Chapter 1

At the coming-of-age mate ball, Ryan Frostridge, Alpha of the Northland Pack, revealed the oath to Luna that I'd painstakingly written over three months.

I stood by the Sacred Spring.

Silver ink still clung to my fingertips.

I'd personally smoothed the edges of the parchment scroll.

Every line of the congratulations was carefully rewritten, tracing over Ryan's cracked lunar mark during his full moon frenzy, one stroke at a time.

I thought he was finally going to make our mate bond official.

But then he reached for Vera Greyson's hand.

The whole pack went wild with cheers.

Vera wore a white gown, and the Moonlight Necklace, symbol of the future Luna, was glinting at her neck.

Her smile was soft, like snow that had been waiting for its moment to fall.

Suddenly, the mate mark on my wrist cracked open.

The pain stabbed through me, like someone prying a burning silver needle out from between my bones.

I clung to the Sacred Spring's stone platform, but my knees gave way, and I sank to the ground.

Ryan stood atop the raised steps.

The lights caught in his gray-blue eyes, cold as the deepest frozen lake in Northland.

He glanced down at me. Just once.

Then, right in front of the Pack Council, he recited the oath. "I, Ryan Frostridge, Alpha of the Northland Pack, reject Evelyn Lorne as my fated mate."

In that moment, the entire hall fell silent.

My inner wolf stayed silent.

Because even though I'd been an adult for three years, I'd never once shifted.

I was the most famous no-wolf Omega in Northland.

Vera glided over to me, the hem of her white gown skimming the edge of the Sacred Spring.

She leaned in, her words a whisper meant only for me. "Evelyn Lorne, for a no-wolf Omega like you, even being allowed to kneel here and offer your congratulations to the Luna is more mercy than you deserve."

I looked up at Ryan.

He didn't defend me. He just slipped the oath to Luna I'd written into Vera's hand.

"Evelyn," he said, his voice low. "Don't make a scene."

It hit me then that he knew exactly what he was doing.

He'd known all along I was his fated mate, and he'd already chosen to reject me.

*****

The first time I mended Ryan's lunar mark, I was seventeen.

That day, a blizzard raged across Northland.

Ryan had just become Alpha, and the full moon's frenzy made his inner wolf impossible to control.

He locked himself in the old Council Hall. The door was cracked in three places from his pounding.

The elders stood outside, faces pale, but not a single one dared to go in.

I was just the least noticeable scribe in the Priest Hall.

That night, I was the only one who heard him shouting in pain behind the door.

Hugging the old Luna scroll, I pushed the door open. Ryan was half-kneeling on the floor, veins standing out on his hands, and his nails buried deep in his palms.

He looked up at me, his gray-blue eyes feral and wild. "Get out."

I felt my legs turn to jelly from fear.

But I still unrolled the old scroll, following Luna's markings, and let my blood touch his cracked lunar mark.

Ryan locked his hand around my wrist, the grip so heavy that I thought he'd break my bones.

But then, his inner wolf calmed down.

After that night, the elders claimed it was Luna's blessing upon Northland.

No one ever acknowledged me. Not even Ryan.

But after that, every full moon, Ryan would have Beta, Leon Barrett, come to the Priest Hall for me. "Alpha needs his lunar mark checked."

Check. What a sanitized way to put it.

I had done that for three years. I stopped Ryan from losing control and kept his old injuries a secret from others.

And in the Pack Council's records, I called it "lunar mark fluctuations in Northland" instead of admitting Alpha's inner wolf was out of control.

I always thought that if I could make myself a little more useful, Ryan would finally see me.

What I didn't realize was that he did see me. But he still chose Vera.

*****

After the mate ball ended, I went to the Priest Hall to retrieve my old mate bond records.

I wasn't there to cause trouble. I just wanted to reclaim what belonged to me.

Inside were the blood marks from every time I'd mended Ryan's lunar mark over the past three years.

There were the dates when the mate bond first manifested.

And there was the very first version of the oath to Luna I wrote for Ryan.

But when I pushed open the door to the archives, Vera was already standing inside.

Two noble she-wolves stood behind her.

The Moonlight Necklace rested on her collarbone, glinting so bright that it was almost blinding.

Vera tapped her finger against the cabinet. "Evelyn, I'm here to take Alpha's mate bond files."

I clenched the key in my fist. "These files don't belong to you."

Vera gave a small smile. "I'm the future Luna."

She said "Luna" so lightly, barely above a whisper.

But it was like a nail, hammered right into my sorest spot.

She went on, "Weren't all these records made for Ryan anyway?

"Ryan's my mate now.

"So obviously, all of this belongs to me."

I met her gaze. "Just because Ryan rejected me doesn't mean the blood marks I made belong to you."

Vera's smile faded.