Sage's Point of View
The music stops.
That's what I notice first. Not the way Cohen's hand tightens around my wrist so hard my bones ache. Not the five hundred pair of eyes suddenly fixed on us. Not even the way my wolf inside me starts to scream. It's the music. Someone killed it. And in the silence, I understand that something is very wrong.
I'm still wearing white.
The dress cost more money than my parents made in a year. It took three months to sew, with tiny pearls stitched into the bodice by my mother's hands while my father watched with pride in his eyes. I practiced walking in this dress. I practiced standing still. I practiced smiling like a girl who deserved to be loved.
Three years I waited for this moment.
Three years since Cohen, the Alpha of Shadow Valley Pack, noticed me in the library. I was seventeen, small and quiet, reading about pack laws while everyone else trained in the fighting rings. He stopped and asked me questions about supply routes and territory management. No one had ever asked me questions before. No one treated me like my thoughts mattered.
He told me I was special.
I was so stupid.
"Let me go," I whisper, trying to pull my wrist away from his grip. Cohen's fingers dig deeper. His thumb presses against the inside of my arm where the pack mark sits on my skin. That mark was supposed to change tonight into his mark. That mark was supposed to transform me from nobody into Luna.
His eyes meet mine and they are empty.
Not angry. Not confused. Just empty, like he's looking through me instead of at me. Like I never mattered at all.
"Cohen, you're hurting me," I say louder now, loud enough for people in the front rows to hear. His mother is there. She gave me her blessing last week. She told me I'd make a good Luna. His sister is there too, crying happy tears.
They're about to see something they'll never forget.
He pulls me toward him close enough that only I can hear what he says next. His breath smells like the expensive wine he drank before the ceremony. His mouth moves and the words come out like he's reading from a script he's memorized.
"You are weak."
My heart skips.
"You are broken."
No. This isn't real. This is a mistake.
"You will never be my Luna."
He releases my wrist and shoves me hard. I'm moving backward before I can catch myself. My heels are too new. They don't grip the marble floor right. I go down like someone pushed me. I go down like I'm nothing.
The pain comes later. First comes the sound. The sound of me hitting the ground. The sound of my mother screaming my name like I'm dying. The sound of five hundred wolves gasping in horror because what he's doing is unthinkable. You don't reject your fated mate in public. You don't reject anyone like this.
Then Cohen's voice cuts through everything else.
"This Omega is rejected."
The mating bond that was forming inside my chest ruptures like someone ripped it open with their bare hands. I felt it connecting to him just seconds ago. I felt the magic of the Moon Goddess binding us together. Now I feel it shatter.
Every. Single. Piece.
My wolf doesn't howl anymore. She screams. She's trapped inside my body, going insane, destroyed. The bond that was supposed to make me whole just tore me apart instead.
I'm on my knees now, though I don't remember standing up. My white dress is stained with tears and something dark. Am I bleeding? I look down at my hands and they're shaking so badly I can't focus on them.
Someone is screaming. It takes me a moment to understand that someone is my mother. She's pushing through the crowd, trying to reach me, but security is stopping her. My father just stands there. He looks away.
Looks. Away.
The pack is chaos. Half of them are in shock. Half of them are angry. Half of them are doing exactly what Cohen wants them to do. They're treating me like I'm not worth helping. Like I'm already gone.
Cohen turns his back to me and addresses the crowd like he just didn't destroy a girl in front of everyone.
"Shadow Valley Pack, my true mate has not arrived yet. The Moon Goddess has not chosen for me. I will not claim someone weak. I will not risk our future on an Omega who cannot lead." He pauses. "Sage Winters is hereby cast out from this pack. Effective immediately."
Cast out.
Those words are worse than the fall. Cast out means I have no pack. No protection. No home. Omegas without packs don't survive long. We're the smallest, the weakest. We depend on pack structure to live.
Without it, we're prey.
I'm on the marble floor and no one is helping me. People are stepping over me like I'm already a ghost. My best friend since childhood walks past without looking down. My teachers. My neighbors. Everyone I've known my entire life is walking away.
Everyone except one.
An old woman pushes through the crowd and kneels beside me. It's Mrs. Chen, who used to work in the pack kitchens. She doesn't say anything. She just takes my hand.
"We need to go," she whispers. "Before they decide you're a bigger problem."
She helps me up. My legs don't work right. Everything hurts. My wolf is still screaming inside me, trapped and broken and dying.
Mrs. Chen guides me toward a back exit. I don't know where we're going. I don't care. Anywhere is better than here. Anywhere is better than staying in a room where the person I gave three years to just threw me away like I was garbage.
But as we reach the edge of the hall, something happens.
The doors burst open and the temperature drops so fast I can see my breath. Wind whips through the room like something alive. Every single person in the hall stops and stares at the entrance.
A man stands in the doorway.
He's massive. Scarred. Wearing a black leather jacket that looks like it's made from something darker than leather. His hair is long and pulled back, and his eyes are wrong. Not human wrong. Wolf wrong. His eyes are silver and gold and they're looking directly at me.
Not at Cohen. Not at the crowd.
At me.
At my broken, rejected, destroyed self on the floor.
"Who invited a street dog to a royal ceremony?" Cohen says, trying to sound confident. But I can smell his fear. Everyone in the room can smell his fear.
The man doesn't answer. He walks into the hall like he owns it. Like these five hundred wolves don't matter. Like Cohen doesn't matter.
His eyes never leave mine.
"I need to speak with the Omega," he says. His voice is low and calm, but everyone moves out of his way anyway. They move because something about him screams danger. Something about him says he'll kill anyone who gets in his way.
"That Omega is no longer part of this pack," Cohen says, and I can hear the desperation underneath his words. "She's nothing to us."
The man stops in front of me. Up close, he's even scarier. Scars cover his neck and jaw. His hands are huge and covered in calluses like he's fought a thousand battles. He looks down at me with an expression I can't read.
Then he kneels beside me, his massive frame making me look even smaller.
"What's your name?" he asks quietly, like we're the only two people in the room.
"Sage," I whisper.
"Sage," he repeats like he's tasting the word. "My name is Kael Blackthorne."
Cohen goes very still. I see several pack members step back. Someone gasps.
Kael Blackthorne. The Alpha King. The legend. The man everyone fears.
He's kneeling in front of me.
"I think you should come with me," he says. It's not a question. "I think you've been here long enough."
He reaches out his hand.
And I make the choice that will change everything.