Scars Of The Rejected Luna

AjdChapter 1:

The water was very cold, slapping down into the bare hands of Aria, sinking into her skin like some fangs. She flinched, rubbing the blood-streaked tunic given to her to clean harder. The garment was drenched at the shoulders to the hem, with the unmistakable aroma of Alpha King Lucien Nightfall, and the metallic visit of blood which never seemed to be washed out of his clothes.

She could not ask whose blood. Omegas were not curious. They obeyed.

She was only the omega maid.

Fat. Dirty. Silent. Powerless.

It was whispered as a curse by the other servants  or worse still, as a fact.

Her exaggerated shape, her wild hair which was constantly falling on her face, her limp  it all made her a moving target.

However, it was not only her looks. It was the silence, the manner in which she never talked unless she was spoken to. The manner in which she looked at the ground. The manner in which she survived.

Aria cleaned more.

One sneered voice said behind:

“You missed a spot.”

Aria flinched. It was the voice of Talia that she knew. Lady, snappy, aristocratic. Rumoured mistress of Lucien himself. And mean in that inhuman fashion women with too much power and too little kindness are sometimes mean.

“You missed a spot,” said Talia, her voice slithering nearer.

Talia landed a sharp sting on Aria with her well-polished boot, on the ribs. The bucket ran over and got the hem of Aria wet.

The other servants laughed, but Aria made no movement. She remained motionless with her jaw set and her hands shaking as they curled up in her skirt into fists.

“Do you think that by standing like a rock people would forget that you exist?” Talia taunted. “Pitiful. You are a waste of a wolf.”

The wolf had awakened within Aria like a dream half recollected and very ancient. But it was too far down, too smashed. There was nothing Aria could do but to lower her head.

“Sorry I am,” she said.

“You are,” Talia tossed her hair back over her shoulder and laughed. “Hurry on, dog. It is the Moon Rite to-night. No, I do not want to miss the ceremony in which I am not invited.”

The hallways rang with the dying steps of Talia, and Aria exhaled a long breath that she did not know she was holding.

She looked towards the shattered moonlight which fell through the tall windows of the servant wing.

It was a Moon Rite to-night  the night of mate revelations. When the Moonlight Bond awoke in the full moon and showed destined pairs in the pack.

But that did not make a difference to a woman like her. Omegas were unnoticed. They were not selected by anybody.

She dipped her hands back into the water.

Aria was eighteen tonight.

None remembered that. Not that she did; now that she does.

A weak throb arose in her breast, as of some melody of a different world. Her wolf, the wolf not yet named, the wolf whose shadow she still bore  slipped uneasily within her.

There was something coming. Other than pain or humiliation. Yet she could not call it.

In the evening, the whole Silverstone Pack assembled in the Great Hollow  a large, airy space bounded on every side by ancient trees whose trunks were hewn with the symbols of the Moon Goddess.

Silvery flame flickered in lanterns. The air was full of expectation, magic, and olden custom.

Aria was in the very back, crouching beneath a black cloak that was too large, in the shadows.

Servants were not admitted into the inner ring, though she could not resist. There was something which had drawn her on.

Her breath caught at the movement of Lucien towards her. The Silverstone Pack alpha male.

He was a warrior through and through. Big-shouldered, tall, raven-black hair brushed off his cold, commanding features. Affirmation of his presence alone quenched the multitude.

He looked over the crowd coldly with those blue eyes of his. And when he said so the world stood still.

“Welcome the Moonlight to-night,” he said, in a voice as keen as a blade. “May she bless her choice.”

As the full moon rose fuller, a hush fell upon the clearing. The Moonlight Bond woke up.

Silver mist blew in the air and lay on wolves in the crowd. Gasps, low growls, laughs, and tears followed as lovers were revealed. Others were happy to embrace. Others struggled against the attraction of the bond.

And the light fell on Aria.

A line of silver fire leaped across the moon and smote her in the chest, bursting in a flame outward about her. Her wolf whimpered in her, breaking loose, crying out one word into the silence:

Mate.

And her attention leaped to Lucien.

He stiffened. His head was turned. His eyes looked at hers. Time stopped.

All eyes were on Aria  the fat, filthy maid  as the bond established between them.

The wolf of Lucien howled, and it broke the walls which the Alpha had made.

She belonged to him. Fated.

The whole pack sat struck with amazement.

Then Lucien laughed.

Neither was it a gentle snicker. The silence was broken like glass with the roar of cruel, cold, mocking laughter.

“You think I am going to believe this?” he snarled. “This thing? This grease-ball, wretched cur?”

At that, gasps went through the pack.

Aria lost her knees and did not fall.

The voice of Lucien was loud, harsh, and remorseless.

“This is the will of the Moon? This… servant? This useless animal?”

Aria could feel tears in her eyes, but she did not allow them to come out. Not here. Not before him.

Lucien faced the audience and lifted up the hand of Talia.

“It is my choice. A Luna of strength and value. Not this dross.”

And so he did refuse her.

The relationship sputtered, broken  not completely, but broken. Damaged. Scarred.

Aria was broken-hearted. It was the kind of a love that throbbed like an ulcer that cannot be healed.

She ran away. Dashed across the forest, across the fog, across the cries of her wolf to her not to leave.

She had no recollection of the length of time she ran. Her legs were shredded and bleeding, her lungs ached, her cloak caught all the branches.

However, she did not stop until her body gave up somewhere way past the Silverstone border.

She did not even notice the rogue wolves until it was too late. Yellow eyes. Snarling teeth. Dirty claws.

She shrieked. And then they jumped.

And then…

A gleam of silver. A roar so deep it tore the sky. Blur of fur and teeth.

And silence then.

She closed her eyes up at the man who had rescued her.

Over her towered a huge, blood-stained wolf. His eyes did not resemble Lucien, not cruelly bloodthirsty, but old, and wild.

Before her, he changed to a man.

Strong. Broad. Crazy locks and a scar on his brow.

He gazed at her as though she were some treasure.

“Not yet. You are not supposed to die,” he said quietly. “Not when the Moon lives yet.”

And then the blackness got her.