LUNAR AURELIA

AURORA'S POV

It was cold. Very, very cold. The air seemed made of ice and every breath I took in was torture. The hard floor on which I sat was also cold and the coldness seeped through my flimsy clothing and into my skin but I could not move nor stand from my position and even if I could, there was no space to shift to. The cell that I had been thrown in was filled to the brim with young girls that were no more than my age. The only difference between me and them was that I had stopped crying ages ago. Tears hadn't stopped them from throwing me out of the only place I had ever known.

When my rejection and banishment had just taken place, I had cried and cried, thinking that perhaps my tears would move my former pack members and mate, but it had been for nothing. They had thrown me out and turned their backs on me.

I turned into a wanderer, a rogue with no roots. Days and nights had passed with me crying at the edge of our pack borders, hoping and praying they would take me back. Hoping and praying that they realize they had made a mistake and that I had been wrongly accused. My life at the pack hadn't been great, but it was the only life I had, the only life I had ever known.

It had taken me three days to realize that they didn't want me

anymore and that I would starve to death if I didn't leave there and find something to eat. I had wiped my tears and left, my survival now on the forefront of my mind.

Where would I go? Where would I stay?

I had survived and had been surviving until I stepped into the borders of the most vile, most unlawful pack in our history. The BloodMoon pack.

I had been chasing a squirrel, intent on catching it for breakfast that I didn't know when I stepped into their territory, and automatically I knew I had lost my freedom.

The pack members were well-known traffickers, selling most of their captives to breeders or whoever needed them. There were brutal and absolutely without mercy and their women were nothing more than their playthings. They had no say in anything other than the home and raising of their pups.

There was no chance of me ever getting away. I might as well be dead. There would be no one to mourn me anyways. So I would welcome death or whatever hellish world awaits me.

A WEEK AGO: FLASHBACK

I listened quietly as some of the girls in the pack spoke excitedly and gathered around Brie and gushed about how lucky she was that her longtime boyfriend, the Alpha's son, turned out to be her mate afterall.

Brie is the IT girl of the pack. You know, the one that everyone adores and tries to be friends with, so I think it's only natural that she gets the most eligible of the males in the pack irregardless of the fact that she totally despises me.

A whole lot of people don't like me in this pack but I think her hatred overshadows theirs. It wasn't hard to figure out why. Her uncle, the then beta, had been the man my mother rejected as mate. My mom had rejected him because he was a cruel man with no heart, and not only had she rejected him, she had gone ahead to fall in love with a rogue and had gotten pregnant with me. The Rogue, who was my father, had been exiled from his pack after being framed for killing his mother and brother. My father disappeared shortly after I was born.

Gone, they said, but my mother knew that the men she had rejected had something to do with her lover's disappearance. There was no evidence though, so there was nothing she could do. A year later, she died and I was left all alone. So yeah, my life had been bumpy from the beginning.

I tuned into the conversation around me when I realized that the girls had now moved closer to me and were now addressing me.

"What about you, Aurelia? " Brie said as she reached out and toyed with a lock of my golden brown hair. "Have you gotten your mate yet?"

"Um, no."

"Oh," she cooed in fake sympathy, "So sorry about that. Then again, we shouldn't hold our breaths or anything. Who knows if the moon goddess remembered to pair you with someone."

Lola, Brie's best friend, snickered. "She wouldn't know what to do with a mate, Brie. She would probably reject him."

"You're right, Lola," confirmed Brie. "Like mother, like daughter."

I hissed in a sharp breath of pain at the mention of my mother but I was used to this so I did not let my face betray my emotions. I kept it blank, devoid of any expression. Betraying my pain would only make them target me more.

"You made your point, Brie. Now move along, please."

The moment those words left my lips, I regretted it. I should have just kept quiet and let her run herself out, but now it was too late. She would begin ranting in earnest.

I watched as Brie opened her mouth, a scornful twist to it, but before a word could make it past her lips, a masculine voice rang out towards us, "What's going on?"

The scornful twist to Brie's mouth turned into a pout as she saw who it was that had appeared.

It was her mate, Gabriel. With the pout still on her face, she went towards him and clung at his chest.

"Baby," she began, "does she-" Brie pointed at me, "- have to be at the mating ceremony tomorrow?"

Tomorrow, a party was being thrown in celebration of the Alpha's son, Gabriel, finding his mate.

"Yes, baby," Gabriel replied. "Aurelia will be there. The whole pack is invited. Everyone is coming."

Out of everyone in the pack, Gabriel is one of the few who treated me decently in the pack and I couldn't help but wonder why the Moon Goddess paired him with such a bitch as a mate. If I were Gabriel, I would have prayed to be mateless than to have someone like Brie as a mate. The torture would have been to much for me to endure.

But who knew what the moon goddess had in store for me, I thought as I stood up to leave.

And that was where I went wrong. I shouldn't have wondered. I shouldn't have imagined.

Mate," growled Nicolas as soon as our eyes met each other's and my heart began to thud as a ray of hope spread slowly over it.

Maybe something could go right for me afterall. Maybe there was hope for me and I wasn't to live the rest of my life alone.

I would have a partner, a companion.

The mating ceremony party between Brie and Gabriel was now well underway and everyone except me was having the time of their lives.

I had stepped out from the hall to take a break from the gyrating bodies and loud music and had immiediately being slammed with the smell of rain and lemon.

I had thought that perhaps it was my nose playing tricks on me. It hadn't rained in a while

around here and we had no lemon trees either. It was not until I caught sight of Nicolas and the smell grew stronger that I knew he was the source of the smell.

My wolf began jumping inside of me, as if threatening to tear its way out of me, excitement and joy holding me tight in his grip.

Mate, mate, it began to scream.

Nicolas's eye color had changed as well, meaning that his wolf recognized mine as its mate.

Nicolas was the pack omega, the least of us, but I didn't care. I would now have a mate. Someone I could rely on, a spot of color in my grey world.

He opened his mouth to talk but before he could utter a word, Alex, another pack member, appeared and said,

"Nicolas, the Alpha wants to see you."

Nicolas gave me a smile and a nod before running off with Alex, leaving me there alone. I didn't care. All that mattered was that I got a mate and I would not be alone anymore.

Still with a smile on my face, I sat on a stoop and tried to imagine another world where things were going well for me. It seemed that things were going to get better afterall.

I had thought that because of my lineage and what people called my 'mother's mistake', I would live forever mateless, that the goddess would deem me unworthy of a mate. But it seemed I was wrong. I now had one.

"So you've eventually found your mate?"

I jumped at the voice that came out of no where, holding on to my chest as my heart threatened to fall out.

"Loreta! What are you doing here? What do you want?" I asked the girl staring intently at me. She was Brie's best friend.

The pink haired girl ignored my question and replied with one of her own. "So, Nicolas is your mate?"

"What's it to you?" I asked defiantly. She would be the last person I would share news about my life with. My life and what went on in it was none of her business.

"How fitting," she said, her tone condescending as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. "The pack omega and the pack outcast."

"You should learn to mind your business."

She shrugged, then thrusted something at me. It was a bottle of wine. "It's for Brie. Go give it to her for me. Gabriel sent me to pick it up."

"I am not your slave, Loreta."

She rolled her eyes. "Please. I really need to use the bathroom. Tell her I will be with her in a while. I need to touch up my makeup as well."

"Then go tell Gabriel you can't deliver it right now," I threw back at her.

She rolled her eyes as if she was talking to someone stupid who couldn't figure out a simple thing. "He's not in the hall. He's with his dad. They had something important to see to, I guess. Please." She said again, thrusting the bottle of wine toward me more violently.

This time, it was me rolling my eyes. "Okay. Stop ranting." I said as I collected the bottle. I was heading inside anyways, I might as well help her and beside, my brain was starting to hurt from all her yammering.

"Thanks." She said. "I'll be there in a minute."

I took the bottle and walk the short distance to the hall, all the while thinking about the moment with Nicolas.

My mate. What would he have said if he hadn't been called away? Something was obvious though. He had been happy as well. As happy as me. It didn't matter that we were both practically ostracized in the pack. What mattered was that we had found each other.

With this thought still in my mind, I absent-mindedly walked towards Brie and her multitude of friends in the hall.

"Ew," Brie eyed me up and down when she saw me. "What do you want?" Then she saw the bottle of wine with me. "That must be from Gabriel." She snatched the bottle from me without any acknowledgment and turned to her friends to squeal, "This is my favorite brand of wine and he got it for me. Isn't he the sweetest?"

I resisted the urge to smack her face as I turned away from them. I heard Brie say, "Come on. Let's open it up."

I had only gone a few steps when an earth-shattering scream pierced the air, the sound of breaking glass following it.

I turned back. And froze at what I saw.

Brie's skin had turned red and boils were growing all over her arm. Face twisted in agony and anger, she pointed a finger at me, "She tried to poison me! She tried to kill me!"

The music had stopped and everyone was now focused on us. The floor where she stood was now red, the wine pulling around her feet.

Words failed me as I began to quiver on the spot. What had happened? What was going on?There was only one thing that could have caused what was happening to Brie.

Wolfsbane.

Somehow, it had been in the wine, and I had been the one who delivered it.

Wolfsbane was the most deadly thing to wolf. Within minutes, it could shut down the organs and kill a wolf. Thankfully, Brie must have taken only the sip of the wine, that was why she was developing boils.

"Wolfsbane?!" someone in the crowd was saying, bringing me back to earth. "Wolfsbane?! How did she get access to wolfsbane?"

"It wasn't me!" I was finally able to scream. "It wasn't me!" I repeated.

"Then who?" came the voice again. It was Josh, Gabriel's beta, and I could see the hatred in his eyes even from afar. He had once tried to force me to have sex with me. I had been able to fight him and break away, but he had kept

coming until I pried out a small nail from a wood on the wall. He had bled from his cock that day.

And it was clear that he never forgot that day.

"The wine was a gift from Gabriel to her."

"You mean Gabriel tried to poison his mate?"

I didn't know when Josh came towards me until I felt the pain of his arm on my cheeks.

"You lying witch!"

He raised his hand and slapped me again.

"What's going on here?" came a thunderous voice and the crowd parted way for the Alpha, with Gabriel behind him.

Josh gestured towards me. "This witch here tried to poison Brie and blame it on Gabriel."

"It wasn't me! I swear it wasn't me!" I spoke again, knowing it wouldn't end well for me if I was found guilty.

Loreta. Where was Loreta?

I quickly looked around for the one person who could save me in this situation. I spotted her beside Brie, consoling her.

"Loreta!" I called her, willing her to speak up. "The drink was from Gabriel, right?" I asked her. "That was what you said."

"Why are you involving me in this matter, Aurelia. You tried to poison Brie on your own. Why are you calling my name? You and I don't even talk."

"She must have gone mad!" said Josh.

My eyes widen and reality dawned on me as to what Loreta wanted to do. She must have been the one that poisoned the drink and was now using me to take the fall. "Loreta, please. Please, don't do this. You gave me the drink saying that you wanted to pee and that it was Gabriel who sent you with it."

"I didn't send anyone with a drink." Gabriel spoke from beside his mate.

"You should tell that to Aurelia," said Loreta, eyeing me with a scornful look.

"Please, Loreta! Just admit it!" I pleaded with her, almost going down on my knees.

"You've always hated me!" Brie spoke up for the first time. "I knew you were a threat from the very beginning. You've always been a threat. Now you try to kill me?" She asked with tears in her eyes.

"No, Brie! I swear it wasn't me!" I tried reaching her.

She jerked her hand away from me. "Don't touch me."

"Stay away!" said Gabriel, stretching out an arm to protect his mate, his normally gentle eyes now hardened with steel.

No one would believe, it began to dawn on me. It was the outcasts words against that of the trusted friend of the victim.

I tried one more time, "Ple-"

This time around, the slap that Josh gave me had me falling to the floor and rolling.

When I looked up, I met with Nicolas' eyes. He was slowly shaking his head.

"Nicolas, I swear I didn't do it. I swear."

He continued shaking his head. "No. I don't want a killer as a mate."

"I didn't try to kill her!" I yelled, despite the throbbing pain I was feeling on my face. "I didn't try to kill her. I swear it was Loreta that sent me to Brie with the bottle of wine!"

"And where would I get the money to buy such an expensive bottle of wine?" Loreta asked.

I shook my head. "No, please. I'm not a killer."

"I reject you as my mate," Nicolas said and my heart shattered at his words.

The one good thing in a long time. Taken away from me. "No, please." I pleaded, my voice a hoarse whisper.

"I, Nicolas Petrov, reject you, Aurelia Jasmines as my mate. As from this moment forth, I sever the connection between us. No longer mates shall we be and no longer shall our wolves yearn and reach for each other. I reject you."

My heart must have made an audible shattering noise at his last words. I was once again alone.

"Get up," This time, it was the Alpha's voice. "We will serve your judgment. Gabriel, go assemble the elders."

The next few minutes were the most painful minutes of my life, despite the fact that I was numb and unmoving through it all. But when I was pushed towards the elder council, I became aware of every minute, every second and as I stared at the elders who had ruled over the council for decades, I knew just then that my life as I knew it was over.

Almost no one had won over the elder council.

I was done.

"Tell us why you tried to kill your fellow pack member."

"I did not try to kill her. It wasn't me."

"Wolfsbane is the most dangerous thing to us. Where did you

get it?"

"It was not me." I said again, adamant.

One of the elders shook his head at me. "Unrepentant. A killer with an unrepentant heart."

At that moment, I stopped. I stopped defending myself. They had already judged me. Way before this moment. This wasn't just about me. It was about my mother as well.

The sins of the father shall be visited on the sons, it is said. In my case, it was the sins of the mother.

"What should her punishment be?" They asked the pack members standing as one behind me.

"What should the punishment of this killer be?"

"Death!" came the responsive cries.

"Let death be her punishment!"

One of the elders shook his white head. "Banishment. Let her be banished and exiled from the pack."

"A rogue?" People began to whisper. "She's to become a rogue?"

Death would have been more preferable. I wouldn't survive out there on my own. I couldn't. Life as a rogue was not pleasant. And it would be more harder for a female.

"Please," I croaked.

"Silence! You are now to accept your punishment without any delay. It is more than what you deserve. Would you prefer to have be killed like the pack wanted? So you should be thankful about this punishment handed to you. If it were other packs, you would be killed in an instant without much deliberation!"

"Leave," said another elder, "Now."