Chapter 1

Elara Vance POV:

"Elara, dear, could you do me a favor?" Luna Annelise's voice was as soft as the morning light streaming into her sunroom.

She gently took my hand, her touch warm and reassuring against my perpetually cool skin. I looked up from the book I was reading, my heart giving a familiar, stupid flutter. A favor. A task. A reason to be useful.

"Of course, Luna," I said, my voice a little too eager.

"Ryker is supposed to be meeting his father in the study, but you know how he gets when he's training." She smiled, a little tiredly. "Could you go up to his wing and remind him? I'd go myself, but these old knees..."

A perfectly valid reason to go to Ryker's wing. My pulse quickened with a nervous energy that was equal parts sweet and painful. I simply nodded, not trusting my voice to stay even. For the ten years I'd lived in the Blackwood Packhouse, I'd been chasing these small moments of purpose, desperate to earn my keep, to prove I wasn't just a burden they'd been saddled with after my parents... left.

I walked out of the sunroom and into the grand hall of the Packhouse. The polished wood floors gleamed under the chandeliers, and the walls were lined with the portraits of past Alphas. Their painted eyes seemed to follow me, a silent judgment on the wolfless girl polluting their sacred halls. My lack of an inner wolf was a constant, gaping wound in a world where your beast was your soul. It made me less than an Omega. It made me... nothing.

A pair of young warriors standing by the main staircase saw me, their conversation dropping to a whisper. One nudged the other, a smirk playing on his lips. Their eyes, filled with a mixture of pity and disdain, felt like tiny needles pricking my skin. I lowered my gaze, quickening my pace. I just wanted to get this over with and disappear back into the library, where the only judgment came from fictional characters.

I turned down the corridor leading to the family's private wing, a place I rarely ventured unless summoned. The air here was different, quieter, and saturated with a scent that made my knees weak: Ryker. It was a heady mix of deep forest, damp earth, and the crackling energy of an oncoming storm. It was the scent of power, of the future Alpha, and it was the scent that haunted my dreams. It was both my comfort and my torment.

His door was at the end of the hall, a heavy, imposing slab of dark oak. I raised my hand, my knuckles hovering just inches from the wood. My breath hitched. This was always the hardest part-announcing myself, making my presence known.

Then I heard it. A sound from within that made my blood run cold.

A woman's giggle. High-pitched, musical, and dripping with flirtation.

I knew that laugh. Seraphina Volkov. Daughter of the Alpha from the neighboring Frosty River Pack. My heart plummeted into the pit of my stomach, heavy and sick. My first instinct was to turn and run, to pretend I'd never come, but the Luna's request held me rooted to the spot.

"Ryker, honestly," Seraphina's voice floated through the door, clear as a bell. "Is your father really going to lecture you about that boring territory treaty again?"

A low rumble answered her. Ryker's voice. It was lazy, laced with an annoyance that I knew all too well. "Probably. It's better than another lecture on taking care of the little pet he picked up."

*Little pet.*

The words weren't shouted. They were worse. Casual. Dismissive. And they landed like a blade of ice in my heart. The air rushed from my lungs, leaving me cold and hollow.

Seraphina's laugh grew louder, sharper, filled with malicious glee. "You mean Elara? The freak with no wolf? I honestly don't know what your parents are thinking, letting her live in the Packhouse. It's a stain on the Blackwood bloodline."

I bit down hard on my lower lip, tasting the coppery tang of blood. My fingernails dug into my palms, the sharp crescents a pathetic anchor in a world that was suddenly tilting on its axis.

I waited, my entire being screaming for him to say something. Anything. Defend me. Tell her she's wrong. Just a single word of protest.

The silence that followed was his answer. It was a suffocating, damning silence that confirmed everything I'd ever feared. He agreed.

"A wolfless she-wolf is like a cat with no claws," Seraphina purred, her tone victorious. "She doesn't even qualify to be an Omega. Don't tell me you actually have a soft spot for her."

Her scent, an aggressive mix of wild roses and pepper, seemed to seep through the door, choking me. It was the scent of a predator, and I was her prey.

I heard the rustle of fabric, followed by a soft, suppressed gasp.

Ryker's voice came again, and this time it was rough, thick with a desire that had nothing to do with me. "Don't talk about her. You're killing the mood. You know I'm only interested in *strength*."

The last word was followed by a sound that shattered the last remaining piece of my heart. A wet, distinct, open-mouthed kiss.

My vision swam. A roaring filled my ears, blocking out everything but the echo of that sound, playing over and over in my mind. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.

I flinched back from the door as if it were on fire. The Luna's errand was forgotten. Everything was forgotten except the need to escape.

I didn't dare go back through the main hall. I fled down a side corridor, my feet pounding against the stone floor, and burst out a service door into the cold night air. The wind whipped at my face, but it couldn't dry the hot, silent tears that streamed down my cheeks.

I ran until my lungs burned, until I reached the familiar silhouette of the old oak tree at the edge of the woods. My back hit the rough bark, and my legs gave out. I slid down to the damp earth, pulling my knees to my chest.

Here, in the darkness, I finally let out the sobs I'd been holding in. They were ragged, broken sounds of a girl who had just learned her entire existence was a joke.

I looked up through my tears at the full, luminous moon. It hung in the sky, beautiful and indifferent, a silent witness to my foolish, impossible love.

And in that moment, a cold, hard truth settled in my soul. Seraphina was right. I was a freak. A pet.

In a world of wolves, a pet could never dream of mating with a king.