The path back to the packhouse felt longer than I remembered.
Every crunch of leaves beneath my bare feet echoed like a warning. Every howl in the distance made my spine stiffen. The forest, once familiar, now felt like a stranger watching me from the shadows.
I wasn't the same girl who had walked into it hours ago.
That Aurora timid, forgotten, wolfless had died beneath the weight of rejection.
The girl walking now was something else. Something more.
But that didn't mean I wasn't scared.
The pain in my chest from Lucian's rejection hadn't faded. It lingered like a bruise under my ribs, a reminder of what I had lost before I ever had the chance to hold it.
The pack had never welcomed me before, but tonight… everything was different.
They would have felt my shift.
They would know I had awakened.
They would know I had a wolf now.
And they would also know that Lucian Storm had rejected his fated mate.
How does a pack react when its Alpha spits in the face of the Moon Goddess herself?
I was about to find out.
As I emerged from the woods, the packhouse loomed like a fortress carved into the mountain. Its stone walls rose tall and proud, its windows glowing with warm light. The large double doors were slightly ajar, and inside I could hear voices dozens of them. Whispering. Arguing. Laughing.
Then silence.
All at once, the noise died as I stepped into the threshold.
Every head turned toward me.
And every expression froze.
I stood there in the doorway barefoot, clothes torn, hair wild from the shift looking like something between a girl and a ghost. My skin still tingled from the divine energy that had passed through me. My eyes felt different sharper, clearer. I could see the fear in some of their faces. The confusion in others.
A few even looked angry.
"Is that… Aurora Blake?" someone whispered.
"She shifted," another voice hissed.
"She has a wolf?"
"Impossible…"
I stepped forward slowly, my gaze steady.
All my life, I had walked with my head down. I had taken the sneers, the cold shoulders, the mocking laughter.
Not tonight.
I walked down the center of the grand hall like it was my right.
And then he appeared.
Lucian Storm.
Alpha of the Midnight Howl Pack. My fated mate.
My rejector.
He stepped down from the high platform where the elders usually met, his dark eyes locked on mine. He was shirtless, muscles tense, every inch of him radiating fury.
Our bond still pulsed, even broken. My wolf whimpered inside me at the sight of him, torn between the instinct to run to him and the pain of what he had done.
He stopped a few feet away, his jaw clenched so tight, I thought it might shatter.
"You came back," he said coldly.
I lifted my chin. "Was I not supposed to?"
"You should've stayed in the woods. Where you belong."
A soft murmur rippled through the room.
I ignored it. "I shifted."
He said nothing, but his eyes narrowed. His scent ice and cedar was sharper now. Angry.
"Why?" I asked quietly. "Why did you reject me?"
He didn't answer at first. Then he said, "Because you're not fit to be my Luna."
"I didn't ask to be your Luna," I said, voice trembling with fury. "I only wanted to know why. You felt the bond, Lucian. You know we're mates. The Moon Goddess chose this."
He stepped closer, and suddenly, his power pressed down on me like a wall.
"But I didn't choose you," he growled. "And I won't. Ever."
Pain seared through me, but I didn't flinch.
Instead, I smiled. It was small. Quiet. But real.
"Then you just rejected the Moon's will," I whispered.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
A figure stepped forward from the shadows.
Elder Alric, one of the council members, his white beard braided and his eyes dark with concern. "Lucian," he said carefully, "if she truly is your mate, and if the Goddess has marked her…"
Lucian's head snapped toward him. "She's not Luna material."
"But she shifted," Alric said.
More murmurs.
Lucian's Beta, Silas, stepped forward, his face a mask of unreadable emotion.
"She smells… different," Silas said. "Not just wolf. There's something else on her. Power."
Lucian's eyes snapped back to mine. "What did you do?"
"I was claimed," I said.
He frowned. "By who?"
I smiled again, this time wider. "By the Moon."
Silence.
A sharp, deadly silence that cut through the entire hall like a blade.
Lucian's hands balled into fists. "That's not possible."
"She sent a messenger. She gave me a gift. You rejected me, but she didn't."
"I don't care what visions you had while writhing on the forest floor. You're not Luna. And if you think you can use some mystical story to force me"
"I don't want you," I said.
That shut him up.
Every voice in the room fell silent.
I looked him in the eye, and this time, I meant it.
"I don't want someone who sees me as a mistake. I don't want to be Luna to a man who would reject a bond that could have been beautiful just because his pride wouldn't let him see me."
He looked stunned for the first time.
But I wasn't done.
"You rejected me. Fine. But don't you dare think that means I'll crawl away quietly. I'm part of this pack whether you like it or not. And now that I have my wolf…" I took a step closer, letting my aura expand for the first time, "you'll have to learn to live with me."
For the first time in my life, people looked at me with something other than pity or scorn.
They looked at me with fear.
Or was it respect?
Elder Alric spoke again. "What shall we do with her, Alpha?"
Lucian said nothing.
He couldn't.
He was still staring at me like I'd become someone he didn't recognize.
Because I had.
And I wasn't going anywhere.