SOPHIE POV
My legs give out somewhere deep in the forest where nobody can hear me.
I collapse on my hands and knees in a clearing surrounded by massive trees, gasping for air that won't come. My white dress is shredded. There's dirt under my fingernails and blood dripping down my leg from a branch I ran straight through without feeling it. My body is trembling so hard I can barely hold myself up.
The rejection keeps playing over and over in my head like a song I can't turn off. Weak. Unfit. False love. The words are burned into my brain now. They're part of me. They're all I am.
I collapse onto my back and I stare up at the sky through the trees. The Full Moon is still visible above me, bright and watching and completely indifferent to the fact that my life just ended.
I don't even know how long I lie there crying. Minutes blur into each other. My tears dry and my body goes numb and I stop making noise because there's nothing left inside me to make noise with. I'm empty. Completely, utterly empty.
This is what broken feels like.
A sound cuts through the darkness.
Not a small sound. A heavy sound. The sound of something large moving through the forest with no concern for stealth or caution. Branches crack under weight. Bushes part. Whatever it is, it's big and it's coming closer.
I freeze.
My wolf instinct kicks in, telling me to run, telling me to get up and move. But my body doesn't listen. I'm too tired. Too broken. Too past the point of caring if something kills me right now.
The trees ahead part and a massive wolf emerges into the clearing.
Black fur. Larger than any wolf I've ever seen. Eyes that glow silver in the moonlight. The color of alpha eyes. The mark of power and dominance.
My heart stops.
I know exactly who this is.
Ryker Hayes. Alpha of the Ironwood Pack. The rival. The enemy. The alpha whose pack wages quiet wars with mine through the years, always on the edge of violence, never quite crossing into full conflict.
He's on my side of the border.
I'm alone.
I'm broken.
And I'm about to die.
The black wolf moves closer, studying me with eyes that see everything. He takes his time. There's no hunger in the way he looks at me. No aggression. Just observation. He's trying to understand what a Moonstone Pack girl is doing alone in his territory, wearing a torn white dress, covered in tears and blood.
My brain finally catches up with the danger and I try to move. I try to scramble backward. My hands press into the dirt and leaves and I'm pushing myself away from him, but my body is too exhausted. I can barely move.
The wolf stops a few feet away from me.
He's close enough that I can smell him now. Not the clean pack scent I'm used to. Something wilder. Something that smells like pine and smoke and danger. His eyes lock with mine and I see intelligence there. Real intelligence. This isn't a mindless beast. This is a predator that thinks.
Then he shifts.
The transformation is violent and quick. His bones crack and reform. His body convulses and changes. Where the wolf was standing, a man appears. Tall. Muscular. Covered in scars that tell stories of fights he's won. He's shirtless and his chest rises and falls as he watches me with the same silver eyes the wolf had.
Ryker Hayes is terrifying.
He steps closer and I scramble backward, my hands digging into the ground.
"Don't," I say, and my voice sounds broken even to me. "Don't touch me."
He stops moving. His expression doesn't change. He just stands there, watching me with those silver eyes that miss nothing.
"Why are you on my territory?" His voice is rough, like gravel mixed with whiskey. Like someone who doesn't speak much and when he does, people listen.
"I'm leaving," I say, trying to get my feet under me. But my legs won't cooperate. They're shaking too hard. "I didn't mean to cross the border. I was running and I didn't think about where I was going."
"Running from what?" he asks.
I can't answer that. If I say the words out loud, it makes it real. It makes the rejection something that actually happened instead of a nightmare I'm having.
Ryker takes another step closer and this time I don't have the energy to move away. He crouches down in front of me, bringing himself to my level. Up close, his scars are even more visible. A long one runs down the left side of his chest. Another one crosses his jaw. He looks like war in human skin.
"Talk," he says. Not a question. A command.
Something about his tone makes me obey. Maybe it's the alpha in him. Maybe it's the fact that I have nothing left to lose.
"I was rejected," I tell him, and saying it out loud breaks something else inside me. "My mate rejected me. In front of the entire pack. In front of thousands of people. He called me weak and unfit and said I wasn't good enough to be Luna."
Ryker's expression doesn't change, but something flickers in his eyes. Interest, maybe. Or recognition.
"Who rejected you?" he asks.
"Thomas Gray. Alpha of the Moonstone Pack."
Ryker is quiet for a long moment. He's studying my face, looking at something I can't see. Then he extends his hand toward me.
"Stand," he says.
I should refuse. Every instinct tells me that touching this man is dangerous. That taking his hand will lead to something I can't control. But I'm exhausted and broken and past the point of making smart decisions.
I reach for his hand.
The moment our skin touches, everything changes.
It's like lightning strikes through my entire body. Like the universe shifts. Like something fundamental that was broken inside me suddenly realigns and becomes whole. The sensation is so intense I gasp.
Ryker's eyes flash brighter silver.
I feel it too. The bond. The mate bond. Not the weak, fragile thing I had with Thomas. This is something else entirely. This is powerful and deep and ancient. This is the Moon Goddess recognizing two souls that are meant to be together.
This is the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me.
"No," I say, pulling my hand away. "No, that's not possible. I just got rejected. I can't bond with someone else. The Moon Goddess doesn't work like that."
"She does," Ryker says, and there's something that sounds almost like satisfaction in his voice. "She does when she's correcting a mistake."
He stands and pulls me up with him, keeping my hand in his. The connection is so strong it makes my head spin. I can feel him through the bond now. His strength. His power. His absolute certainty that I belong to him.
"Let go of me," I say, trying to pull away. But my hand stays in his like it's stuck there.
"No," Ryker says simply.
He looks out toward the forest in the direction of his pack's territory. Then he looks back at me with those silver alpha eyes.
"You're no longer Sophie Wells," he says, and his voice carries power that makes my wolf sit up and pay attention. "You're my chosen Luna now. You're my mate. And you're going to come with me to my pack so everyone knows exactly who you belong to."
"I don't belong to anyone," I say, but my voice is shaking and we both know I'm lying. The mate bond is already wrapping around me like chains made of fire. I can feel it pulling me toward him. I can feel my wolf recognizing his wolf as her match.
"You belong to me," Ryker says. "And I'm going to make sure the entire supernatural world knows it."
Before I can argue, he picks me up and carries me against his chest like I weigh nothing. My torn white dress hangs around me uselessly. My arms are trapped against his body. His heartbeat pounds under my ear and I can feel the strength in him. The absolute power.
He walks forward toward his territory without waiting for my response, and I realize with growing panic that I don't have a choice in this. I've been claimed by the Ironwood Pack alpha.
The bond pulses between us and my wolf stops fighting.
My wolf wants this.
My wolf recognizes Ryker as hers in a way she never recognized Thomas.
And as we disappear into the darkness of the forest heading toward his pack, I realize something that makes my blood run cold.
Ryker didn't ask if I wanted this.
He didn't give me a choice.
He just took me.
And somehow, despite everything, despite the rejection and the humiliation and the fact that I told myself I'd never depend on a man again, I feel safe in his arms in a way I haven't felt safe in years.
Which is exactly the problem.
Because now I don't know if I've been saved or captured.
And I have no idea which one would be worse.