stumbled back a step, the silver leaching from her eyes for a second, revealing pure, human terror.
"You cannot—!" she choked.
The ground beneath me didn't just crack; it screamed. A web of fissures exploded outwards from my feet.
And then the pain came.
It was not the pain of claws or teeth. It was the universe turning inside out through the sieve of my mind. My knees buckled. Visions, more vivid than life, detonated in my skull: me, kneeling at the feet of a faceless figure, offering my throat. Me, howling in joy at a command. Me, watching my pack from a distance, my will a distant memory, content in my golden cage. The horror wasn't in the images; it was in the wave of complacency that washed over me with them. A part of me wanted to yield. The Moon's punishment was to make me an accomplice in my own breaking.
My wolf didn't fight it; he was subdued. A silent, furious presence muzzled by divine will.
Agony, psychic and absolute, shredded my senses. Silver fire replaced my blood. I felt a howl tear from my throat, but heard only a wet, ragged gasp. Blood, hot and coppery, spilled from my lips, splattering the ancient stone—a blasphemous stain on the altar of submission.
Through a haze of silver and red, I saw the reactions. The Alphas weren't just shocked; they were terrified. This wasn't in the scriptures. A High Alpha should be on the ground, unconscious or mind-shattered. Yet, I was still here. Still aware.
With a shudder that wracked my entire frame, I forced one hand flat against the cracked stone. Then the other. I pushed.
Muscle, bone, and sheer, vicious will fought against the cosmic weight pressing me down. The Moon's light pulsed, angry now, a discordant rhythm that hammered at my skull. It demanded my collapse.
I rose.
First to my knees, then, trembling violently, to my feet. Every nerve shrieked. The visions clawed at the edges of my mind, promising peace for surrender. I met the moon's gaze again, my own vision swimming with pain and defiance.
And I smiled. A ghastly, blood-smeared curve of lips.
Above, for less than a heartbeat—a single, skipped pulse of the world—the unwavering light of the moon flickered.
A soft, choked cry came from Selene. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the sky, then on me, with dawning, world-breaking horror.
That was the moment the Moon decided to punish me in earnest.
And the moment I learned, with a shock of grim triumph that cut through the pain—
she could bleed.
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