The moon hung full and merciless above the Throne Hollow, casting every soul in silver judgment.
Aria Nightbloom stood at the edge of the ceremonial circle, her bare feet pressed against cold stone that had witnessed a thousand matings before this night. The white silk of her bonding dress—borrowed, patched at the hem where another Omega had torn it years ago—whispered against her skin with each shallow breath.
Tonight, I become his.
The thought should have warmed her. Instead, something cold coiled in her stomach as she watched Lucien Thornevale descend the marble steps of the Alpha's platform. The most powerful wolf in five territories moved like winter given form, his ice-blue eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the gathered crowd. Beyond her.
He hadn't looked at her once since the moon rose.
"Brothers and sisters of the Thornevale Pack," Elder Malrick's voice rolled across the clearing like distant thunder. "We gather beneath the Mother Moon to witness the sacred joining of souls, the binding of threads that She herself has woven."
Aria's fingers found the edge of her dress, twisting the fabric. Around her, hundreds of wolves formed a perfect circle—Betas in their ceremonial armor, Healers with their moonstone pendants, and at the very back, the other Omegas who'd served her wine and whispered behind cupped hands for weeks.
He's the Alpha King. You're nobody.
The thread must be wrong.
Look how he won't even—
"Aria Nightbloom." Her name on the Elder's lips snapped her back to the present. "Step forward and claim your place in the circle of bonding."
Her legs moved without her permission. One step. Two. The crowd parted like water, creating a path straight to where Lucien waited at the circle's heart. She kept her chin high, her mother's last words echoing in her bones: Even Omegas can carry grace, my starlight. Remember that when the world tries to make you small.
But grace felt impossible when Lucien finally—finally—turned to face her.
And his expression was stone.
No warmth flickered in those winter eyes. No recognition of the pull she felt every time he passed through the kitchens. No acknowledgment of the thread that sang between them, taut and golden and undeniable since her first bleeding moon six months ago.
"My lord," she whispered, dropping into the formal curtsey. The silk pooled around her like spilled moonlight.
He said nothing.
Elder Malrick cleared his throat. "Alpha King, the moon bears witness. Speak your claim upon your fated mate, that all may hear the Goddess's will made manifest."
The silence stretched like a held breath. Somewhere in the crowd, fabric rustled. A pup whined before being hushed. The sacred drums had stopped, leaving only the sound of wind through the silverwood trees and the thunder of Aria's heart against her ribs.
Lucien's jaw tightened. A muscle jumped beneath the ritual scars on his throat—marks of every challenge won, every rival bled dry beneath his claws.
When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of mountains falling.
"I, Lucien Thornevale, reject Aria Nightbloom as my mate."
The words hit her chest like physical blows. Reject. Aria. Nightbloom. As. My. Mate.
The world tilted. Sound became distant, muffled, as if she'd been plunged underwater. She saw mouths moving—gasps, whispers, someone's cruel laughter—but heard only the roar of blood in her ears.
And then the thread snapped.
She'd heard others describe it, rejection's kiss. They spoke of pain like heartbreak, like tears and rage and the desperate need to howl.
They were wrong.
This was not heartbreak. This was surgery without mercy. She felt it—actually felt it—as the golden thread connecting her soul to his tore free from its moorings. It whipped through her chest like a severed rope, thrashing, seeking its other half, finding only empty air. Her lungs seized. Her vision blurred. Every nerve screamed as something fundamental inside her collapsed into ruin.
But Aria Nightbloom did not fall.
She stood there, spine straight, eyes fixed on the male who had just carved her soul from her body in front of everyone who'd ever looked down on her. No tears came. No plea burst from her lips. She simply... stood.
And that seemed to unsettle them more than screaming would have.
"The rejection is witnessed," Elder Malrick intoned, though his voice wavered. "The thread is severed. Let none question the Alpha's will."
Lucien turned away without another word, his royal blue cloak sweeping the stones. He climbed back to his platform where she waited—Celestia Ravaryn, daughter of the Council, her smile sharp as winter moonlight. The crowd began to shift, uncomfortable with the Omega who wouldn't crumble, who stood like a statue in her borrowed dress while her world ended.
"Remove her," someone muttered.
"Pathetic creature."
"She's not even crying. Is she too stupid to understand?"
The words washed over Aria like rain over stone. She felt... nothing. Everything. A hollow so deep it had its own gravity. Her chest was a cavern where a thread used to live, and in that darkness, in that void where her soul had been split from its other half...
Something stirred.
Just a flicker. Barely there. Like a candle flame cupped in palms during a storm.
Silver.
Hot.
Wrong.
It pulsed once beneath her breastbone—foreign, ancient, impossible—then settled back into dormancy. But she felt it there, waiting. A seed of light in the ruin of her chest.
The moon seemed to pulse in answer, just once, before clouds swallowed its face.
"Move, Omega." Beta Roth's hand closed around her arm, his grip hard enough to bruise. "You've shamed us enough for one night."
Aria let herself be led from the circle, past the whispers and sneers and pitying looks. Her bare feet found each stone by memory. Her body moved, empty and automatic, while inside her chest that strange silver spark settled deeper, burrowing into the space where her thread used to live.
They stripped her of the bonding dress at the pack house gates. Cast her out in nothing but her rough-spun undershift. The night air bit at her skin, raising goosebumps along her arms, but she barely noticed.
She walked into the darkness beyond the walls, each step taking her further from everything she'd ever known. Behind her, the pack celebrated—she could hear the drums starting again, the howls of joy for their Alpha's true mate.
But ahead lay only shadow and silence and the weight of a rejection that should have killed her.
The thread was gone.
But something else was waking up.