Nessa~
The Mating Solstice was supposed to be the best night of any werewolf's life.
I wouldn't know. I'd spent the last three years scrubbing floors.
I looked ahead, the arena thrumming with anticipation, pack members dressed in their finest ceremonial attire, whispering excitedly about which fortunate she-wolf would be chosen as mate to the Blackwood brothers. Alpha Kade. Enforcer Rowan. Strategist Maddox. The most powerful trio in the Northern territories, and every unmated female's fantasy.
My fantasy involved collapsing somewhere quiet and sleeping for three days straight.
"Move it, you worthless bitch." Garrett's boot connected with my hip, nearly sending the tray of ceremonial wine crashing to the stone floor. I caught it at the last second, my arms screaming in protest. The overseer leered down at me, his left cheek still swollen and mottled purple from where I'd slapped him yesterday.
Worth it. Even if my ribs had paid the price later.
"The barn needs cleaning before the ceremony concludes," he spat, his breath reeking of ale. "And if it's not spotless, you'll be sleeping in it."
I'd slept in worse. I nodded, keeping my eyes lowered not in submission, but in strategy. Let him think I was broken. Let them all think it. It was safer that way.
As I turned to leave, relief flooded through me. The barn would be quiet, away from the pulsing energy of the solstice ritual, away from the pitying looks and whispered comments about my father's betrayal. Traitor's daughter. Wolfless slave. Cursed bloodline.
I'd heard them all.
The cool night air hit my face as I stepped toward the barn entrance, and something inside me twisted. Not the familiar ache of hunger or exhaustion—something else. Something primal and terrifying that clawed at my insides like it was trying to escape.
My vision blurred. Heat erupted across my skin.
No. Not now. Not ever, I was wolfless. My wolf had never emerged, another punishment for my father's crimes, or so the pack whispered.
But this... this was unmistakable.
Pain exploded through every nerve. My bones cracked and reformed, my spine arching as my body tore itself apart and rebuilt in seconds. I tried to scream, but the sound that emerged was a howl—raw and powerful, echoing across the arena.
The chanting stopped.
Silence fell like a guillotine blade.
I collapsed onto four legs, my vision sharper, my senses overwhelmed. I could smell everything fear, shock rippling through the crowd. I could hear heartbeats, whispers, the rustle of ceremonial robes.
"It can't be." Elder Mariah's voice cut through the quiet. "She shifted."
I tried to stand, tried to control this new body, but my legs trembled. Through the forest of legs, I saw them. The three Blackwood brothers on the raised platform, their eyes locked on me.
And then I felt it
To all three.
"No." The word was barely a whisper, but it came from Kade. The Alpha rose from his ceremonial seat, his face contorted with something between horror and rage. His hazel eyes eyes that had always watched me with particular contempt now burned with unmistakable hatred. "No. This is impossible."
Rowan, the enforcer, stepped forward, his scarred face unreadable. "Brother, the bond—"
"IS A CURSE!" Kade's roar shook the arena. He descended the platform in three strides, stopping mere feet from where I stood in wolf form.
Murmurs erupting through the crowd.
"Her father killed the former Alpha"
"Tainted bloodline"
"She should be executed like he was"
I forced myself to my hands and knees, refusing to stay down. Refusing to give them the satisfaction.
"Silence" Kade bellowed at the crowd, turning to Elder Mariah, who had glided forward, her white ceremonial robes trailing across the blood-stained stone remnants from the ritual sacrifice. "Elder, this must be severed. All bonds. I will not be tied to—"
"You make a grave mistake, Alpha." Mariah's grey eyes seemed to glow in the firelight. Her voice was soft, but it carried to every corner of the arena. "The Moon Goddess chooses whom She pleases. And She has revealed to me that any brother who fully rejects his mate will bring affliction upon the pack."
The murmuring grew louder, angrier.
"Then we're already cursed!" someone shouted. "She's the curse!"
"Execute her!"
"The Moon Goddess wouldn't"
Maddox, the strategist, spoke for the first time, his voice cold and analytical. "What kind of affliction, Elder?"
Mariah's eyes found mine, and something in her expression made my blood run cold. Not hatred. Something worse. Satisfaction.
She gestured, and someone threw a rough blanket over my shoulders. I clutched it around myself, forcing myself to stand even as my legs shook. I would not face this on my knees.
"The affliction varies," Mariah said, circling Kade slowly. "But the last Alpha who rejected his true mate watched his pack tear itself apart from within. Madness. Bloodlust. Brother turning on brother until there was nothing left but ashes and bone."
The arena fell silent.
Rowan exchanged a glance with Maddox. Even Kade's certainty seemed to waver.
"There must be another way," Kade said, but his voice had lost its thunder.
"There is." Mariah stopped in front of me, and I forced myself not to step back. "The bond can remain... conditional. Incomplete. The mate can live, but she remains unclaimed. Unmated. A bond acknowledged but not consummated."
"A half-bond?" Maddox's tactical mind was already working through the implications. "That's unstable. Dangerous."
"Less dangerous than rejection," Mariah said simply.
Kade looked at me again, and the hatred in his eyes was now mixed with something else. Resentment. Disgust. Fear even though I wasn't sure about that.
Good. Let him be afraid. I was done being the pack's whipping post
He was asking the pack, but his eyes were on me.
I smiled. It wasn't kind.
"Crystal clear, Alpha." I put enough emphasis on his title to make it sound like an insult.
His eyes flashed, his wolf rising to the challenge.
Rowan stepped between us. "Enough. If this is the arrangement, then it's settled." He looked at me, and unlike his brothers, there was something almost like curiosity in his amber eyes. "What's your name?"
As if he didn't know. As if everyone in this pack didn't know exactly who I was.
But I understood what he was doing. Acknowledging me. Making me real to them.
"Vanessa." I met each brother's eyes in turn. "Vanessa Thorne."
"The traitor's daughter has a name," someone muttered.
"Yes," I said loudly enough for them all to hear. "I do. And since apparently the Moon Goddess thinks I'm good enough for your precious Alphas, maybe you should all get used to hearing it."
The shock on their faces was almost worth the pain still radiating through my chest.
Kade's expression promised retribution. "Get her out of my sight."
Garrett stepped forward eagerly, but Rowan held up a hand. "She's under our protection now. Even a conditional mate cannot be harmed by pack members. That includes overseers." His eyes cut to Garrett. "Especially overseers with wandering hands."
Garrett paled.
I didn't.
Elder Mariah leaned close to Kade, rising on her toes to whisper in his ear. His expression shifted through several emotions shock, anger, and finally something that looked almost like dread.
"With all due respect, Elder," Kade's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper, "do you have any idea what you're saying?"
"I know exactly what I'm saying." Mariah's smile was serene, but her grey eyes glittered with secrets. "The Moon Goddess has set this in motion, Alpha. The only question now is whether you'll fight it or accept what's coming."
"And what exactly is coming?" Maddox asked sharply.
Mariah turned to me, and the look in her eyes made every hair on my body stand on end.
"Change," she said simply. "The kind that breaks kingdoms or forges them anew." She touched my cheek with one cold finger. "Tell me, child. When you shifted tonight, did you see it?"
"See what?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"The mark."
"What mark?"
Mariah's smile widened. "The one on your wolf's shoulder. The crescent moon wrapped in chains."
The arena erupted into chaos.
Because that mark, according to legend, only appeared on one type of wolf.
The kind that could break or fulfill the oldest prophecy of the werewolf kingdoms.
Maddox looked like he was calculating odds , figuring out what to do with what was going on.
Rowan seemed indifferent to everything that was happening, his eyes cold and passive.
Before anyone could move, Kade closed the distance between us. For a moment, I thought he might strike me. Instead, he leaned down, his lips nearly brushing my ear, his voice deadly quiet.
"You want to know why I hate you, Vanessa Thorne? Ask your precious Elder what your father really did the night my father died. Then ask yourself if you can live with being my mate knowing the truth."
He straightened, his hazel eyes boring into mine.
"I, Kade Blackwood, Alpha of the Northern Pack, reject you as my mate,consequences be damned."