REJECTED BY THE MOON, CROWNED BY RUIN

"Fifty-nine seconds, Nyra," High Priest Malakai whispered, his breath smelling of bitter herbs. He gripped a heavy stone pitcher over my head. "If your wolf does not wake when the clock strikes, the gods help you."

My knees dug into the rough stone altar. The chill of the pavilion floor bit straight through my thin white ritual dress. Above us, the heavy iron banners of the Great Citadel rattled in the midnight wind, clanging against the pillars.

Five thousand elite alphas filled the tiered stands. Total silence. Every single eye was pinned right on me.

"She’s going to shift," Brandon muttered from the edge of the platform. His jaw was tight, his hands clenching into fists. "She has to. I’m the next Alpha King of Bloodmoon. My fated mate cannot be a dud."

"Calm yourself, Brandon," King Corin warned from his elevated throne, his voice low but sharp. "The Evercrest bloodline is pure. The girl will manifest. She has thirty seconds."

"And if she doesn't?" Brandon snapped, turning his head toward his father. "My reputation is on the line here."

Malakai leaned down, tilting the pitcher. "Focus, child," he commanded me.

Then came the oil. It wasn't warm. It was thick, freezing, and felt like liquid mud as it poured over the crown of my head, matting my dark hair to my scalp and dripping down my forehead. I winced, the sting getting into my eyes, but I didn't move. I couldn't. My heart was slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Wake up, I screamed inside my own mind, directing the thought to the empty, silent void in my chest. Please, wake up. Just spark. Give me something. A growl, a twitch, a breath. Anything.

"Ten seconds!" a guard called out from the clock tower stairs.

Brandon took two long steps forward, reaching the edge of the altar. He stared down at me, his eyes searching my face for any sign of gold or silver in my irises. "Come on, Nyra. Do it now."

"Five!" the crowd chanted. The sound was a roar that shook the dust from the rafters.

"Four!"

I clenched my fists until my fingernails drew blood in my palms. Please.

"Three!"

"Two!" Brandon leaned in, his breath hot on my face. "Show them!"

"One!"

The massive iron bell in the tower struck.

Ding dong........

The sound vibrated through the stone floor, rattling through my bones. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the sudden, violent burst of heat that every alpha felt during their awakening. I waited for the phantom howl to tear through my mind, for the bones in my limbs to crack and reshape into the powerful form of an Evercrest wolf.

Nothing.

The silence inside my head was absolute. It was a dead, hollow emptiness. No wolf sparked. No power flowed. My skin remained completely human, shivering in the freezing wind.

"Is that it?" someone shouted from the front row of the stands. "Where is the shift?"

"Look at her eyes! They didn't change!" another voice yelled. "She’s a dud!"

Brandon froze. His face went completely pale, all the color draining from his cheeks in a second. He stared at me like he was looking at a corpse. "No. No, this is a joke. Nyra, stop playing around. Shift!"

"The time has passed," High Priest Malakai said. He lowered the stone pitcher, his voice devoid of any pity. "The clock has struck midnight. The ritual is over."

"No!" Brandon roared, turning on the priest. "Give it another minute! Sometimes it takes a moment!"

"An Evercrest alpha shifts on the first chime, Brandon," King Corin said, his voice booming over the entire pavilion. He stood up from his throne, his face twisted in disgust. "She is a defect. A powerless human."

"You lied to me," Brandon turned back to me, his voice shaking with pure rage. He walked right up to where I knelt, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "Your father promised me a powerful mate to secure my throne! You’re nothing but a fraud!"

"Brandon, I don't know what happened," I gasped, the cold oil dripping into my mouth. "I felt—I thought—"

"Shut up!" he screamed. He reached into his formal vest and ripped out the heavy gold engagement medal. It bore both of our family crests. He held it up in front of my face. "You think I’m going to marry a worthless, wolfess-less freak? You think I’m going to let you ruin my ascension?"

"Brandon, please," I whispered, reaching out a trembling hand.

"Don't touch me!" he yelled. He turned on his heel, walked over to the edge of the ritual stage, and deliberately tossed the gold medal straight into the iron drainage grate. It hit the bars with a loud clink and splashed into the filthy sewer water below. "You are nothing to me."

The five thousand alphas in the stands erupted into whispers and mocking laughter.

"Look at her, kneeling there like a dog."

"The great Evercrest line ends with a broken tool."

King Corin stepped down from the dais, his heavy boots clicking against the stone. He didn't even look me in the eye. He looked past me, addressing the entire assembly. "As the Sovereign King of the Bloodmoon territories, I will not allow our lineage to be tainted by weakness. Effective immediately, Nyra is stripped of the Evercrest name. She has no family. She has no rank. She is an outcast to the realm."

My breath caught in my throat. "Your Majesty, my father gave everything to your army! You can't just throw me out!"

"Your father gave us a broken product," King Corin barked, finally glaring down at me. "You are a political liability, girl. Guards! Secure the prisoner!"

Two heavy guards in iron armor marched onto the stage, their faces completely blank. One of them grabbed my right arm, jerking me up from the stone floor so fast my knees scraped against the altar. The other guard grabbed my left wrist, pulling my arms together.

"Let go of me!" I struggled, but without a wolf, my human strength was nothing against two trained alpha soldiers.

The heavy iron cuffs snapped shut around my wrists, the cold metal locking tightly against my skin.

"Where are you taking her?" Brandon asked, his voice cold, completely indifferent to the fact that we had been sharing a bed and a life just yesterday.

"To the lower cells until the council decides where to dump her," the lead guard replied.

They began dragging me backward across the platform. My boots dragged against the stone, leaving a trail through the spilled ceremonial oil. I kept my head down, trying to block out the jeers and the insults throwing themselves at me from the stands.

But as they dragged me toward the shadow of the western exit, a strange, heavy pressure filled the air. The temperature in the pavilion seemed to drop even further, turning my breath into thick white clouds.

I forced my head up.

Sitting in the furthest, darkest corner of the VIP box, completely detached from the shouting crowd, was a man who hadn't spoken a single word during the entire ritual.

The Lycan King Lucien Draven.

The Alpha King of the Winter Shadows. The man they called the Tyrant of the North.

He sat completely motionless, draped in heavy, dark furs that absorbed the faint moonlight. His massive frame leaned back slightly against his stone chair. While everyone else was shouting, laughing, or turning away in disgust, Lucien’s eyes were locked entirely on me.

Our gazes connected across the frozen space.

There was no mockery in his dark eyes. There was no pity, and there was no disgust. Instead, he stared at me with a cold, terrifying calculation. His eyes moved down to the iron cuffs on my wrists, then back up to my face, as if he were measuring the exact value of a broken piece on a chessboard. He lifted a single gloved hand, resting his chin on his knuckles, his expression completely unreadable but deeply menacing.

My blood ran instantly cold. A shiver that had nothing to do with the wind rushed down my spine. He wasn't rejecting me like the others. He was planning something.

"Move, human," the guard growled, jerking my chains and pulling me into the dark tunnel, breaking the stare.