The moon was too bright. Not beautiful—just there, hanging low, making everything feel exposed. Like it was staring. Like it knew.

For the Silver Moon Pack, tonight was the Mating Moon. Destiny. Celebration.

For me—Elara Vance—it felt more like waiting for a sentence to be carried out.

“Move it, Omega.”

A shoulder hit me hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. My boots slid in the dirt before I caught myself. Jessica. Of course it was. She stood tall in her crimson dress, her wolf close to the surface, sharp and confident. She’d shifted years ago. Everyone knew it.

Beside her, I was just… me. Eighteen today, still human, still wrong.

“Sorry,” I said. The word barely made it out. I tugged my sleeves down, hiding my hands like that might hide the rest of me too.

“You shouldn’t even be here,” she said, her smile thin and cruel. “The Alpha called the wolves. Not mistakes.”

Her friends laughed. Not loud—worse. Quiet. Like they didn’t need to try.

I swallowed. The law didn’t care what I was. At eighteen, you stood before the Pack. Even if you had nothing to offer it.

The clearing was packed, heavy with bodies and scent—pine, damp soil, sweat, wolf. It pressed in from all sides.

At the stone platform stood Alpha Marcus. And beside him—

Kael.

I hated how my chest reacted when I saw him. Tall, broad, built like someone who had never been afraid of anything. Dark hair, storm-grey eyes. He looked like the future everyone wanted.

I looked away.

Then he stiffened.

His head lifted slowly. His attention snapped into place like something had pulled it.

The clearing went silent.

Kael stepped down from the platform. People moved without being told, instinctively giving way. The weight of his presence made it hard to breathe.

He was coming straight toward me.

No. Please.

Heat flared in my veins—sharp, sudden. And then the scent hit me. Rain on hot stone. Something bitter. Something dark. It didn’t make sense, but it made my knees weak.

Mate.

The word didn’t echo. It settled. Deep. Like it had always been there, waiting.

Kael stopped in front of me. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. The Pack stared. Jessica didn’t blink.

“Look at me,” he said.

My body responded before my mind caught up. When our eyes met, something snapped tight between us. Not gentle. Not soft. Real.

For one stupid second, I believed.

“Mine?” I whispered.

His gaze dropped—my dress, my hands, the emptiness where a wolf should have been.

Whatever he’d felt shut down. Hard.

He laughed.

“You?” His voice carried easily. “The Moon Goddess has a sick sense of humor.”

Something inside me cracked.

I reached for him without thinking. He stepped back like I’d burned him.

“I reject you,” he said, turning so everyone could hear. “I will not accept a wolfless Omega as my mate.”

Pain ripped through my chest. Real pain. I hit the ground, gasping.

“You are nothing,” he added, like it was a fact worth stating.

He didn’t look at me again. He raised Jessica’s hand instead.

The Pack roared.

No one looked down.

But as the bond shattered, something else shifted inside me. Cold. Old. Awake.

The White Lycan

I ran until the air burned my lungs raw. Until the Pack’s scent faded into rot and damp shadows. The Dead Woods didn’t judge. They just waited.

I collapsed against the roots of a dead oak, shaking.

Then the forest pressed back.

A growl rolled low through the ground.

Red eyes cut through the mist. A Rogue. Starved. Watching.

Fine, I thought. Let it be fast.

It lunged.

I closed my eyes.

Fire tore through me instead. Not pain—something worse. My bones snapped and reset. I screamed, and the sound wasn’t human.

The Rogue skidded to a stop.

My body changed violently. Wrong. Powerful. This wasn’t a shift. It was a breaking open.

Thoughts collided in my head. Fear. Rage. Clarity.

I wasn’t weak.

I wasn’t what they said I was.

When it ended, I stood taller than the trees around me. White fur caught the moonlight like it had teeth. My eyes burned silver.

“At last,” a voice rumbled inside me. “You heard yourself.”

The Rogue fled.

I stayed.

Kael’s face crossed my mind. There was no pain left in it. Just certainty.

He rejected a girl.

He had no idea what he’d just let loose.