The moon hung heavy over the clearing. Eighteen years I'd waited for this night.
The sacred circle blazed with torches. My pack stood in silence, my father Beta Blackwood at the front, the Alpha in shadows. My family. Soon I'd belong completely.
"Selene Blackwood." The Moon Priestess's voice cut through the night. "Step forward and receive your mate."
My wolf surged with hope. Soon we'd be whole. I stepped into the circle, cold grass beneath bare feet. The Priestess raised her arms. Every wolf held their breath.
"The Moon has chosen," she intoned. "She reveals her will."
This was it. The moment I'd dreamed of since childhood. The Priestess pointed, past the warriors, past the eligible males, past everyone and landed at my father. The world stopped.
"No." The word escaped before I could catch it. "No…"
"Selene Blackwood," the Priestess announced, "your fated mate is Beta Maurice Blackwood."
Chaos erupted. Gasps. Whispers. Someone laughed.
My father's face went gray. "That's not possible. She's my daughter."
"The Moon does not make mistakes. The bond transcends blood."
I knew this. Fated mates could be any relation but father and daughter?
My stomach heaved. My wolf howled with denial.
"Something's wrong." My father's voice hardened. "She's masking something. Test her blood."
Two warriors grabbed my arms. Boys I'd grown up with now looked at me like prey. The Priestess approached with a silver blade and she sliced my palm. My blood dripped onto the sacred stone and glowed red.
Not the silver of true-born wolves. Not the pale gold of beta lineage. Red. Deep and pulsing. Ancient and terrible.
The Priestess stumbled back. "Impossible."
The crowd surged. Voices rose angry, frightened. My father's face twisted with pure hatred.
"You're not mine." His voice was dead. "You never were."
"That's not true. You raised me"
"I raised a monster." He spat at my feet. "Your mother lay with a rogue from the cursed bloodline. I was fool enough to raise his get."
Rogue. Cursed. The words didn't make sense. My mother had died when I was six. She was kind. Warm. She couldn't have
"No." The word came out broken. "Please"
"You are no daughter of mine." My father's voice cut like a blade. He turned to the Priestess, to the crowd, to the watching Alpha. "I reject her. As my daughter. As my pack mate."
He paused. The clearing held its breath.
"As my fated mate."
Three rejections. The bond snapped like a severed tendon. My wolf screamed. Then died not in flesh, but something inside me withered. Went silent. I fell to my knees, my blood still dripped onto the stone, red and damning.
"Please," I whispered, small and childlike. "Please don't do this. I'll leave. I'll never come back. Just please don't reject me."
My father looked down and smiled. The cruelest thing I'd ever seen.
"This is what you deserve, abomination."
He turned and walked away. One by one, the pack followed. My aunts. My uncles. My friends. The elders who'd bounced me on their knees. No one looked back. No one helped me up.
The Alpha passed last. For a moment, his eyes met mine, something like regret but he said nothing. He followed the others into the trees. The torches died.
I knelt alone in the blood-soaked dirt, watching the light fade. My wolf was silent. My heart was breaking and somewhere in the darkness, a new feeling was born. Small at first, quiet and growing with every beat of my wounded heart.
Rage.
They will regret this, I thought. They will all regret this. I didn't know how. I didn't know when. But I swore it there on my knees, with my blood soaking into sacred ground. I would make them regret it.
The last torch died. Darkness swallowed the clearing. I stayed on my knees until the moon set and dawn crept over the treetops, then I stood. I walked out of the circle. Out of the clearing. Out of the territory I'd called home for eighteen years. I didn't look back.
Not once.
By noon, I'd crossed into human territory. By nightfall, I had a job that wouldn't ask questions. By week's end, I had a new name, a new story, a new purpose.
Selene Blackwood died in that clearing. The woman who walked out had no name. No pack. No future but she had a past and that past had teeth and one day, when she was strong enough, she would return.
She would show them exactly what an abomination could do.