Lyra's pov
The torchlight felt like it was burning my skin.
I stood at the edge of the clearing. Tonight was the Alpha’s Choosing Ceremony. For two years, since the day I turned eighteen and felt the searing, golden thread snap tight in my chest, I’d waited for this. For him.
Alpha Kael stood on the stone dais, his back to me. The firelight danced over the muscles of his shoulders.My wolf, a quiet presence I usually had to strain to hear, was a restless, whining thing inside me.
“Stop fidgeting, Lyra.” My mother’s whisper was sharp beside me.
“You look desperate.”
I forced my hands to still be at my sides. I wasn’t dressed like the others in their finery. Just a simple grey dress. Kael had never noticed my clothes before. He’d never really noticed me, not beyond a passing glance, a curt nod. But the bond… it had to mean something. He had to feel it, too.
The crowd hushed as Kael turned. His eyes, the color of winter ash, swept over the pack. They passed over me.
My breath hitched.
“For an Alpha,” he began, his voice rolling through the silent pines, “strength is everything. But strength needs a foundation. A Luna who provides balance. Peace.”
He stepped down from the dais. My feet wanted to step forward. I locked my knees.
“For months, I have searched my spirit. Weighed the will of the Moon Goddess.” He walked through the parted crowd, a path opening before him. He wasn’t looking at the fierce she-wolves, the daughters of high-ranking warriors. He was walking toward the sheltered benches at the back.
Toward the human section.
A cold trickle started down my spine.
“I have chosen the one whose gentle heart will temper my rule,” Kael announced, his voice softening in a way I’d never heard.
“Whose presence is a quiet shelter.”
He stopped. Right in front of my family’s bench.
Right in front of my sister.
Elara’s wide, blue eyes looked up at him, full of fragile wonder. She was a porcelain doll in a sea of wolves, her blonde hair a shimmer under the moon. My sister. My human sister, who jumped at loud noises and needed help opening jars.
Kael extended his hand. Not to me. Never to me.
To her.
“Elara,” he said, and her name was a vow on his lips.
“Will you stand as my Luna?”
The world didn’t shatter. It just… stopped. The sounds of the forest, the crackle of the torches, the beat of my own heart, it all drained away into a silent whine.
Elara’s pale hand fluttered, then settled into Kael’s large, calloused one.
“I… I would be honored, Alpha.”
He pulled her to her feet, a smile touching his mouth. A smile I had never been able to summon.
Then, as if remembering the rest of us, he turned his head. His ash-eyed gaze found me in the crowd. There was no apology there. Just a cool, final acknowledgment.
“The bond is recognized,” he declared to the pack. “The choice is made.”
No.
The word was a scream inside my skull, but my lips were sealed shut. My wolf howled, a sound of pure, rending agony that only I could hear.
I saw my father clap my mother on the shoulder, relief on his face. Relief. My mother was smiling, a tight, pleased smile. They were happy. Their fragile human daughter was Luna. Their wolf-born daughter was… what? A spare?
Kael led Elara toward the dais. As they passed, so close the air from his movement brushed my arm, Elara’s eyes flicked to me. For a split second, the fragile wonder was gone. Something else was there.
Then it was gone, replaced by a sheen of tears. “Lyra,” she whispered, so only I could hear.
“I’m so sorry. I never meant…”
Kael pulled her closer, shielding her from my stare. As if I were a threat. As if my very existence was a storm that might bruise his precious, chosen flower.
The pack began to cheer. Their voices rose, a wave of acceptance, of celebration for their new Luna.
I took a step back. Then another.
No one saw me. Every eye was on the dais, on the new couple, on the future.
The golden thread snapped.
It wasn’t a sound. It was an absence. The pain was so intense I almost vomited right there.
I turned.
And walked away
I didn’t run. Running would mean I was the rejected one, the discarded one. I just walked, one foot in front of the other, away from the torchlight, away from the cheers, away from the sister who had my life and the Alpha who had my soul.
The trees swallowed me. The darkness was colder than I remembered.
I didn’t look back.
But I made a promise to the silent moon, to the hollow space in my chest.
He made his choice.
Now, I would make mine.