His Unwanted Exile Becomes The True Luna

Elara POV

The cold was a living, breathing monster. It clawed through the wide gaps of the wooden exile wagon, sinking its icy teeth directly into my bones.

I opened my eyes to a world of gray skies and violent, swirling snow. The wagon jolted brutally over the frozen earth, tossing our starved bodies against the iron-reinforced bars. The air inside was thick with the metallic tang of dried blood, sour sweat, and the suffocating scent of pure, unadulterated fear.

*I am alive.* The realization hit my modern soul with a jarring force. I had woken up in this fragile, freezing body only moments ago, inheriting the memories of Elara Vance-the youngest, and the only *wolfless* member of the disgraced Vance family. Without an inner wolf to regulate my body heat or heal my frostbitten skin, the freezing temperature was rapidly shutting down my organs.

A massive shadow loomed over me. It was Mason, my eldest brother. Even starved and stripped of his dignity, his broad *Warrior* frame instinctively curved over my small body, taking the brunt of the biting wind.

"She's awake," a hoarse, trembling voice whispered.

My mother, Catherine, crawled toward me. Her once-beautiful face was hollowed out, her lips cracked and bleeding. The scent of her distress-like crushed, rotting lavender-filled my nose. Seeing the empty, glazed look in my eyes, a desperate whine tore from her throat. It was the primal, agonizing sound of a she-wolf watching her pup slip away.

With trembling, frostbitten fingers, Catherine reached deep into the inner folds of her filthy, torn robes. She pulled out a tiny, jagged piece of hardtack. It was no bigger than a coin, hard as a stone, and completely frozen.

"No, Mom..." Finn, my second brother, rasped from the corner, his eyes wide with worry. It was the last piece of food we had.

Catherine ignored him. With a fierce, almost religious devotion, she forced the frozen crumb between my blue lips. "Suck on it, Elara," she pleaded, her voice breaking. "Please, my sweet pup. Don't go to sleep. Just take the energy."

I couldn't chew. As the hardtack began to dissolve, the coarse crumbs slid down my throat like shards of glass, tearing at my dry flesh. The physical pain was sharp, but it was nothing compared to the violent emotional shock that struck my soul.

This woman was starving to death, yet she was giving her last breath of life to me. In my past life, I had never known such raw, unconditional love. This heavy, desperate sacrifice ignited a tiny, stubborn spark in the freezing void of my chest.

I swallowed the bitter paste and turned my head slightly.

Huddled in the darkest corner of the wagon was Arthur Vance. My father.

He didn't look like a man. He looked like a corpse waiting to rot. The scent radiating from him was suffocating-ash, decay, and the crushing weight of a broken wolf. He was the reason our family had been exiled, and the guilt of failing his pack, his mate, and his children had completely shattered his mind.

"Father..." I croaked, my voice barely a whisper over the howling wind.

Arthur's broad shoulders flinched violently at the sound of my voice. But he didn't look up. He buried his face deeper into his knees, shrinking away from me. He couldn't bear to look at his *wolfless* daughter. My very existence was a ticking clock, a constant reminder that he had dragged his most vulnerable child into a frozen hell to die.

His silent rejection hit me like a physical blow. I could feel the agonizing weight of his shattered soul.

*He has given up,* I realized, my heart pounding a new, frantic rhythm against my ribs. *They all think we are going to die here.*

Mason was just a shield. Catherine was sacrificing herself. Arthur was waiting for the end. They were treating me like a fragile piece of glass that was destined to shatter.

But they didn't know who was inside this body now. I didn't have claws, and I didn't have fangs. But I had a mind forged in a different world, and I knew how to survive.

Suddenly, the wagon lurched forward with a sickening crunch and ground to a violent halt.

Outside, the heavy crunch of boots on snow echoed through the howling wind. The iron bolts of the wagon door began to rattle as the guards prepared to throw us out into the Frostfang Wilds.

I pushed myself up onto my trembling elbows, ignoring the agonizing pain in my frozen joints. The time for despair was over.

Elara POV

The iron doors of the wagon groaned open. Brutal hands grabbed us, tossing us like sacks of rotting meat into the knee-deep snow. The wagon rattled away without a second glance, leaving us to the dead silence of the Frostfang Wilds.

I didn't waste time shivering. I pushed myself up, scanning the desolate clearing. Underneath a specific cluster of barren oaks, the snow dipped in a peculiar way. *Frostfire Moss.* In my past life, I knew it as a rare, highly combustible tundra lichen. Here, it was our only chance at surviving the night.

I dropped to my knees and clawed frantically at the frozen earth. Ice sliced my cuticles, but I kept digging, my breath coming in ragged white plumes.

"Elara, no!" Catherine shrieked, her frail hands grabbing my shoulders. "Mason, help me! She's lost to the cold madness!"

Mason's massive hands wrapped around my waist, trying to haul me up. "Stop, El, you're hurting yourself!"

I ripped myself from his grip. "Let me go!" My voice was a raspy bark, carrying an unnatural, icy authority that froze them in their tracks. I glared at my second brother, who was hovering anxiously. "Finn. Give me that thick branch. Now."

Finn blinked, stunned by the sudden fire in his *wolfless* sister's eyes, and numbly handed it over. Before I could strike the ice again, Mason snatched the wood. His jaw tightened at the sight of my bleeding fingers, his protective instinct warring with his confusion. "Tell me where to hit," he grunted.

Under my sharp directions, Mason shattered the permafrost. Beneath it lay a bed of dry, reddish-brown Frostfire Moss. Within minutes, using a sharp rock and a piece of flint from Mason's torn boot, a tiny, miraculous flame flickered to life.

We huddled around the meager warmth under a makeshift shelter of torn furs. Finn, who had been scouting the perimeter, returned clutching a tiny handful of forgotten pine nuts he'd scavenged from a hollowed tree.

Pack instinct immediately took over. Mason cracked the largest nut with a stone and, alongside Catherine, pressed it to my lips. They were starving, their bodies eating themselves alive, yet they offered their salvation to the weakest link.

Tears pricked my eyes. I swallowed the rich, oily meat, letting the warmth of their devotion settle in my chest. Then, I reached out and took the rest of the handful from Mason.

They watched in confusion as I stood up. I didn't eat another bite. Instead, I shoved a nut into Catherine's cracked lips, then Mason's, then Finn's. Finally, I knelt before Arthur. My father was still staring blankly at the snow, a broken Alpha waiting for death. I grabbed his jaw, forcing his mouth open, and shoved the last nut inside.

"Chew," I commanded, my voice slicing through the howling wind. I looked at each of them, my gaze unyielding. "Eat it. All of you. We survive together, or we die together."

Silence fell over the camp. The pity in their eyes vanished, replaced by a flickering, desperate trust. I was no longer just the fragile *wolfless* pup; I was the tether keeping them anchored to the living.

But our fragile victory was short-lived.

A deep, guttural snarl echoed through the trees, followed by the heavy crunch of boots. Massive shadows emerged from the blizzard, their eyes glowing with predatory malice. A border patrol. Before we could even stand, rough hands hauled us up from the snow, dragging us toward the looming, jagged walls of the Black Moon Outpost.

Elara POV

The rough hands of the patrol shoved us through the jagged wooden gates of the Black Moon Outpost. We stumbled into a courtyard of trampled, bloody snow. The air here was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies, woodsmoke, and the suffocating aura of despair.

Before we could even catch our breath, a heavy silence slammed down over the courtyard. It wasn't just the cessation of noise; it was a physical weight.

A man stepped out from the main longhouse. He was draped in a massive black wolf pelt, looking less like a man and more like a god of ice and violence. Kaelen Blackwood. The Alpha of the Black Moon Pack, and the undisputed tyrant of the Frostfang Wilds.

Beside me, Mason and Finn hit their knees with a synchronized thud. My mother whimpered, dragging my broken father down into the snow with her. Their inner wolves were submitting to the sheer, crushing dominance of a Lycan.

But I felt nothing. Being *wolfless* meant I was entirely blind to the pack dynamics and the magical weight of an Alpha's command. I was the only one left standing, shivering in my torn clothes, glaring at the man who held our lives in his hands.

Kaelen's gaze swept over the new arrivals. His eyes were a piercing, unnatural ice-blue, devoid of any warmth or mercy.

"In the Frostfang Wilds, there is only one law," his voice rang out, deep and resonant, cracking through the frigid air like a whip. "Survival of the strongest. The weak are meat for the winter."

He paced slowly, his boots crunching against the ice. "Able-bodied men will report to the black stone quarry at dawn, or hunt the tundra beasts for your rations. Women, the elderly, and the *wolfless* will handle the slop, the hides, and the filth. You earn your keep, or you freeze."

His cold eyes finally landed on my family. He took in my father's vacant stare, my mother's trembling frame, and my own frail, *wolfless* stature. A flicker of absolute dismissal crossed his sharp features. He raised a gloved hand and pointed toward the far edge of the outpost.

"Put the Vance family in the outcast's hovel by the perimeter," he ordered flatly.

My blood ran cold. I had seen that hovel when we were dragged in. It was a rotting pile of splintered wood and torn furs, leaning precariously against the trash heaps. The wind howled straight through its massive gaps. With my father's catatonic state and our starved bodies, assigning us that shelter wasn't a test of strength. It was a slow, agonizing execution. He was intentionally weeding us out.

Kaelen turned his broad back to us, his black pelt swirling, ready to return to his warm, fire-lit quarters.

A hot, reckless fury boiled up from the depths of my chest, overriding my survival instincts. I ducked slightly behind Mason's broad shoulders, my hands balling into fists.

"Sadistic, power-tripping bastard," I whispered through chattering teeth, the words meant only for my brother's back.

Up ahead, the massive Lycan froze.

The pause was microscopic, a mere hesitation in his stride, but the shift in the air was instantaneous. The guards around us stiffened.

Slowly, Kaelen Blackwood turned his head.

His ice-blue eyes cut through the falling snow, bypassing the dozens of cowering wolves, and locked onto me with terrifying precision. My heart seized. *He heard me.* Over the howling wind and the distance, his Lycan hearing had picked up my whisper.

I was pinned under his stare, my lungs forgetting how to draw air. I expected him to order my head severed from my neck. I expected a brutal punishment. But as I stared back, refusing to lower my chin despite the terror clawing at my throat, something strange flickered in his icy gaze. It wasn't rage. It was a dark, calculating scrutiny.

For a long, agonizing second, the rest of the world faded away. There was only the blizzard, the tyrant, and the *wolfless* girl daring to hold his gaze.

Then, the corner of his mouth twitched-a movement so slight I might have imagined it. He didn't say a word. He simply gave me one last, chilling look of warning, turned, and disappeared into the longhouse.

"Move!" a guard barked, shoving Mason hard between the shoulder blades.

Rough hands grabbed us again, dragging us away from the center of the camp. We were pushed toward the perimeter, the stench of the garbage heaps growing stronger until we were thrown to the frozen ground in front of the leaning, skeletal remains of the hovel. The wind shrieked through the rotting planks, carrying the biting promise of a frozen death.