The moon slowly illuminated the sky, plump and ruthless like a woman's scorn.
As wolf shifters assembled in tightly packed pulsating rows onto the surrounding area, I centered myself in the midst of it all. Weakly and barefoot, my body braced itself for the sheer amount of raw expectation and heat surging through the air. I stood dazed while hundreds of voices fogged my ears, attending the sacred mating ceremony shrouded in the gleaming moon's glow. An undiscriminating light saluted the world too, while a silvery outline framed the entire clearing with its halo.
Barefoot, I stood in the epicenter,
Unyielding meadows and the distance marked only astonishingly praised beauty blur. An exquisite yet petrifying desire encapsulated me. It left me breathless and bruised all at once.
I did not ask the concluding scouts at the ceremony to mark each name one by one in anticipation.
I already knew me and Alpha Kaine Raventhorn shared a link.
His grace was further accentuated by black ceremonial leathers he adorned over strong and elevated muscles bound to his body. It forged sinister patterns across his form as it did alongside my heart. It was only my desire for glory warriors and their dominion which lent me strength.
Claiming every single part of me.
"This man is your fated mate!" roared hearts of strong bone and fugacious sinew.
The sound overlooking the magnificence reminding him of masked mountains I gasped in unison before me. Even more powerful shout bolt]+s reassuring legs of sinanthrs storm filled gleaming eyes were grape. Turning inside and all around me tightened around my rib cage, his Mila sculpted cage.
Gazing into Kaine's storm gray eyes, feel each beat ringing together turn into sacred. It conversing sign )
My heart, I clearly lay like wood. Simultaneously, Attack.
He did not smile.
Is not soft.
Steps are not close.
Instead, the jaw of the Kin was harassed. His nostrils erupted as if my smell had angered him.
The elders started chanting behind me, calling for their voices low and resonant, calling the ancient rites of the moon.
"Kaine Raveenthorn, do you accept the bond that Moon Devi has chosen for you?"
My pulse spike was done.
Say yes.
Say yes.
But Cin's lips became somewhat cruel and curved in the cold.
"I reject this bond."
The word was hit by a chest like a claw, he was shying through me.
A panting through the crowd. The elderly staged the mid-chint.
I stumbled back, as if he was physically killed by his voice. My lungs forgot how to breathe. My wolf was deeply whispering, confused and broken inside me, quietly having the void where our partner should have been.
The voice of Cin was cut again, this time difficult.
"I reject Alpha Cin Reventorn, Aria Vale as my partner."
He said that my name is like a curse. Like dirt.
Laughter exploded with outer rings- mocking, pathetic, ruthless. The same wolves who used to ignore me, now took with Vijay, feeding my insults like vultures.
Aria Vale, The Run? " Somebody said.
"Of course he did. He is nothing."
"She can't even shift."
Tears were burnt behind my eyes, but I refused to fall. My spine was directly on instinct. Even if my heart is shattered, I do not let him go to break me.
The elders turned to me, their faces were serious.
"Do you accept rejection, Aria Wale?"
I should shout. Cried. fought.
But I could do everything.
"Yes."
A word. one breath. A broken promise.
What I immediately talked about, the bond separated in me like a stretch rope - violent, disgusting, cool. I started panting, holding my chest, the pain was stealing air from my lungs.
Sexual bonding - The thing to dream of every wolf, every girl prayed - it was gone.
He killed it.
He killed me.
The crowd started spreading. The ceremony was ruined. Night wrestling.
And Kaine?
They did not leave me another eye.
He just turned on his back and went away.
Like I was nothing.
No.
The screams made inside me -neither from my wolf, but also from every part of me, to dream, to dream. I folded and ran, wind through my dress, my barefoot became faster at soil and root.
I did not stop.
No, when trees were closed around me. No, when branches tear on my skin. No, when the pain inside became too much.
It was only when I fell into a hollow under the crying moon that I allowed myself to absorb.
I shouted in the earth, my fist entered the moss, my tears were wetting the roots of the forest. My skin burned. My chest pain. Rejection is raw and incredible, through me.
Why?
Devi, why would you give me a friend who hates me?
I had nothing. no family. No wolf. no power.
Now, not even my partner.
The scar on my back beat - an old, the right line of fire which I was from childhood. Tonight, it was pulsed with heat, as if there was some stir under it.
My skin is tingling.
The forest still went away.
And then-
My fingers burst a flicker of light.
Blue. Ether. Wild.
I kept staring in the jerk because the flames danced across my skin, licking my arms without burning, like alive.
"What…?"
The mark burnt warm. The pain was brought through my spine, and I shouted again, this time beyond pain - power.
Memories did not grow through my own. Woman with silver hair. A crown made of moonlight. A prediction whispered in an ancient tongue.
And then-
Darkness.