Chapter 1
At the annual Mate Ball, my fiancé, Lucien Greyson, the future Alpha King, walked straight past me and swept another woman into his arms, right there in front of the entire pack.
She was the human girl he had always wanted but could never have.
Everyone expected me to shatter. The Moon Goddess herself had bound us as fated mates, and our bonding ceremony was set for the next full moon.
But Lucien barely glanced my way as he brushed past me to gather that woman close, freshly returned from a human kingdom.
The whole pack erupted in an uproar.
I unclasped the moonstone pendant from my neck, the symbol of the Luna, and set it on the floor.
As I walked out of the pack's territory, I sent a spell-message to the Vampire Princess: [About that marriage alliance you mentioned, I'm in.]
Alpha King, you chose your old flame. So, I would find someone far better to marry.
*****
By the time the Mate Ball ended, the moon hung overhead.
I walked from the ritual grounds alone, dry leaves crunching beneath my feet.
Footsteps hurried after me. They were too fast for any creature but a werewolf, and in a heartbeat, he stood right behind me.
"Selena." Lucien caught my wrist, his hand still hot from shifting back into human form.
I shook him off and kept walking.
Lila darted in front of me, planting herself as a shield. She was the only friend I had in the pack, a loyal gray wolf who had never left my side, no matter how bitter things became.
"Alpha King, now you care about Selena?" Lila's voice trembled with fury she could scarcely contain.
Lucien did not so much as glance at Lila. His eyes stayed locked on me. "Selena, please, let me explain. It isn't what you think."
A cold, mocking laugh escaped me. I did not slow my stride.
I had expected too much. I had believed he would choose me as his mate at the Mate Ball.
I had pictured him taking my hand beneath the full moon, before all the wolves of the pack.
I had dreamed of the future the Moon Goddess promised us.
All of it was my own foolish hope.
Lila shifted back into her wolf form, and I swung onto her back.
She shot from the pack's territory like the wind, and Lucien's voice faded into the depths of the forest behind us.
When we reached my treehouse, I told Lila to return home.
As I climbed the wooden ladder, I heard someone moving inside. The door was unlocked. I pushed it open.
On the stone shelf by the entryway sat a pair of red high heels, their stilettos thin as needles. Beside them was a pair of leather boots caked in dried mud.
The fire in the living room blazed, and the air smelled of meat stew.
The human woman sat in my fur chair, wrapped in my blanket, drinking soup from my wooden bowl.
She looked up as I entered, her face flushed in the firelight.
Elena Fink. The human girl Lucien had found in the borderlands five years ago.
She was his first love, the one he grew up beside until nobles from the human kingdom took her back. And now she had returned.
"Selena?" She set down the bowl and smiled. "You're back."
I stood in the doorway, motionless. "What are you doing in my house?"
"Lucien said I could stay here for a few days." She tucked her feet up and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. "I ran away from the human kingdom.
"I haven't found anywhere else to go yet. He told me you are kind and wouldn't mind at all."
She called him Lucien. In all three years I had spent with him, he never allowed me that privilege.
That name, he always said, belonged to someone from his past. As his future Luna, I was not meant to use it.
The kitchen curtain rustled, and Lucien stepped out, carrying a bowl of warm goat milk.
He froze when he saw me. "Selena, you are back already?"
He didn't leave. He made it here before I did. I asked, "Were you not supposed to meet with the elders after the Ball?"
"Elena returned with nowhere to go, so she is staying here for a few days," he said.
He placed the bowl on the stone shelf and reached for my hand. "I meant to tell you, but you rushed off so quickly—"
"Did I ever agree that she could stay here?" My voice came out icy.
Lucien's hand hung in the air between us. The firewood crackled in the hearth.
"Selena, it is only for a few days," he said, his tone softening into that coaxing murmur he thought could soothe anything. "She suffered terribly in the human kingdom. I cannot turn her away."