Chapter 1

The suffocating scent of crushed roses and sweet cream flooded the Great Hall. It was making me nauseous.

Standing at the center of the obsidian altar, my twin sister, Sylvia, basked in the glowing light of the testing crystal. The whole of the Silver Moon Clan watched with bated breath, their eyes locked on the digital screen hovering above the high priest.

Beep.

"Sylvia," the testing official announced, his voice trembling with sheer excitement. "Gland Activity Level: 8.2. High-grade Omega!"

The hall erupted.

A Level 8.2 was incredibly rare. For a clan nestled in the harsh North, it was practically a ticket to supreme power. My mother, Vivian, covered her mouth, fake tears of joy ruining her expensive makeup. She loved nothing more than being the center of attention, and Sylvia had just given her a lifetime supply.

My father, Victor, didn't shed a tear. He was a Beta—pragmatic, ruthless, and usually too lazy to handle clan affairs unless it directly benefited his bottom line. Right now, his eyes were practically shining with dollar signs.

He stood from his velvet chair and raised an arm, signaling for silence.

"Today, under the gaze of the Moon, I officially name Sylvia as the first-in-line successor to the Silver Moon Clan," Victor declared, his voice booming across the stone walls. "She will receive the Eastern border territory, her own personal knight order, and an immediate seat on the Clan Council. Furthermore, she retains the absolute right to choose her own Alpha when the time comes."

Sylvia curtsied flawlessly, playing the perfect, graceful Omega. But when she turned her head, her gaze met mine. Her eyes were sharp, mocking.

Your turn, loser, her look said.

"Aria. Step forward." The official’s voice snapped me back to reality. The warmth in his tone was completely gone, replaced by the cold, mechanical drawl reserved for the servants.

I walked past Sylvia. As our shoulders brushed, she intentionally released a tiny spike of her high-grade pheromones. My knees buckled slightly from the instinctual hierarchy suppression, but I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled, forcing myself to stand tall. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

I stepped into the testing circle and turned my back to the official.

I felt the icy prick of the testing needle press against the most vulnerable part of my body—the gland at the back of my neck. For eighteen years, my gland had felt like a dead lump of flesh. I never had a heat. I never emitted a scent. All I did was wear the cheapest, itchiness-inducing suppressant patches from the pharmacy just to blend in.

Beep.

The silence that followed was deafening. There was no cheer this time. Only a collective gasp, followed by a wave of murmurs that sounded like hissing snakes.

The official adjusted his glasses, looking at the screen in pure disgust.

"Aria. Gland Activity Level: 0.3."

He paused, clearing his throat loudly. "Pheromone output is practically zero. Severe gland atrophy. Classification: Omega." He looked up at my father. "My Lord. She is a waste-blood. By clan law, I recommend immediate Release."

Release. It was a polite word for exile. Being stripped of the clan name, thrown into the Southern Shelter or the wastelands, left to rot with the strays and criminals.

"Wait," a sweet, melodic voice interrupted.

Sylvia stepped up onto the altar. She wore a perfectly manufactured look of pity on her face, but I could see the vicious thrill dancing in her eyes. "Are you sure the machine isn't broken? My dear twin sister can't possibly be a 0.3. Maybe her suppressant patch is just... blocking her true scent."

Before I could react, Sylvia’s hand shot out.

Riiiiiip.

A jolt of blinding pain flared at the base of my skull. Sylvia had brutally ripped the cheap medical patch right off my gland, taking a layer of sensitive skin with it.

I stumbled forward, clutching my neck, gasping for air.

With the patch gone, whatever pathetic scent I possessed leaked out into the hall. It didn't smell like roses. It didn't smell like pine woods or ocean rain.

It smelled like dead grass and rusted iron.

Someone in the front row gagged. Then, the laughter started.

It began as a few snickers from the upper-class Alphas and quickly snowballed into a roar of mockery echoing through the massive hall. Even the guards by the doors were sneering.

"Is that a wolf or a rusted garbage can?" a noble shouted. "0.3? She's barely a breathing corpse!"

Sylvia dropped the torn, bloody patch on the marble floor and wiped her fingers on a silk handkerchief with exaggerated disgust. "Oh, Aria. I'm so sorry. I thought maybe... well, I guess the test was right."

I slowly straightened up. The skin on my neck was burning, raw and exposed. I didn't look at Sylvia. I looked strictly at the man sitting on the Lord's throne.

Victor's face was completely blank. He didn't look angry, nor did he look sad. To him, I wasn't a daughter. I was a faulty investment. And Victor never wasted time on bad investments.

"Silence," Victor commanded. The laughter instantly died down.

He leaned back in his chair, not even bothering to make eye contact with me. "The law is the law. A 0.3 cannot hold the Silver Moon name. However, since the blood in your veins technically belongs to me, I won't cast you out entirely."

My mother, Vivian, turned her face away, pretending to inspect her manicured nails.

"Aria’s clan ID is frozen, effective immediately," Victor announced, his tone flat and businesslike. "She is stripped of her aristocratic status and downgraded to Servant Class D-ration. You will receive a monthly stipend of 500 pheromone coins. There will be no room and board provided. Pack your things and leave the main estate before midnight."

Five hundred coins. In this economy, that was barely enough to buy black bread and dirty water in the Southern Shelter. It was a death sentence draped in the guise of mercy.

"Understood," I said. My voice didn't shake. I didn't cry.

I simply turned around and walked down the steps of the altar. The crowd parted for me like I was a diseased rat.

At night, I was standing outside the towering iron gates of the Silver Moon estate.

I had one duffel bag slung over my shoulder. It held three changes of clothes, a rusty folding knife, and my pathetic 500-coin allowance on a cracked debit card.

"I don't need your pity," I whispered to the moon, the icy air turning my breath into white mist. "I don't need the Silver Moon Clan's heavily taxed ID. I will survive my own way. I'm going to find my own pack."

I adjusted the strap of my bag and started walking toward the slums of the Southern Shelter.

I didn't notice it. But as the moonlight hit my back, the raw, bleeding skin where Sylvia had ripped off my patch began to twitch.

Deep beneath the ruined, supposedly atrophied flesh of my 0.3 gland, a web of intricate veins suddenly flared with life. They didn't pulse with the standard blue or purple of a normal wolf.

In the freezing dark, just beneath my skin, a jagged, terrifying web of pure, molten gold flashed for a split second, burning as bright as dying stars.