Rose's POV
The fire was getting too close to my feet.
I stepped back into the shadows where I belonged, tugging my grey servant dress down even though it already covered everything. Around me, the pack was alive. Alive in a way I could never be. Five hundred wolves. Maybe more. They filled the entire clearing in front of the old stone temple, their eyes bright with excitement, their bodies moving like they were already celebrating something that hadn't happened yet.
The Moon Ceremony. The night the Alpha chose his Luna.
The night everything was supposed to make sense.
I'd watched this festival five years in a row. Every year the same thing. The pack would gather, the fires would burn, and the Alpha would pick someone worthy. Someone who mattered. Someone who wasn't me.
But this year felt different.
This year my chest was going to break open, and I wasn't sure how I'd put it back together.
Elena arrived first.
She walked through the crowd like she already owned it, her white dress catching the firelight, her dark hair smooth and perfect. The other women stepped back to watch her pass. The men stared. Even the older wolves, the ones who were supposed to be above caring about beauty and status, followed her with their eyes.
She was going to be Luna.
She had to be Luna.
Because if she wasn't, that meant the thing I'd been feeling for three years might actually be real, and that was a thought that could get me killed just for thinking it.
I pressed my hands against my legs, feeling the rough fabric of my dress. This thing was the uniform of the help. The invisible ones. The wolves who existed only to serve and then disappear. I'd worn it so long I couldn't remember what I looked like underneath anymore.
Elena glowed in her white dress. I faded in my grey one.
That was how it worked.
The pack was getting louder now, wolves howling softly, the sound vibrating through the ground. The elders started moving toward the temple stones, taking their positions. Victor Thorne, the head advisor, stood to the right side of the clearing. He had this expression on his face like he'd won something huge. He probably felt like he had. He'd been pushing for Elena and Kade to bond since her family came to visit two years ago.
Politics. Power. Alliances. The words I'd heard whispered in the pack house for years.
And then Kade stepped into the clearing.
Every single wolf, including me, went quiet.
He was always beautiful. That wasn't new. Tall, strong, with dark hair that caught the firelight like it was made of it. His eyes were grey like storm clouds, and when he looked at something, it stopped existing as anything except what he was looking at. That was Alpha power. Not just strength. The ability to make you feel like you mattered when he turned his attention toward you.
He was wearing the ceremonial white shirt that showed his rank markings. The symbols that proved he was born to lead. His chest was bare underneath except for the dark lines that marked his bloodline, his power, his place in the world.
I was born to serve.
He was born to rule.
I knew better than to want anything more than that.
The bond came out of nowhere.
It was like someone had reached into my chest and grabbed my heart. Not in a bad way. In a way that made it impossible to breathe. I felt him. Felt his wolf. Felt something ancient inside him call to something ancient inside me like they'd been separated for a hundred years and had finally found each other again.
My legs went weak.
I grabbed the food table behind me to stay standing, and a wooden spoon clattered to the ground. One of the other servants looked at me with confusion. I just shook my head and stepped further back into the dark. No one was paying attention to the help anyway. They were all watching the show.
This was insane.
I was an Omega. The lowest rank. He was Alpha. The absolute highest. We couldn't have a bond. Bonds happened between equals. Bonds between people who had a future together. I didn't have a future. I had a life of service. And he had a life that never even had to acknowledge I existed.
And yet my entire body was vibrating with the need to move toward him.
I stood there shaking and watched him look at Elena.
When Kade's eyes landed on her, the bond loosened a little. Like it was confused. Like it was suddenly uncertain if it was real. Elena smiled, confident and gorgeous, and walked toward him like she'd always known this was how her story would end.
Maybe she was right.
She walked like someone who believed in themselves. She walked like someone who'd never served anyone. She walked like someone the world said mattered.
I watched her step into the circle in front of Kade and the rest of the pack moved in too, creating a ring of bodies and attention around them. The bond in my chest was doing something weird. It was still pulling, but it felt frantic now. Scared.
The bonding was supposed to happen now.
Kade was supposed to say the words. Ancient words that tied two wolves together. The words that meant Elena was Luna. The words that meant I could go back to the kitchens and forget this night had ever happened.
The bonding words would break what was happening inside my body.
They had to.
I held my breath, waiting for him to speak. The entire pack held their breath. Even the fire seemed quieter, like the world had stopped to listen.
Kade opened his mouth.
My heart stopped beating.
He looked at Elena, his grey eyes dark with something I couldn't name. Behind him, the moon was rising huge and silver, and the temple stones glowed with ancient power. This was the moment. The moment the Alpha chose his Luna. The moment everything would go back to normal. The moment I could stop feeling this impossible, dangerous, terrifying bond pulling me toward him like gravity.
He was going to say the words.
He had to say the words.
His jaw moved.
His lips parted.
And then he didn't say the bonding words at all.
Instead, he said something that made every wolf in the clearing go completely still.
"I can't," Kade said, and his voice was rough like broken glass. "I won't. This bond is wrong."