Iris Thorne POV
The blood moon was already rising when the head priestess called Iris forward.
She stepped into line with forty-nine other she-wolves, her borrowed dress scratching against her skin. The fabric was too tight in some places, too loose in others. Someone else's dress for someone else's life. That was the story of Iris Thorne, really. Always wearing things that didn't quite fit.
The Luna Temple was enormous. Stone columns reached toward the night sky. Thousands of wolves packed the ground below, watching, waiting. Somewhere in the crowd was her aunt Sable, probably hoping Iris would embarrass herself so she'd have an excuse to throw her out of the Thorne pack forever.
One by one, the females stepped forward.
The five Alphas stood on the temple steps like they owned the earth itself. They were nothing like the wolves that lived in the packs. These were different. Bigger. Darker. The kind of powerful that made your wolf want to bow before they even spoke.
The first Alpha claimed his Luna. The bond snapped into place between them, glowing gold in the moonlight. The crowd roared. Another female stepped forward. Another bond. Another celebration. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once.
Iris watched each successful pairing and felt her heart beat faster.
The healer who raised her had whispered something before the ceremony. Gran had held her hand and said that fated mates didn't care about status or power or whether a girl had a wolf inside her or not. Fate was stronger than any of that. Fate was destiny, and when you met your mate, you'd know. Your whole body would know.
Iris wanted to believe it. She needed to.
Twenty-eight females now. The successful ones waited with their new Alphas, already marked with those beautiful glowing bonds. The unsuccessful ones returned to the crowd with disappointment written all over their faces.
Then it was Iris's turn.
She walked forward slowly, trying to remember what Gran told her. Head up. Eyes forward. Let them see the girl beneath the borrowed dress.
The Alphas studied her.
The first one, Theron Ashwood, looked kind. He had silver hair and green eyes and he was smiling slightly. But his eyes moved past her to the next female waiting.
The second Alpha, Damon Blackriver, didn't even look at her. He was scanning the crowd like she wasn't worth the effort.
The third, Caspian Silverlake, was beautiful and charming but his smile didn't reach his eyes. Those eyes were empty.
The fourth, Ronan Stormclaw, stood completely still. Gray eyes that looked like a storm. He didn't smile. He didn't move. He didn't even blink.
And then there was Kael Varon.
The Alpha King stood in the center of the temple steps, and when Iris's eyes found his, something inside her stopped breathing.
His eyes were golden. Pure golden. Like sunlight had decided to become solid and live inside his body. He was staring at her, and for one heartbeat, just one, she saw something flicker across his face. A reaction. Recognition.
His wolf surged.
Iris felt it like a wave of heat. His entire body went rigid. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. The other Alphas noticed. Everyone noticed. The crowd went quiet.
This was it. This was the moment.
Kael would step forward. He would claim her. She would finally belong to something that mattered.
His mouth opened.
What came out destroyed her.
"I reject you, Iris Thorne." His voice was clear and loud so that every wolf in the temple could hear it. So that they would all know. "You are wolfless, powerless, and unworthy of standing in my presence, let alone bearing my mark."
The word unworthy hit like a fist to her stomach.
The crowd gasped. Rejections happened sometimes, but the Alpha King himself rejecting a female was rare. The way he said it, like she was beneath his consideration, like she was trash on the temple steps, that was unprecedented.
Iris couldn't move.
Then Theron stepped forward. His voice was gentler, almost apologetic. "I'm sorry, but pack law requires a Luna with her own wolf. I cannot accept you."
Damon sneered. "Rejected. You're pathetic."
Caspian looked uncomfortable but shook his head. "This isn't personal. I just can't."
Ronan didn't even speak. He just turned his back to her.
Five rejections. Five Alphas saying no.
The phantom mate bonds that had tried to form, just barely touching her soul before they could take root, suddenly shattered. The breaking happened inside her chest. It felt like her heart was being ripped out with bare hands. Like her ribs were caving in. Like the whole world was collapsing and she was standing at the center of it.
She couldn't breathe.
The pain was physical and absolute. It dropped her to her knees right there in front of the temple, in front of thousands of wolves, in front of the five most powerful Alphas in existence.
Someone screamed. Maybe it was her.
The crowd's pity was worse than laughter would have been. She could feel their eyes on her. That poor girl. That wolfless girl. That pathetic, powerless, unworthy girl.
Iris couldn't look at their faces anymore. She couldn't face the disappointment and judgment. She pushed herself up on shaking legs and ran. She ran from the temple, from the gathered wolves, from the blood moon hanging over everything.
Behind her she heard Sable's voice, sharp and cruel. "Iris Thorne is no longer welcome in the Thorne pack. She is a disgrace."
She ran faster.
The kingdoms blurred around her as she pushed herself past other wolves, past merchants, past families gathered for the ceremony. Her borrowed dress tore. Her borrowed shoes fell off somewhere. None of it mattered.
What mattered was getting away. What mattered was finding somewhere dark enough to hide. Somewhere no one would find her. Somewhere she could finally stop breathing, stop feeling, stop being this broken thing that even the goddess herself had rejected.
The Shadowlands stretched before her as she ran toward the border. Dark and twisted and wrong. Rogues hunted there. Wolves went to die there.
She wanted to die there.
Iris was almost to the darkness when a hand grabbed her arm.
"Not yet, little wolf." A voice older than anything, dangerous and certain, spoke from the shadows. "Not before you understand what you truly are."
Iris froze.
A woman emerged from the twisted trees. She was older, maybe fifty, with silver-streaked hair and eyes that glowed faintly violet in the darkness. She wore tattered robes and smelled like herbs and magic and things that didn't belong to the normal wolf world.
"Come inside." The woman gestured to a small cottage hidden among the poisoned trees. "You're dying, and I need to know if you're worth saving."Iris didn't move. Didn't run. Didn't speak.
But somewhere inside her chest, in the place where her heart used to be before it shattered, something whispered that this woman was the only real thing she'd felt since Kael's rejection destroyed her.
The woman waited, patient and ancient and knowing.
Behind them, the blood moon continued to rise, and Iris realized she had no choice left but to follow.