Rejection

Three years ago

He wouldn't look at me. That should have been enough warning.

The whole pack gathered in the clearing. Torches blazed against the night sky. Everyone dressed in their finest, mothers in flowing dresses, fathers in ceremonial leathers, pups squirming with excitement they didn't understand.

My eighteenth birthday. The night my mate would claim me.

The night I would finally belong somewhere.

I wore white. My mother's dress, altered to fit my too-thin frame. My hair was braided with wildflowers that Aunt Maren had picked that morning, her hands shaking with joy.

"You're going to be Luna," she'd said, voice hushed with joy. "Our little Nora. Luna of Silverdale."

I'd believed her.

I'd believed everything.

Alpha Kingsley stood on the dais, his son beside him. Jace was beautiful in the torchlight, golden hair catching firelight, shoulders that carried the weight of a pack like it was nothing. I'd loved him since I was fourteen and he'd carried me home after I twisted my ankle in the woods. He'd been seventeen then, already shouldering his father's expectations.

He'd said my name then like it was something precious. Nora. Hold on, Nora. I've got you.

Four years of longing. Four years of secret glances and stolen moments and a pull in my chest that never eased.

When I turned eighteen, the bond would seal. We'd known for years that we were fated. The mate-sense doesn't lie.

He was mine. I was his.

Nothing could change that.

"Nora Holloway." Alpha Kingsley's voice boomed across the clearing. "Come forward."

I walked through the crowd. Kept my head high. Ignored the whispers.

She's so small.

An omega for Luna? That's unusual.

Maybe she'll grow into it.

I reached the dais. Jace still wasn't looking at me.

"Jace Kingsley." His father turned to him. "Do you accept this female as your fated mate? Do you vow to mark her, claim her, and honor her as Luna of Silverdale?"

Silence.

The torches crackled. Somewhere behind me, a pup whined.

"Jace," Alpha Kingsley said, lower now. Warning in his voice.

Jace lifted his head.

He looked at me.

And I saw nothing.

No warmth. No recognition. No love.

Just ice.

"I, Jace Kingsley, heir to Silverdale, reject Nora Holloway as my mate."

The words hit like physical blows. I staggered.

"She is unworthy." His voice was flat. Rehearsed. "Too weak to stand beside a king. I will not be bound to an omega who cannot even shift properly."

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Someone was crying, Aunt Maren, probably.

I couldn't breathe.

"I sever the bond between us." Jace raised one hand, claws extended. "By blood and by will, I reject her. Let the fates witness, she is not mine."

He drew his claws across his palm. Blood dripped onto the stones.

The bond, that warm thread that had connected us since childhood, went taut.

Then it snapped.

Pain.

I'd never felt anything like it.

Not when I broke my arm at twelve. Not when my parents died in the fire. Not when the other wolves mocked me for being small, weak, wrong.

This was annihilation.

I fell to my knees. My chest was tearing open. Something was ripping out of me, clawing its way free, leaving nothing but ragged edges.

I screamed.

No one moved to help me.

"Get up." Alpha Kingsley's voice was cold. "You're embarrassing yourself."

I couldn't get up. Could barely remember how legs worked.

Jace had turned away. His father was dismissing the crowd, already moving on, already forgetting.

I was nothing. Had always been nothing. Would always be,

"Nora." Aunt Maren's hands on my shoulders. "Nora, we have to go. Come on, sweetheart, come on..."

She pulled me to my feet. Half-carried me through the crowd.

Everyone was staring. Some with pity. Some with satisfaction.

I told you an omega couldn't hold him.

She should have known better.

At least now he can find a proper Luna.

I didn't cry.

I couldn't.

There was nothing left inside me to cry with.

Maren took me home. Sat me on the bed. Tried to make me drink water.

"It'll get better," she kept saying. "The pain fades. You'll heal. You'll find someone else, someone who deserves you..."

"Leave."

"Nora..."

"Leave me alone."

She went.

I sat in the dark.

Where the bond had lived, now there was only a wound. Raw and weeping. A hole carved into my chest, exactly where his mark should have gone.

I pressed my hand to my throat.

The skin was hot. Scarred. A pale mark forming where the bite never came.

I would carry this forever. Every wolf would see it and know: she was rejected. She wasn't good enough. She wasn't wanted.

I wasn't wanted.

The moon rose.

My wolf, the weak, pathetic creature that had never shifted properly, stirred in my chest.

Run, she whispered. Run.

For once, we agreed on something.

I stood. Stripped off my mother's white dress. Left it on the floor.

I walked to the window. Opened it.

The forest stretched below, dark and endless and unknown.

I didn't know what was out there. Whether I'd survive out there was a question I couldn't answer.

Didn't care to.

I climbed out.

I ran.

And I didn't look back.