## **Chapter 1: The Rejection**
Aria Winters had imagined this day a thousand different ways.
She'd pictured Damien's eyes softening when he saw her. Imagined him taking her hand in front of the entire pack and saying the words every wolf dreamed of hearing: "You're mine." She'd fantasized about the way his arms would feel around her, the way the mate bond would finally snap into place completely, the way everyone who'd ever looked down on her would have to acknowledge that she belonged.
She had not, in any of those thousand scenarios, pictured this.
"I, Damien Blackwood, Alpha of the Shadowmoon Pack, reject you, Aria Winters, as my mate."
The words hit her like a physical blow. The world tilted sideways, and for a moment, Aria genuinely thought she might throw up right there on the ceremonial platform in front of three hundred wolves.
This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.
But Damien's face was cold, his storm-gray eyes looking at her like she was nothing. Like she was less than nothing. And beside him, Seraphina Kane stood with her perfectly manicured hand on his arm, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders like a shampoo commercial, her smile sharp enough to cut glass.
"Accept the rejection, Aria," Damien said, his voice flat and disinterested. "Spare yourself the humiliation."
Humiliation.
The word echoed in her head as she stood there in the white dress she'd spent three months saving for. The dress that was supposed to make her feel beautiful when her mate claimed her. The dress that now felt like a costume, like she was playing pretend at being something she could never be.
Around her, the pack watched in stunned silence. Some looked uncomfortable. Most looked... satisfied. Like they'd been waiting for this moment. Waiting for the orphan girl, the weak one, the nobody, to finally be put in her place.
"Well?" Seraphina's voice was sugar-sweet poison. "Are you going to accept, or are we going to stand here all night? Some of us have important things to do."
Aria's hands trembled at her sides. The mate bond, the one she'd felt since she was sixteen, was screaming inside her chest. Her wolf, Lyra, was howling in agony, clawing at her insides, begging her to fight, to not let this happen.
But what could she do? You couldn't force someone to want you.
She looked at Damien—really looked at him—searching for any sign that this was some kind of mistake. That he'd suddenly snap out of it and realize what he was doing. They'd known each other their whole lives. He'd taught her to fish when she was seven. He'd walked her home from school when the other kids were mean. He'd—
But no. Those memories belonged to a different person. The boy who'd been kind to her had disappeared years ago, replaced by this cold stranger who'd spent the last two years ignoring her existence entirely.
"Damien," she whispered, hating how small her voice sounded. "Please. I don't understand. We're mates. We're supposed to—"
"You're too weak," he cut her off, and his words were like knives. "Look at you. You can barely shift without exhausting yourself. You have no power, no status, no strength. Did you really think I would bind myself to someone like you?"
Someone in the crowd snickered. The sound was like a match to kindling, and suddenly there were more laughs, more whispers.
"Poor thing actually thought—"
"—delusional if she believed—"
"—Alpha needs a strong Luna, not a charity case—"
Aria's vision blurred with tears she refused to let fall. Not here. Not in front of them.
"I need a Luna who can stand beside me," Damien continued, his voice carrying across the ceremony ground. "Someone powerful. Someone worthy. Seraphina is a Beta's daughter. She's strong, capable, and from a good bloodline. She's everything you're not."
Seraphina practically preened, pressing herself closer to Damien's side. "I'll be the Luna Shadowmoon deserves," she said, her emerald eyes glittering with triumph as she looked at Aria. "Sorry, sweetie. Better luck in your next life."
The pack laughed. Actually laughed.
And something inside Aria cracked.
"Accept the rejection," Damien said again, and this time there was impatience in his tone. "Say the words, Aria. End this."
She should. She knew she should. Every second she stood here, the bond was tearing her apart from the inside. The rejection wouldn't be complete until she accepted it, and until then, it was like having her soul slowly ripped in half.
But saying the words felt like giving up. Like admitting that she really was everything they said she was—worthless, powerless, unlovable.
"I..." Her voice cracked. She tried again. "I accept—"
"Oh, just get it over with," someone yelled from the crowd. "We haven't got all night!"
More laughter. More cruel, casual mockery.
Aria's hands clenched into fists, her nails digging into her palms hard enough to draw blood. She lifted her chin, forcing herself to look Damien in the eye one last time.
He looked bored. Like this was just another item on his to-do list. Reject pathetic mate. Check.
"I, Aria Winters," she said, her voice surprisingly steady now that she'd gone completely numb inside, "accept your rejection."
The bond snapped.
It felt like dying. Like someone had reached into her chest, grabbed her heart, and yanked it out through her ribcage. Aria gasped, stumbling backward, her hand flying to her chest as pain unlike anything she'd ever experienced radiated through her entire body.
Damien didn't even flinch. He just turned away, already dismissing her, already moving on.
"Let's continue with the actual ceremony," he announced to the pack. "Seraphina has agreed to be my chosen mate."
The pack erupted in cheers and applause. Seraphina beamed, practically glowing as Damien took her hand.
No one was looking at Aria anymore. In the span of thirty seconds, she'd gone from the center of attention to completely invisible.
Good. That made this easier.
She turned and ran.
"Where's she going?" someone called out, laughing. "Cry to her dead parents?"
More laughter followed her as she fled the ceremony grounds, her white dress tangling around her legs, her vision blurred with tears she could no longer hold back. She ran past the pack houses, past the training grounds, past everything familiar until the sounds of celebration faded behind her.
She didn't stop running until she reached the forest at the edge of Shadowmoon territory.
Only then did she let herself collapse against a tree, her whole body shaking with sobs she'd been holding in. The pain of the broken bond was overwhelming, a constant agony that made it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do anything but hurt.
"Aria," her wolf whimpered inside her mind. Lyra's voice was weak, devastated. "Aria, what do we do?"
"I don't know," Aria whispered into the darkness. "I don't know."
She'd never felt so alone in her entire life. Her parents were dead—killed in a rogue attack when she was five. She had no siblings, no family, no one who gave a damn whether she lived or died. The pack had only tolerated her out of obligation, and Damien...
Damien had been her hope. Her future. The one person she'd thought might actually want her.
And he'd thrown her away like garbage.
"We should go back," Lyra said weakly. "We should—"
"No." Aria pushed herself to her feet, swaying slightly. The pain was making her dizzy, but she forced herself to move. "We're not going back there. Ever."
"But where will we go?"
Aria looked into the dark forest ahead of her. Beyond Shadowmoon territory was neutral land, then other pack territories. Dangerous for a lone wolf. Potentially deadly for one as weak as her.
She didn't care.
"Anywhere," she said. "Anywhere but here."
She started walking, each step taking her further from the only home she'd ever known. Her dress was already torn from running through the underbrush. Her feet hurt. The broken mate bond felt like someone was pouring acid directly into her veins.
But she kept walking.
Behind her, in the distance, she could hear the sounds of the celebration continuing. They were probably dancing now, toasting the new couple, celebrating the Alpha's choice of a "worthy" mate.
They'd forget about her by morning. She'd just be a funny story they told at parties. "Remember when that weak little orphan actually thought the Alpha would want her?"
Aria stumbled over a root and caught herself against a tree. She was so tired. The pain was making it hard to focus, and she hadn't eaten anything all day because she'd been too nervous about the ceremony.
"Rest," Lyra pleaded. "Please, Aria. Just for a moment."
"Not yet. Not close enough to their territory. I need to—"
Her foot caught on something, and this time she went down hard, hitting the forest floor with a painful thud. She tried to get up, but her body wasn't cooperating anymore. The combination of emotional devastation and physical exhaustion was too much.
"Get up," she told herself. "Come on. You have to get up."
But she couldn't. Her muscles wouldn't obey. The world was starting to blur around the edges, going soft and fuzzy.
This was bad. She was still too close to pack territory. If rogues found her like this...
"Help," she tried to call out, but her voice was barely a whisper. "Someone..."
But there was no one. There had never been anyone. That was the whole problem, wasn't it?
Aria's eyes drifted closed. She was so cold. When had it gotten so cold?
"Aria!" Lyra's voice sounded far away now. "Aria, stay awake! Please!"
She wanted to. She really did. But the darkness was warm and soft and it promised an end to the pain, and that sounded so good right now.
Just before everything went black, Aria had one final, bitter thought:
At least if she died out here, Damien would feel guilty. Maybe. Probably not. He'd probably be relieved he didn't have to deal with the embarrassment of having rejected his mate at a public ceremony.
The darkness swallowed her whole.
---
**Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.**
---
Aria didn't know how long she lay there in the dirt, somewhere between consciousness and oblivion. Time felt strange, stretching and contracting like a rubber band.
She was vaguely aware of being cold. So cold her teeth would have been chattering if she had the energy for it. The broken mate bond was still screaming inside her, a constant background noise of agony that refused to fade.
"I'm going to die out here," she thought distantly. "Alone in the woods. How pathetic."
Even her internal monologue sounded tired.
Then—voices. Male voices, getting closer.
For a moment, hope flickered in her chest. Had someone from the pack come looking for her after all? Maybe Luna, the pack's healer? She'd always been kind to Aria, in a distant sort of way.
But as the voices got closer, Aria realized with a sinking feeling that she didn't recognize them. And worse, they were coming from the wrong direction—from deeper in neutral territory, not from Shadowmoon lands.
Rogues. Had to be.
She tried to move, to drag herself behind a tree, to do anything to hide, but her body was still refusing to cooperate. She managed to crack one eye open, just enough to see two figures approaching through the trees.
One was massive, easily six and a half feet tall, with a bald head that gleamed in the moonlight. The other was leaner but still clearly dangerous, moving with the controlled grace of a predator.
Rogues, definitely. And she was about to die. After everything else that had happened tonight, this seemed almost fitting. The universe's final "screw you" to Aria Winters.
"Is that—" the tall one started.
"A girl," the other one finished, crouching down beside her. "Bleeding. Looks like she's been through hell."
"Think she's dead?"
"Not yet. But close." There was a pause. "She smells like... gods, the pain coming off her. This is fresh rejection. Broken mate bond."
The tall one swore. "That's brutal. Who would—"
"Doesn't matter. Help me get her up. We need to move her."
"Are you insane? We don't know who she is or where she came from. Could be a trap."
"Does she look like a trap to you?" The lean one's voice was sharp. "She's dying, Marcus. I'm not leaving her out here."
Marcus—the tall one—sighed heavily. "Your bleeding heart is going to get us killed one day, you know that?"
"Probably. Grab her legs."
Aria wanted to protest, to tell them she was fine (she wasn't), to demand they leave her alone (she didn't really want that either), but her mouth wouldn't form words. She felt hands—surprisingly gentle hands—lift her from the ground.
"Easy," the lean one murmured. "We've got you. You're safe now."
Safe. What a joke. Aria had never been safe in her entire life.
But as consciousness slipped away from her again, she found herself clinging to those words anyway.
The last thing she heard before the darkness took her completely was:
"Get her to the Elder. If anyone can save her, it's Moira."