Chapter 1 The End of the Bond

They said I should be lucky. Blessed, even. Omegas didn't get fated mates. Not really. Not unless the gods blinked, or the bloodlines twisted themselves wrong.

But when the fire tore across my chest at the Choosing, I didn't feel lucky. I couldn't even breathe. It was like my ribs cracked open. My whole body knew it before my head did. Him. Cian.

The entire courtyard went silent. My mother's offering plate shattered on the stones. My father's head dropped, as if he had been waiting his whole life to be ashamed of me. People gasped. Someone laughed.

And across the platform, under the oath tree, Alpha Cian Vale looked at me like I had spit on the moon.

The bond burned once. Pure. Hot. A single heartbeat.

Then he severed it.

"I reject this bond," he said. Flat. Calm. Cruel without even raising his voice.

And that was it.

The words didn't knock me down. Not on the outside. But inside? They didn't just snap something. They hollowed me out.

I walked away barefoot, my chest still glowing faintly like a brand. I didn't cry. I didn't give them that.

That was three days ago.

The healers lied. They said it would fade. That the glow would dull, the pain would soften. But rejection doesn't fade. It clings. It claws. It gnaws at you like hunger you can't feed.

I kept walking. Through Ashfall's borders. Into the neutral lands. Didn't stop even when my feet split and bled.

The air was colder there. Sharper. Different in a way that made me feel small and stripped bare.

I found a half-rotten inn leaning against the human road. Paid with the silver coin I'd hidden in my boot since I was twelve. The innkeeper didn't care who I was. Didn't ask.

Good. Because I didn't have an answer anymore.

I wasn't Lyra Caelwyn. Not to them. Not to anyone.

Just Lyra.

Bondless. Banished.

The room smelled of mildew and smoke that never cleared. The mattress sagged like bones under cloth. I sat cross-legged, staring at the circle burned faint on my chest. Sometimes it pulsed. Like a cruel reminder. Like something trying to remind me I was alive, even when I wasn't sure.

And gods, I hated myself for still wondering. Did Cian feel it too? Even for a second? Did it tear him the way it tore me? Or was I nothing to him? Just a shadow to step past on his way to Seris Vale. Her golden hair. Her perfect wolf coat. Her ceremonial gown glinting with moonstones.

The bond chose me. He didn't.

I was still turning that over in my head when the knock came.

Slow. Heavy.

Not frantic. Not polite.

I froze. My fingers found the knife under the pillow. I opened the door a crack.

A man stood there. Tall. Broad. Black coat frayed at the edges. A scar slashed across his brow. Eyes like storm clouds that refused to move.

Not pack. Not hunter. He was something else. He felt heavier.

"You're Lyra," he said.

I didn't answer. Didn't need to.

He pulled an envelope from his coat and held it out. "My Alpha sent me. He has an offer."

My throat tightened. "What kind of offer?"

"Protection. Shelter. A name."

"I already had one."

His gaze didn't shift. "And now you don't."

I should have slammed the door. Instead my hand... stayed. My fingers curled tighter around the wood, but they didn't push it shut.

I opened it wider.

He set the envelope in my palm. His voice was steady, without weight or warmth. "Read it. Burn it. Doesn't matter. But if you want to live-read the last line."

Then he was gone. Swallowed by fog.

I stood there stupidly for a while, staring at the wax seal pressed against my skin. Finally I shut the door, sat back on the bed.

The wax glimmered red in the firelight. The crest stamped into it made my stomach lurch.

Stormveil.

I'd heard the name once, whispered in warning.

Kael Drenmore. The Wolf with No Bond. The Alpha who never took mates.

My chest clenched. I should've burned it without reading. But my hands betrayed me. I cracked the seal.

The contract inside was short. Sharp. No room for breath.

Three moons.

No rites. No claim. No bond.

I would stand beside him as Luna in name only. A placeholder. Just long enough to silence his council and stop a war from spilling.

No touch. No title. Just presence.

A bitter laugh tore out of me. Presence. That's all I'd ever been. A mistake. A reminder of the moon's cruelty.

But Stormveil... Stormveil didn't feel like a mistake. It felt like a challenge.

And scrawled across the back, darker ink, a single line:

Your blood calls the storm. Come before it answers without you.

I didn't understand. My bones did.

Something had shifted. Not just in the packs. Not just in the bondlines.

In me.

I didn't sleep that night. Couldn't. I sat at the window, fog pressing itself across the fields, watching the glass mist over with my breath.

The girl who once thought a mate would make her whole-she was gone.

What was left? I didn't know.

But maybe Stormveil would tell me.

And for the first time since Cian Vale cut me open, I felt something spark in my chest.

Not survival. Not surrender.

Hunger.