Chapter 1
Lyra Castillo was scrolling through Instagram when she stumbled upon a picture of a girl wearing the same dress she owned. The girl was taking a selfie in front of a mirror, her long Victorian-style dress flowing elegantly, her smile bright and confident. The caption read: "The dress is pretty, but it looks better on me."
Switching to her chat with her mate, Ryker Tran, a warrior from the Shadow Fang Pack, Lyra calmly typed out a rejection message. The dress wasn’t costly, but it was unique—one of a kind. And right now, it was quietly hanging in her closet.
Lyra put down her phone and glanced at the picture frame on her bedside table. In it, an inexperienced version of herself, from two years back, was captured wearing that very dress for her graduation photo at the Blue Moon Pack’s design academy. It was her final project, the result of two relentless months of sleepless nights. She recalled how worn out she had been, too exhausted even for makeup to conceal the fatigue. It hadn’t looked as good on her as it did on the other girl.
Her phone buzzed incessantly with Ryker’s name flashing on the screen, but she ignored it and opened her closet instead. After wearing the dress just once for graduation, she had preserved it without washing. But now, the dress exuded a fresh scent of detergent, hanging silently there. It was as if the girl in the photo had come alive, mocking Lyra’s obliviousness.
That’s when Lyra remembered their encounter. About two months ago, downstairs, she had run into a girl who was walking her dog. The girl had seemed hurried and grabbed Lyra’s arm to ask for help: "Hi, I didn’t bring a bag for my dog’s mess. Can I use your coffee bag?"
Lyra had been rushing to an interview with Alpha Spencer Howard of the Blue Moon Pack, with a coffee Ryker had ordered to calm her nerves, a note from him sweetly declaring, "Don’t worry, you’ll be amazing." Without thinking, she handed the bag over. But as she tried to leave, the girl wouldn’t let her go. "Your mate got you this, right? Must be special. I’m so sorry, let’s exchange numbers so I can get you another one later."
Lyra was puzzled—a simple coffee didn’t seem that important to her. She declined, but the girl persisted, acting as though she owed a large sum of money. Eventually, just to move on with her day, Lyra agreed.
She had been so busy that she’d forgotten about the incident. If not for the dress’s appearance on her social media, she might not have remembered adding this pretty girl to her contacts. Now, she realized that Ryker’s infidelity had been staged. The girl had used the opportunity to size things up, seeing just how ordinary his mate was. She had taken Lyra’s contact and deliberately chosen this day to provoke her.
Meanwhile, Ryker was calling, moving from WhatsApp voice messages to full-on calls—more than twenty of them. His profile picture was a couple’s selfie of them, a testament to how much he seemingly cared. Just before blocking him, Lyra read his final message: "Whatever it is, wait till I’m back so we can talk."
Her wolf stirred within her, a low growl of pain and betrayal echoing in her mind. She clenched her fists, forcing herself to stay calm. The mate bond still lingered, a faint thread of connection that made her chest ache, but she refused to let it control her.
"I, Lyra Castillo, member of the Blue Moon Pack, reject you, Ryker Tran of the Shadow Fang Pack, as my mate," she whispered, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. The bond snapped, a sharp, searing pain that made her gasp, but she held her ground.
She took a deep breath, her wolf’s growl fading into a quiet, determined hum. She had survived worse. She would survive this too.