Chapter 1
ELERA POV
Today was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, the day I would finally become my pack's Luna. Instead… My Alpha fiancé rejected me before the entire pack and chose my sworn sister.
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The full moon hung high above the pack, its silver light bathing the ceremonial altar in a sacred glow. Tonight was supposed to be the night the Moon Goddess blessed our union. The night I finally became Alpha Aiden's mate. The night I became Luna.
Hundreds of pack members surrounded the altar, their excited whispers filling the cool night air. White flowers lined the sacred ground, their sweet fragrance drifting on the breeze.
Everything was exactly as I had dreamed.
Except the strange expression on Aiden's face.
He didn't look at me. He didn't smile. He simply stood across from me, his handsome face unreadable.
A small knot tightened in my chest. Was he nervous? I wanted to believe that was all it was. We had waited years for this moment.
"Elera Ashwood. Alpha Aiden." Elder Martins's deep voice echoed across the silent field. He looked between us, satisfied. "Before the Moon Goddess and the entire Crescent Moon Pack, do you both willingly accept this sacred mating bond?"
My heart raced. Finally, this was it.
"Alpha Aiden, do you accept—"
"No."
One word. Just one. Yet it shattered my entire world.
For a heartbeat I thought I had misheard him. The joyful whispers around us died. Even the wind seemed to still beneath the full moon.
"...Aiden?" My voice came out barely above a whisper.
He finally looked at me. His eyes, once warm whenever they met mine, were now colder than winter itself.
"I reject Elera Ashwood as my chosen mate." His voice rang out across the ceremony. "I want absolutely nothing to do with her."
A sharp gasp rippled through the crowd. Somewhere behind me a tray clattered to the ground, the metallic clang echoing across the silence. Hundreds of eyes fixed on me, yet mine never left his face.
No. This couldn't be happening. Not today. Not him.
"Why?" The word slipped from my lips before I realized I'd spoken. Not because I was weak. Because I couldn't understand. Why would the man I had loved my entire life, the man I had stood beside through every hardship, reject me here, on the very altar where we were meant to become mates?
His expression didn't change. Not even a little.
"You are unfit."
His voice was calm. Cold. Merciless. The words struck harder than any slap ever could.
A laugh escaped me, low at first, then rising until it echoed across the altar. Tears spilled down my cheeks even as I kept laughing, my white gown glowing silver beneath the moon, the silk suddenly heavier than anything I had ever worn.
"Unfit," I repeated, tasting the word like poison. "Are you for real, Aiden?"
"You are unfit to be Luna." He said it again, each word deliberate. "You are a wolfless girl who can't stand and rule beside a powerful Alpha like me."
My palm moved before my mind caught up with it.
Slap!
The sound cracked across the sacred altar, sharp enough to silence even the crickets in the grass beyond. Several pack members flinched back. Elder Martins's mouth fell open. A red handprint bloomed slowly across Aiden's cheek where his head had snapped to one side.
No one had ever dared strike the Alpha.
I lowered my trembling hand. It wasn't regret that shook it. It was the final, physical proof that the dream I'd carried for years had shattered beyond repair.
"So now I'm unfit," I said. "Really?"
Aiden turned back to face me slowly, jaw tightening, saying nothing. His silence hurt worse than his words had.
"Aiden." I lifted my chin. "I'll ask you one more time."
The moonlight burned down on the altar as though the Goddess herself had gone quiet to witness what was happening.
"Do you truly believe I'm unfit to stand beside you? Do you really not want us to mate?"
I searched his face for hesitation. Regret. Guilt. Anything. I found nothing.
"Yes." No hesitation at all. "There is no future where I would settle for a wolfless girl like you."
I turned from him to face the crowd, the same people I had grown up beside, laughed with, protected. "Do you all think the same?"
Silence. Not one person answered. Some lowered their heads. Others looked away, unable to meet my eyes.
"Wow." A hollow laugh broke from me. "I never knew the people I called family were such ungrateful people."
I turned back to him. "If the pack has forgotten everything I've done for them, do you have the right to forget it too? I sacrificed everything for you, Aiden. Since our parents died five years ago in a rogue attack, I stood by you every single day. Or has it really been so easy to forget?"
"I haven't forgotten." His voice stayed maddeningly calm. "I remember every sacrifice you've made, for me and for this pack."
For one foolish second, hope flickered in my chest. Maybe there was a reason behind all of this.
"That's why I'll compensate you," he said, and the hope died as quickly as it had come. "A mansion. Wealth. A high position in the pack. Enough to live comfortably the rest of your life."
A hollow, disbelieving laugh tore out of me. "So my sacrifice means nothing now? It's simply a debt that can be repaid, like I was owed a transaction all along?"
He said nothing. His silence was answer enough.
"I stood beside you when everyone doubted you after your parents died. I believed in you when you wanted to give up. I gave you everything, not for a reward, but because I loved you." My voice cracked, but I forced the words out anyway. "And tonight, before the Moon Goddess, you try to put a price on it."
"I must have been blind all these years," I said, shaking my head slowly, "to fall for a man like you. My parents must be turning in their graves, regretting the day they chose someone like you for me. You are nothing but a disgrace to your parents."
His jaw tightened, but the ice in his expression never cracked. "Say whatever you want. My decision won't change."
I let out a slow breath. "I see."
I looked at him one last time, searching for the boy who used to stand in front of me when the other children mocked me for being wolfless, the young man who had promised to protect me. He was gone. Or maybe he had never existed at all.
A tear slipped free. I wiped it away before another could fall.
"No," I said softly. "The foolish one was me."
I swept my gaze across the silent crowd one final time before turning it back on him, my lips curling into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"So tell me, Alpha Aiden. If I'm unfit to stand beside a powerful Alpha like you, then who is?"
The question hung in the air over the altar. No one answered. Even the breeze seemed to have vanished.
Then a calm, familiar voice cut through the silence.
"It's me.”