Chapter 1
Aria's POV
I made Joren Calder an Alpha.
I took the weakest of Rohan Calder’s sons—the one nobody bet on—and built him a throne on the backs of the Prehnite Pack, simply because the Moon Goddess bound him to me.
On the night of his Ascension, he humiliated me by choosing an omega named Myrna Croft. When I exposed her as a rogue spy, she drank wolfsbane rather than face justice. Joren had smiled at me across the hall and said, "Good thing you caught it in time."
Ten years later, he accused me of treason. He had my wolf torn from me, chained me to a stake with silver, and burned me alive. Then he poisoned the Prehnite wells with wolfsbane. Five thousand wolves. Not one survived.
When I opened my eyes, the smoke of my execution was gone, replaced by the suffocating scent of roasted meat and spilled wine.
It was the night of his Ascension. Again.
This time, let’s see if he and his omega get their happily ever after.
The Great Hall of Zircon had never held so many wolves. Alphas, Lunas, and battle-scarred warriors crowded the benches below the dais, wearing their survival of the Rogue War like medals. Torchlight bled gold over the antler chandeliers, illuminating hundreds of predators restless to celebrate.
Tonight, Joren Calder was officially Alpha of Zircon. And, by every sworn oath, High Alpha of the Territories.
As the third cask of ale was tapped, Joren rose. He lifted his goblet, and the sprawling hall fell completely silent. It always did now.
"Tonight," Joren said, his voice echoing off the flagstones, "I have one more thing to share. I've waited a long time to find the one I want beside me. I mean to stand with her for the rest of my life, and I ask for your blessing."
Every head in the room pivoted toward me.
Down the table, a warrior raised a brazen cup. "To Aria Ashcroft! About damn time."
"To the new Luna of Zircon!"
The cheers were still hovering in the smoky air when Joren cleared his throat.
"Myrna," he said.
His voice went profoundly soft—a tone he had never once used for me. "Come out. Let them meet you."
From the shadows, Myrna Croft stepped into the torchlight. Dressed in unadorned white, she moved as if terrified to disturb the air. With pale hair and wide gray eyes, she looked fragile enough to shatter. She was utterly untouched by the war that had ravaged the rest of us.
Joren took her hand, gazing at her as though the hundreds of wolves in the hall had simply ceased to exist.
"Before the Moon Goddess and every pack in this hall," he declared, "I, Joren Calder, swear it. The only Luna of the Zircon Pack will be Myrna Croft."
The hall exploded.
A chaotic wave of outrage and confusion crashed over the tables. Isn't Aria his fated mate? She took a silver arrow for him! Isn't Myrna a kennel omega?
The whispers drove in like splinters.
Seven years ago, Joren had walked past me, smelling of cedar and cold steel, and my wolf, Lyra, had howled Mate. My father, the Prehnite Alpha, had begged me to reject him. The Goddess makes mistakes, Aria. You don't have to pay for hers.
But I had wanted him with the blinding hunger of a first love. For seven years, I forced Prehnite wolves into Joren's fights. I broke sieges. I bled to drag the packs into an alliance, crowning him High Alpha.
Only I knew the cost. And this was his first act with the power I’d handed him.
Watching him look at Myrna like she was the first warm thing he’d ever touched, the freezing truth settled over me. He wasn't incapable of gentleness; he had just never wasted it on me. I had never been his mate. I’d been a blunt instrument to carve out his empire.
Joren swept his cold blue gaze across the muttering crowd, his jaw tightening.
"Myrna nearly died saving my life," he sliced through the noise. "If I don't elevate her, it's a betrayal of faith."
He turned, his eyes brushing past me without actually landing on my face. "As for Aria, she chose to fight beside me. I won't shortchange her. Half the spoils of the Rogue War are hers. Land, gold, whatever she wants."
He sounded like he was settling a merchant’s invoice. Ready to disregard a sacred bond for an omega who saved him once, completely dismissing the woman who had bled to keep him breathing for a decade.
I stood up, lifting my chin.
"Don't trouble yourself, Alpha," I said, my voice ringing with enough icy authority to reach the farthest corners. "Prehnite doesn't need your scraps."
Joren’s expression darkened.
"Don't push it, Aria," he warned, masking irritation with a veneer of generosity. "I'll give you anything—except the seat beside me. But I'm not going to reject our bond. I'm not cruel. If you're that desperate to stay, you can remain as Myrna's attendant. Serve her well, and maybe I'll find a place for you."
Her attendant.
The firstborn daughter of the Prehnite Alpha, fetching water for a kennel omega. Kept on a leash just in case he needed the healer whose blood had restitched his flesh a hundred times.
A sharp, genuine laugh clawed its way out of my throat.
"You think I want your Luna's seat?" I asked.
The old law doesn't demand much for a rejection. Only the words, spoken plainly, before witnesses. And Joren, in his supreme arrogance, had meticulously gathered every Alpha in the Territories for me.
I stared dead into his eyes, letting the memory of silver chains and suffocating smoke fuel the absolute venom in my voice.
"I, Aria Ashcroft, daughter of Alpha Alaric Ashcroft of the Prehnite Pack," I declared, "reject you, Joren Calder, as my mate."
The bond tore.
It wasn't a metaphor. It felt like a serrated wire being violently ripped upward through my ribs. Deep in my mind, Lyra gave one agonizing whimper before falling terrifyingly still. My knees threatened to buckle, but I locked them, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a sway.
Across the dais, the color drained from Joren's face. His heavy silver goblet slipped from his fingers, crashing against the stones in the deafening silence.
"This is over," I said, turning my back on the High Alpha of the Territories. "We are nothing to each other now."
