Isla's POV
The coffee mug hit my arm so hard, scalding liquid splashed across my wrist.
"Watch where you're going, Omega trash!"
I didn't look up. Didn't respond. That only made things worse at Crescent Moon University. Instead, I grabbed napkins from behind the café counter and wiped the hot coffee off my skin, right over the scars everyone loved to stare at.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly to the Alpha girl who'd "accidentally" knocked her drink into me. My third apology today, and it wasn't even noon.
She laughed and walked away with her friends. Through the café window, I watched them climb into a fancy car that cost more than I'd earn in ten years. They were probably heading to get their hair done for tonight's Fall Equinox Ball—the biggest party of the semester.
I had four more hours on my shift.
"Isla, you can't keep letting them treat you like that." My best friend Red appeared beside me, his dyed-red hair sticking up in angry spikes. He worked the café shift with me, which meant he saw every horrible thing people did to me. "One day I'm gonna punch someone."
"Please don't," I said, scrubbing coffee off the counter. "We need these jobs."
Red knew I wasn't exaggerating. I worked three jobs just to survive here: morning shift at the café, afternoon tutoring sessions, and night shift at the library. I lived in the basement dorm where they put students who couldn't afford real housing. My roommate was a mice family living in the walls.
But I couldn't complain. I was alive. I had a chance at education. Eight years ago, I had nothing but blood on my hands and smoke in my lungs.
I touched the scars on my wrists without thinking—the silver marks that never quite healed. Everyone thought they were from a suicide attempt. I let them think it. Better than the truth: that rogues had chained me with silver while they murdered my family.
"Earth to Isla?" Red waved a hand in front of my face. "You disappeared on me again."
"Sorry." I shook off the memories. "What were you saying?"
"The Ball tonight. We should go."
I actually laughed. "Red, we're working the coat check, remember? We're literally being paid to watch other people have fun."
"Yeah, but..." Red leaned closer, eyes sparkling with mischief. "What if we took a break? Just one hour. You've never been to a real party, Isla. You work and study and work some more. When do you actually live?"
Something in his words hit deeper than it should have. When did I live? I was twenty years old, and I couldn't remember the last time I did something just because I wanted to. Everything was about survival. About staying invisible. About making sure nobody looked too close at the Omega girl who was stronger than she should be.
"I don't even have a dress," I said, but my voice sounded less sure.
"My sister left one in my car. She's about your size." Red grinned. "Come on, Isla. One hour. Live a little. What's the worst that could happen?"
Famous last words.
Six hours later, I stood in the library bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. Red's sister's dress was simple—dark blue, nothing fancy—but it fit. My silver-blonde hair, usually in a messy bun, hung loose around my shoulders. I looked... different. Almost pretty.
"You look beautiful," Red said from outside the bathroom door. "Now come on, or we'll miss the whole thing."
The Ball was being held in the Grand Hall, the fanciest building on campus. As coat check workers, Red and I were supposed to arrive early and stay late. But the party was in full swing when we snuck away from our post, and nobody noticed two more bodies in the crowded room.
Music pounded. Lights flashed. Beautiful people in expensive clothes danced and laughed and lived the life I could only watch from the sidelines. I felt out of place immediately, like everyone could see I didn't belong.
"I'm getting us drinks," Red announced, disappearing into the crowd.
I should have followed him. Should have stayed close. Instead, I walked toward the back doors that led to the garden, needing air, needing space, needing to remember how to breathe.
The garden was quieter. Peaceful. Fairy lights hung from trees, and the moon was so bright I could see perfectly. I tilted my head back, staring at the stars, trying to remember the last time I'd felt this calm.
Then I felt it.
A pull. Like an invisible string tied around my heart, yanking hard. My wolf—the one I kept buried deep, the one I pretended didn't exist—woke up for the first time in years. She pushed against my chest, howling one word over and over:
Mate. Mate. MATE.
No. No, no, no. This couldn't be happening. Not here. Not now. Not to me.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path. Someone was walking through the garden, heading straight toward me. The pull got stronger with each step, so strong it hurt, so strong I could barely breathe.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
Tall. Powerful. Beautiful in a way that made my heart stop.
Daemon Blackthorn. The Alpha heir. The prince of the university. The most powerful, untouchable, perfect wolf on campus.
Our eyes met.
The world exploded.
Golden light burst between us—the mate bond snapping into place like a physical thing. I gasped. He stumbled backward, eyes going wide with shock. For one perfect, impossible moment, I felt complete. Whole. Like every broken piece of me had finally found where it belonged.
Then I saw his face change.
Shock became horror. Horror became panic. He looked at me—really looked at me—and I saw the exact moment he realized what I was.
Omega. Scarred. Nobody.
Not the mate an Alpha prince could ever accept.
"No," Daemon whispered, and that single word shattered something inside my chest.
Behind him, voices called his name. Important voices. His father's voice. A girl's laugh—Vivienne Frost, the Alpha female everyone said he'd marry.
Daemon's jaw tightened. His eyes went cold. And I knew, with absolute certainty, what was about to happen.
I tried to run. Tried to turn away, to spare us both the scene. But his hand shot out, catching my wrist with inhuman speed. His touch burned where the mate bond connected us, sending sparks up my arm.
"Wait," he said, voice loud enough to carry.
The music inside stopped. Conversations died. Through the glass doors, I saw faces turning toward us. Phones being raised. Everyone watching as Daemon Blackthorn, the Alpha heir, held the hand of Isla Monroe, the Omega nobody.
His father appeared in the doorway, face dark with anger. Vivienne stood beside him, eyes gleaming with malicious joy. The entire Ball was watching now, pressing against the windows, stepping into the garden, surrounding us.
Daemon's grip on my wrist tightened. His expression went blank—the mask of a prince who'd been trained since birth to hide his feelings.
When he spoke, his voice was formal. Final. Loud enough for everyone to hear.
"I, Daemon Blackthorn, heir to the Blackthorn Pack—"
No. Please, no.
"—reject you as my mate."
The world stopped spinning.
Then the pain hit.
It felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart while it was still beating. The golden bond between us turned black, corrupting, poisoning everything it touched. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but feel the agony tearing through my body.
My knees buckled.
And as I fell, as blood started dripping from my nose, as the entire university watched me collapse on the ground like the worthless Omega they always knew I was, I heard it.
Laughter.
Vivienne was laughing.
Then everything went black.
But in that last second of consciousness, my wolf whispered something that should have been impossible:
He made a mistake. And when we wake up... we're going to make him regret it.