The moon hung over the Blackwood Pack territory like a giant, glowing eye. It was the night of the Great Equinox, the night every eighteen-year-old in the pack prayed for. For most, it was a night of celebration and finding their fated mates. For me, it was a night of pure, cold terror.
I stood at the very edge of the ceremonial circle, trying to hide my shaking hands in the folds of my cheap, thin dress. I was Elara, the pack's "charity case." My parents had died in a rogue attack when I was just a pup, and since then, I had lived in the shadows of the pack house, scrubbing floors and washing the laundry of the elite warriors.
"Don't get your hopes up, wolfless," a voice hissed in my ear.
I didn't need to look to know it was Sasha. She was the daughter of the Beta, beautiful, cruel, and draped in expensive furs. She shoved past me, her shoulder hitting mine hard enough to make me stumble.
"Alpha Thorne would never mate with a servant like you," she sneered. "Even if the Moon Goddess is blind enough to pair you, he'd never accept a Luna who can't even grow fur."
I bit my lip, drawing blood. She was right. I was eighteen today, but my wolf had never arrived. I was a "null"—a werewolf with no shift. In a pack that valued strength above all else, I was less than nothing.
But there was a secret I kept buried deep in my heart. Thorne.
Thorne was the future Alpha of Blackwood. He was tall, with shoulders as broad as a mountain and hair the color of midnight. When we were children, before he became the terrifying leader he was now, he used to sneak me bread from the Alpha's table. He used to smile at me. Sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, his golden eyes would linger on me with a warmth that made my skin tingle.
The drums began to beat. A heavy, rhythmic thumping that echoed the frantic pulse in my neck.
Alpha Thorne stepped into the center of the circle. The firelight danced across his rugged face, making him look like a god carved from stone. He looked powerful. He looked lethal. My soul cried out the moment he appeared. A strange, magnetic pull began to tug at my chest, drawing me toward him.
Please, I whispered to the Moon Goddess. Please let the pull be real.
Thorne began to walk. The pack held its breath. He passed the high-ranking females. He passed the daughters of the elders. He kept walking until he reached the very edge of the circle.
He stopped right in front of me.
The world went silent. The only thing I could hear was the crackling of the fire and the sound of my own breathing. Thorne reached out, his large hand gripping my chin. His skin was burning hot against mine. The moment we touched, a massive jolt of electricity surged through my body. It wasn't just a spark; it was a wildfire.
My heart soared. He was mine. The future Alpha was my fated mate.
"Thorne," I breathed, my eyes filling with tears of relief. "It's you. It's really you."
For a second, I saw a flash of something in his eyes. Pain? Regret? But then, his face turned into a mask of cold iron. He let go of my chin as if my skin had burned him. He looked at my thin frame, my ragged clothes, and my shaking knees.
"No," he said. His voice wasn't a whisper. It was a roar that carried to every corner of the forest.
I froze. "What?"
Thorne turned his back on me and faced the entire pack. "Look at her!" he shouted, pointing a finger at me. "Look at this weak, wolfless girl. The Moon Goddess has played a cruel joke tonight. She has offered me a mate who cannot shift. A mate who cannot defend our borders. A mate who will bring nothing but shame to the Blackwood lineage!"
"Thorne, please," I sobbed, reaching for his hand. "We can make it work. I can be strong—"
He spun around, his golden eyes flashing with a terrifying Alpha light. He grabbed my wrist, squeezing so hard I heard the bone groan.
"I, Alpha Thorne of the Blackwood Pack, reject you, Elara, as my mate and my Luna," he hissed into my face. "I sever the bond. I cast you out. You are no longer part of this pack. You are a nameless rogue, and I never want to see your pathetic face again."
The rejection hit me like a physical blow to the stomach. The invisible thread connecting our souls snapped with a sound only I could hear. It felt like my heart was being turned inside out. I fell to the dirt, screaming as a white-hot agony scorched my veins.
"And to show you who your true Luna is," Thorne growled, ignoring my screams, "I claim Sasha as my chosen mate!"
He pulled Sasha into his arms. She smirked at me over his shoulder, her eyes full of triumph, as Thorne crushed his lips against hers. The pack began to cheer. They didn't care that I was dying on the ground. They didn't care that their Alpha had just broken the most sacred law of the Goddess.
I dragged myself up, my vision blurred by tears. I had to leave. If I stayed until sunrise, the pack warriors would be allowed to hunt me for sport.
I ran. I ran until my lungs burned and my legs felt like lead. I pushed deep into the Forbidden Forest, where the trees grew so thick the moonlight couldn't reach the ground. I collapsed near a dark, black pond, my body shivering with a fever that felt like it was melting my bones.
Why? I cried out in my mind. Why did you give him to me just to let him break me?
I expected to die there in the mud. But the fever didn't stop. It got hotter. My skin began to glow with a faint, silvery light. The "wolfless" girl was suddenly feeling a power so massive it felt like an ocean was trying to fit inside a cup.
Suddenly, a pair of glowing red eyes opened in the darkness across the pond. A massive shadow, twice the size of any Alpha wolf I had ever seen, stepped into the clearing. It didn't growl. It watched me.
Then, a deep, velvet voice echoed directly inside my head.
"The Alpha was a fool to let a Goddess go."
I tried to speak, but my voice failed. My bones began to crack and reshape. For the first time in my life, I was shifting. But I wasn't turning into a grey pack wolf. My fur was coming in as pure, blinding white—the color of a Royal.
The massive shadow stepped closer, and I realized it wasn't a wolf at all. It was something much more dangerous.
"Who... who are you?" I managed to gasp as the transformation took hold of me.
The stranger shifted into his human form, standing tall and naked in the moonlight. He was more handsome than Thorne, but his beauty was lethal. He knelt beside me and touched my forehead.
"I am the King of the Rogues," he whispered, a dark smile playing on his lips. "And you, Elara... you are the weapon I have been waiting for."