Chapter 3 MATE BOND

I thought the bond would feel like peace.

Like being found. Like all the empty spaces inside me finally quieting at once.

But when it snapped into place, it was fire.

Not the soft warmth of safety, but a flare of something ancient and wild crashing through my chest, fast and bright and impossible to contain.

It tore through me, a golden thread yanking tight between my ribs and his. My wolf howled. Not out of fear. Recognition.

Him.

The Alpha at the edge of the circle. Kael Thorn.

He stood tall, broad shoulders squared beneath black ceremonial armor, golden eyes burning through the shadows like they already knew too much.

The crowd made space for him without being asked. Power rolled off him like thunderclouds.

My heart stuttered.

The moment I saw him, something in me settled. Like the Moon herself had whispered, There. I felt at peace for the first time in a very long while.

My mate. My beautiful strong mate.

My wolf nudged me playfully. Our mate.

Yes, because his wolf looked at us with golden eyes and I wanted to preen.

Kael's scent hit next. A scent of pine and smoke and cold stone, laced with something darker underneath. Something that set my soul on fire.

It wrapped around me, sharp and grounding, familiar in a way I couldn't explain. I wanted to bath in it. I wanted to live in it forever..

I waited for him to move. To speak. To claim what the Moon had just made real.

Look at me, I thought. Claim me as yours.

But he didn't.

He just stood there.

Still and silent as a rock under calm waters. Staring at me like I was a puzzle he didn't ask for. I felt my heart crack a little. My wolf whined.

I took a step forward, my heart thudding so hard I thought it might bruise my ribs.

He didn't move.

Not a twitch. Not a flicker of emotion in those molten gold eyes. Just that cold, unreadable mask.

My wolf whimpered again. Confused. She felt the bond. I knew he did too.

Didn't he?

My skin prickled as his gaze swept over me-slow, detached, and almost clinical. He took in everything. My strange fur. My red-gold eyes. The way I wobbled slightly on my paws. The burn mark on my wrist.

His jaw clenched.

Not in awe. Not in wonder.

In disgust.

The air between us changed into something darker. It no longer pulsed with something divine. It chilled my bones and made me want to hide somewhere that would protect me from the Ice. It felt like the thread between us had turned to a stretch of frozen tundra.

Something cracked in my chest. What a fool. I should have known it would come to this. I was nobody after all. I was foolish to think the Alpha of the pack will accept me as his Luna.

I watched Kael turn away and just like that, my fate was sealed.

He walked away from me.

No claim. No acceptance. No acknowledgment of the pain that began to render me broken into pieces I knew I could never piece back together. I shifted back to human form.

And I-frozen in the ritual circle, still taking in my new form, still trembling from my first shift-watched as my mate walked away without a word.

The crowd didn't gasp. They didn't dare. But the silence around them roared.

A few warriors exchanged glances. One of the Elders muttered something to another. No one dared stop him.

Because he was Kael Thorn. Alpha of Bloodmoon. He didn't need permission to decide someone's fate.

He just chose not to look back.

The bond in my chest still burned, but now it seared. Like being branded with something I wasn't allowed to have. My wolf pressed against me, confused and hurt. She had no words yet, but her instincts screamed.

He was ours.

Why did he leave?

My knees gave out. I dropped back into the dirt, breath short and shaky. The world tilted.

Eliah tried to reach me from the crowd. I saw her lips move, 'Sera'. But someone held her back.

They weren't going to let her near me.

I was the girl the Moon chose... and the Alpha refused.

I shifted back slowly, the pain of bones snapping a distant echo compared to what bloomed in my chest. My body was cold. Ash coated my skin. I pulled my tunic over my head with shaking hands, refusing to cry.

I wouldn't give them that.

But the ache in my throat had teeth.

People started to move again, whispering behind cupped palms, casting glances like knives. I could hear it in their voices:

"She's not right."

"She didn't shift like the others."

"Why would the Moon choose her?"

"She's the healer girl. The orphan."

"She's cursed."

I had heard it all before, but now it landed differently on my soul.

Because this time, Kael's silence had confirmed it. He had sentenced me to a cruel fate with his action.

I stared at the place where he'd stood.

My mate.

The one I'd waited for.

The one who looked at me like I was a mistake.

I didn't understand. The bond wasn't supposed to lie. It wasn't supposed to be one-sided. If the Moon truly chose him for me, then why did he act like I was nothing?

A flicker of doubt crept in. Not in the bond. In me.

Maybe I wasn't enough. Maybe I was a test and he'd just failed it. Or maybe the stories were wrong, and the Moon didn't bless, she punished.

I dropped to my knees again, but this time it wasn't the shift that brought me down.

It was the weight of being seen yet cast away. Of being rejected without a word. Of being reminded, yet again, that I was always going to be too much or not enough. And that I would never be what they wanted.

I wrapped my arms around myself and stared into the trees where Kael had disappeared.

Please, I begged silently, as if he could still hear me.

Please don't reject me.

But it was already done now.

I was the rejected mate.