Aria
The walls of the servant quarters didn’t smell like pine and stone like the rest of the Pack House. They smelled like mildew, like rot tucked into the floorboards and silence soaked into the sheets. It was colder here, darker too—one small window above my cot, barred and cracked in the corner, letting in the weakest slice of moonlight.
This was my new kingdom. No grand Luna suite. No silk. No ceremony. Just a scratchy blanket and a rusted bucket by the door to wash in.
No one spoke to me after I was escorted in—not the maids, not the Omegas, not even the elderly cook who glanced up from her peeling station only to scoff and mutter under her breath,
“The fat girl who thought she could be Luna.”
That phrase would become a song in my ears.
“She actually thought she was the mate?”
“What was the Moon Goddess thinking?”
“Poor thing. Delusional, really.”
I scrubbed floors with raw hands, knelt until my knees throbbed, and flinched every time muddy bootprints tracked across what I had just cleaned. My body ached from the effort, but worse was the ache beneath my skin—the one in my chest. The bond hadn’t snapped. It still buzzed inside me like a cruel reminder that Matthew was mine… and yet had thrown me away like I was beneath even pity.
And he avoided me. Mostly. But sometimes—when he thought I didn’t notice—his gaze would land on me across the training field or hallway. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t kind.
But it lingered.
His golden-brown eyes, stormy and unreadable, would lock on me for a heartbeat too long before flicking away like he hated what he saw… or hated that he saw me at all.
At dinner, I wasn’t given a seat at the long tables in the grand hall.
I stood awkwardly at the door, tray in hand, until the head warrior sneered, “You eat with your kind. Kitchen’s that way.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked into the heat of the backroom, where discarded food was heaped into chipped bowls and crumbs littered the floor. I sat in a crate and ate in silence, too ashamed to cry where anyone could hear me.
That night, Alpha Ryle stood before the pack, Matthew silent at his side.
“The Moon Goddess is not always right,” Ryle announced. His voice echoed over the crowd gathered for the full moon feast. “We make our own destiny here. Not her. Not tradition. And certainly not a mistake.”
Every word was a knife. Every glance toward me—a wound. I didn’t stay for dessert.
Instead, I wandered past the servants’ wing, beyond the courtyard, and toward the edge of the woods. The moon hung low and yellow above the trees, and the wind bit at my cheeks. I dropped to my knees in the tall grass, dress still stained from the kitchen oil.
I tilted my face to the sky.
“I never asked to be chosen,” I whispered to the stars. “I never asked to be… anything.”
My voice broke. My hands trembled in my lap.
“I didn’t ask to feel this bond, to want someone who doesn’t even see me. I didn’t ask to be mocked. To be the joke of this pack. I just—”
My chest hitched.
“I just wanted to be someone.”
Tears slid down my cheeks, hot and relentless. I didn’t wipe them away.
And then… everything went still. The wind stopped. The trees stopped whispering. Even the crickets fell silent. And out of the silence came something strange—like a shimmer, a ripple in the air, and then—
She appeared.
A silver wolf. Luminous. Ethereal. Her coat shimmered like moonlight on still water. Her eyes were ancient and kind. She stepped closer, paws silent in the grass, and pressed her nose gently to my forehead.
“You are more than what they see,” she whispered—not with a mouth, but in my mind, a voice soft and deep as a lullaby. “You are more than what they fear.”
My eyes fluttered closed. And then she was gone.
I woke before dawn, heart thudding like I’d run for miles.
My skin felt warm, flushed—different. The room was still dark, the world still quiet, but something buzzed in the air. Something sharp and sacred. I looked down. And gasped.
A mark—faint but glowing—had appeared on the inside of my left wrist. It pulsed softly, gold and silver interwoven, like threads of light sewn beneath my skin.
It felt ancient. Powerful. And very, very real. The mate bond. The true bond. I scrambled out of bed, heart hammering. Was this proof? Was this finally a sign that I wasn’t a mistake?
Then the door burst open with a bang.
I jerked back, clutching my wrist to my chest—just as Matthew stormed in.
He didn’t knock. He didn’t hesitate. His shirt was half-buttoned, his hair a mess, and his chest heaved like he’d sprinted here. His eyes locked onto me—then down to my wrist, where the mark still glowed faintly through my skin.
His face twisted.
And before I could speak, he crossed the room in three strides, grabbed my arm, and yanked my wrist up between us. The glow intensified, catching the edges of his face in a soft shimmer.
But there was no awe in his expression. No reverence. Only fury. He looked at the mark like it was a curse. His voice came low and venomous—just inches from my face.
“Hide this,” he snarled. “You’ll embarrass me again.”