I always imagined meeting my mate would be the best moment of my life. I was right about it being unforgettable. I was wrong about everything else.

It started, as most disasters in my life do, with me being completely unprepared.

***

The packhouse kitchen smelled like lye soap and yesterday's dinner, and my knees had gone numb on the stone floor twenty minutes ago. I shifted my weight, wrung out the rag, and kept scrubbing.

Five a.m. The kitchen had to be done before the house woke up.

This was my life. Had been since I was twelve, when the Night Shade Pack took me in after the death of my parents. Dad died first, working himself into the ground trying to keep us fed, his body just giving out one Tuesday morning like a light switch flipping off. Mom lasted three more months. The healers called it illness. I called it what it was–she missed him so much she followed him.

I didn't blame her for it. I tried very hard not to blame her for it.

The pack separated me and my twin sister, Lana, a month after the funeral. Standard procedure for orphaned Omegas with no next of kin was being reassigned to work within the ranks. Lana was blonde and blue-eyed and so pleasant to look upon that the Braxton family–Beta rank and filthy rich–took one look at her and decided she had no business being a maid. They took her in as their daughter.

I wasn't so lucky.

That was five years ago and I had scrubbed approximately eighteen thousand square feet of the pack house's floors since then, by my rough estimate. Somewhere around year three, I made a decision. 

I was going to get into Greymoor Academy, and I was going to get out.

And three weeks ago, I received the Lycan Queen's scholarship, against all odds. Burning my fingers with the midnight candle. Dragging my near dead exhausted body after work to the attic to study with less than four hours of sleep daily. It paid off, and even if Alpha Dante Hayes wasn't pleased when he found out I took the exams after he'd expressly told me Omega maids didn't get to dream of grand futures and forbade me from taking the test, he couldn't refuse my summons from Greymoor. It would be a direct disrespect to the Queen.

But what he could do was triple my chores and make it nearly impossible to attend school. 

But clearly, he had underestimated how determined I was to change the trajectory of my life. 

Greymoor Academy was the kind of school that took future Alphas and sharpened them into leaders, future Betas and taught them how to counsel. Gammas, how to enforce. Girls from good bloodlines went there to marry up. Bloodline mattered more than brains within those walls. But if you could graduate at the top of your class, the most powerful packs in the world would come looking for you. Real careers. Real money. A real life completely unlike the one I was enduring. 

That was my plan. Graduate as the top student and change my life.

In twelve hours, I would be eighteen. In twelve hours, one of two things was going to happen. Either I would find my mate and he would be my ticket out of this life or I wouldn't, and Greymoor would be. Either way, everything changed in twelve hours.

The kitchen door swung open.

I didn't look up. Looking up was something you learned not to do as a maid.

Unhurried footsteps crossed the kitchen. The toe of an expensive boot stopped six inches from my hand. The boot glided over and pressed over my fingers, hard. 

I winced, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip as I sat back on my heels.

Cole Hayes, son of Alpha Dante Hayes, and future Alpha of the Night Shade Pack, looked down at me with the perpetual sneer he saved for things he'd found on the bottom of that expensive boot.

He had been doing this since we were children. The bullying, the derogatory comments that started when I was thirteen, stress-eating through my parent's death anniversary and not holding it together very well. Fatso. Ugly. Pig. Oink, oink.

Anorexia came at fifteen. By the time the Head Maid found out what I was doing to myself, the severity of the damage was so great that even three years later, even if I was now perfectly healthy, I still hadn't gotten my monthly cycle and I couldn't shift. 

Cole didn't know that last part. Nobody knew except Lana. In Ashbourne, being wolfless was worse than being a rogue. It didn't matter that I did have a wolf, but just couldn't shift. It all fell under the category of wolfless. If Alpha Hayes found out, my pack membership would be stripped and I would have nothing. Not the packhouse. Not the scholarship. Not even the floor I was currently kneeling on.

It was a secret I guarded with my life. Lana finding out had been as a result of my fifteen year old naive self who still regarded her twin as her best friend crying to her about it. She had mocked me for it.

Well, at least, she didn't tell anyone.

Cole lifted the glass from the counter. "Congratulations on the scholarship, Fatso. Though, I wouldn't get too excited. Your mother was an Omega maid. Her mother was an Omega maid. The misfortune mustn't be as hard to scrub free from your dirty blood as it must be to scrub out these floors."

He lifted his boot off my throbbing fingers and kicked the bucket violently, causing the contents to splash over my skin. "Start over," he said and walked out.

I sat there on the wet floor in the dripping silence of the empty kitchen, water running down my face, and I did not cry. I had made a rule about that years ago. Not in this kitchen, not on this floor, not where any of them could walk back in and see it.

I reached for the rag.

Twelve hours, I told myself.

I started over.

***

Lana was waiting at the packhouse gates under the light drizzle as I rushed out to catch the bus to the Academy.

She leaned against her sleek black Bentley in white heeled boots, a cropped jacket and a short leather skirt. 

Lana had always been stunning. Her blonde hair sat perfectly smooth, the perfect bone structure, the mile-long model legs and baby blues that made boys and girls alike forget themselves. She was perfect, in the ways I could never be.

Regina's theory was that Lana came out first and simply took things we should've shared.

I thought she was probably accurate, considering I looked like a hot mess.

I had sandy brown hair that woke up every morning with a completely different personality, electric blue eyes that Jenny once called too intense to be pretty, which actually makes them better, and a body that I had spent years at war with and was only now beginning to negotiate a peace treaty with.

I understood Lana's need to pretend I didn't exist, but it didn't make it sting any less.

"Happy birthday," she said.

There was a time, during our childhood, when those words from her would have meant something. We used to say them together, pressed against each other in our parents' bed.

"Happy birthday," I replied.

She looked me over. The Greymoor sweatshirt I had on because I couldn't afford anything else. The baggy pants. The bag on my shoulder packed with the six textbooks I'd saved four months to buy. My unruly, frizzy hair.

"You actually got the scholarship," she murmured.

"I did."

Something moved through her expression. It looked like resentment. "I'll be there, too."

I nodded. All of Ashbourne's elite would be there, and Lana Braxton–no longer Lana Adams–was one of the elite.

"Don't approach me at school. I have a position to maintain." Her eyes lingered on my worn out sneakers. "You understand that I can't be associated with a common maid. I can't have your dirt and skunk following me around."

She slunk into the car without waiting for a response, like she couldn't spend one more second being seen with me. And as she sped past, her tires sprayed a fresh wave of muddied water against my clothes.

...

Maisie

I arrived at school late, soaking wet through my clothes and shivering like a drowned rat. The drizzle had become rain approximately forty five seconds after I left the packhouse, because the universe often liked to shit in my face. 

I missed the bus. I missed orientation. I missed the tour. I walked four blocks in the wrong direction before a janitor took pity on me and pointed me toward the lecture hall, and by the time I found it, the period was nearly over and every single seat was taken. 

"Ah, Ms. Adams," said Professor Halven, peering over wired-rimmed glasses. "Late again, I see. Swept up in yet another hurricane. I don't suppose it's too much to hope that you left that particular habit behind in high school." 

Laughter rang through the hall as my teeth clattered, "S-sorry, M-Mr. Halven."

He ignored me, facing the class once more. "And now, your questions." 

I started for the back, embarrassment flushing my cheeks red as my shoes squeaked loudly. 

More laughter. 

If the ground would be kind enough to open up and swallow me whole.

This was recoverable. The first day was always the worst day, and everyone would forget this by next week. Hopefully.

They wouldn't. Half of this room had known me since high school, and the other half would hear stories by noon. Ashbourne was a Pack town. Everyone knew everyone, which meant everyone knew Maisie Adams: the clumsy Omega maid who walked into walls, tripped over flat surfaces, and had once, memorably, knocked an entire refreshment table into Alpha Dante's son, Cole Hayes, at the harvest festival.

So much for fresh starts.

A hand shot up from the left. Jenny Park, one of my two best friends, waved at the empty seat beside her and I slid into it and exhaled.

"Maisie," she whispered, honey-brown eyes wide. "What happened to you?" 

"What didn't?" I sighed tiredly.

Regina wordlessly pulled her boyfriend, Nick's soccer jacket off his shoulders and draped it over mine. Nick, to his credit, only winked at me.

Regina Braxton was Lana's stepsister. The Braxton family's daughter. She had grown up in the same house as my twin, watched exactly how Lana spoke about me and had once stood up for me during a Pack event when Lana's friends thought it was a good idea to test my resistance to scalding hot tea.

We've been thick as thieves since then.

"Happy birthday, May," she said with a half-giggly smile.

"Is it?" I mumbled sourly, snuggling deeply into the jacket.

My ears perked up as Darby Foreman said loudly enough to carry across the hall, "What actually happens when a mate bond is rejected?"

Professor Halven's stare flattened. "I'm positive that is not a part of the syllabus, Ms. Foreman." 

Laughter echoed in the hall, but Darby wouldn't be deterred. "Just last fall, there was a case of a girl dying in Ashbrook because she got rejected. Many of us turn eighteen this year and would like to know how to avoid that fate. This is a werewolf academy, after all. One lecture on it wouldn't hurt." 

There were many more agreeing nods this time. I found myself leaning forward despite myself.

Professor Halven seemed mildly irritated, but he set down his notes. "Most of you have been told a romantic story. The Moon Goddess selects two wolves and binds their souls." He pauses. "That part is true. What isn't is that it can be broken with a tantrum and three convenient words. I Reject You."

Another round of laughter. But Halven didn't laugh.

"When one wolf rejects another, the words do not sever the bond." His gaze swept across us, heavily. "They wound it. The wolf experiences rejection as spiritual mutilation. The Goddess forged that tie. When one side attempts to tear away from it, the backlash is, in the same way, divine."

"But I read that accepting the rejection ends it," a boy said.

Professor Halvern's smile was thin. "Nonsensical fiction."

Murmurs broke across the hall.

"The bond remains. The rejected wolf suffers most. Physically, emotionally, and the result is always catastrophic, with one of two endings. Death. Or insanity."

Another girl, Tanya, raised her hand. "Then how does one completely sever the bond before the pain kills them?" 

"You cannot. There is only one authority on this continent who can dissolve the Goddess-ordained bond."

We all knew who.

The Lycan Queen.

"A living descendant of the Goddess's first bloodline, the Queen's abilities stretches far beyond our imagination, and one of many is being able to override the tether." He gestured with flourish. "But she does not grant dissolution lightly. There must be a petition from both parties. A hearing. Only if the reason stands strong enough, will she break the bond. But even that may take weeks. Enough time to shatter a person completely." 

He stepped off the podium. "Which is why the law against rejection was passed by the first king. It remains frowned upon by society and punishable by banishment." His grey eyes refocused on Claire. "Now, if that would be all, class."

I sat very still for a moment, the weight of it settling somewhere uncomfortable in my chest.

Death. Or insanity.

I shivered.

***

The hallways were packed with students, first years and seniors alike. Fliers were going about for invitations to the mixer next week. I couldn't go, not with all of the chores I had to tend.

"Of course, they go here," Regina sighed wistfully. "I would pay a hefty sum to see what's packed underneath. For observational purposes, of course."

Jenny snorted, but her voice was equally dreamy. "Pretty sure you have to be one of them to even get noticed. I would right about sell my left kidney to mate with one of them."

I turned to the sight of four Lycans males crossing the hallway with an air of superiority that even the most powerful Alpha in Ashbourne couldn't duplicate if he wanted to.

The world simply bent the rules for and around them. The crowd of first years and seniors alike parted, unbidden, and stared unabashedly. You either wanted to fuck them or be them.

They were made different. Some said it was because they were the Moon Goddess's direct descendants. Others were convinced they were simply gods descended from above to preside over us.

The latter might seem a little obnoxious until you discovered they were all, indeed, royals. Nobility. But that wasn't all. You only had to look at them to understand.

They were so beautiful, it was unfair. They were like Greek gods wading through a room of plain mortals like us. Over six foot five inches tall. Tanned, flawless skins, thick ridges of proportioned muscles that made you think of all the things you could eat off their bodies. 

Eyes that glowed like the sun. An aura that crushed and screamed danger. You could never mistake a Lycan for a Werewolf. The difference was too vast to compare and bordered on rude. And it didn't make it any easier that they were better at everything.

Hotter. Faster. Stronger. Larger. More lethal. Where Werewolves were fierce, Lycans were deadly. They had the tendency to kill first and ask later. So, naturally, no one fucked with or talked to them. Not that they ever mingled with our kind.

In the whole world, there were fewer than twenty Lycans left. They were a dying-out race and that made them that much more special and highly sought after. Hence, having four of them in a small town like Ashbourne was like experiencing comets fall from the skies once in a million years. 

Even worse, they were all enrolled in the Academy. I thought it was strange, but everyone else only seemed concerned with drooling.

I looked away.

I knew better than to swoon like every other female. I was an Omega. Lycans were only attracted to strength, intelligence, and beauty. They rarely glanced at us, and in the event that they did, it was always an Alpha blooded female.

Never someone like me.

I shuddered again, the cold seeping deeper into my bones. "If we don't get somewhere warm, I just might turn into a fucking popsicle–" 

My wolf who had been quietly humming since I woke up suddenly surged forward with a force that knocked the breath out of me.

I stopped walking.

...

Jenny said something. I didn't hear it.

The scent hit me a half-second later.

Something sweet and deep and completely, devastatingly right. It bypassed every rational thought I had and went straight to the part of me that was a wolf before it was anything else. My body turned toward it before my brain authorised the movement.

And I walked directly into a wall.

The impact sent me straight to the marble floor. My bag split, books flying everywhere, cellphone skidding somewhere under someone's boot. I sat there blinking for a full, stupid second, hair in my face, hands flat on cold stone.

Then I looked up.

Dark green eyes.

Almost black, actually. The kind of green that existed at the bottom of very deep water. Blonde hair was trimmed shorter on the sides, and the longer pieces on top were messy in that, "I just rolled out of bed" kind of way. A jaw that had a cleft in it. Dark denim jeans that hugged powerful thighs. A black t-shirt that showed off thick muscular arms and matching dark boots.

Cole Hayes looked down at me.

He was standing with Tucker Reeves and Reid Calloway, the Beta's and Gamma's son, and Lana was at his side, his fingers stroking her bare stomach. 

They'd been together since they were fourteen.

Everyone knew they'd end up mated and create beautiful, blonde, cruel babies together. It was inevitable. The Braxtons were the most powerful family after the Hayes and had been pushing for Regina to be Luna, but Regina was a wild, uncontrollable card and would never be told what to do with her life.

Lana, however, was ambitious and had been working to be Luna since before she ever understood what the word meant. 

But Cole's nostrils flared. He blinked, as though confused.

He took one step toward me. One step away from Lana.

And the scent slammed into me again, so strong this time that my wolf threw herself at the surface of my mind with an urgency that was almost painful.

Goddess, please, not him. Anyone in the world who has ever existed or will exist. Not him.

My wolf didn't care that I hated Cole Hayes vehemently, or that he was the reason I hid behind baggy clothes. That he had made me hate my body so much, I stopped looking in the mirror and nearly killed myself.

She thought he was ours.

Cole crouched in front of me.

Realization crashed over Lana's face, panic and fear leaping into her eyes as he reached out, breathing hard, and touched my cheek, eyes heavy-lidded with such corrosive lust and hunger that I began trembling.

But at that moment, I could not control my synapses. My body wanted him like it needed warmth. I wanted things that I didn't yet know existed. I wanted to stake my claim on him. I wanted to bury my nose in his neck and run my tongue up and down his pulse. To arch my neck and let him mark me. 

His soft touch turned cruel, something like claws began digging into my chin. "Maisie Adams," he said softly. His gaze ran down my body. "The goddess must have lost her mind if she thought we belonged together. I'd sooner jam my dick through a grinder than stick it in your fat ass."

The hall quietened. He wasn't exactly being discreet.

My wolf whined petulantly, wanting me to throw myself into his arms, but his words had dropped like a cold bucket of water onto my head. I scrambled back, chest heaving as I fought the pull. 

Goddess, but it felt like I would die if he didn't touch me.

Someone grabbed my shoulder–Regina or Jenny maybe, pulling me up. "Stay away from her."

Stay away? How? My world was reconstructing around him. I could smell him and feel his heart beat pulsing with mine. My heart, my very body was aching for him.

But Cole smirked, rising to his feet as if completely unaffected. "By the next full moon, I will be the Alpha of the Night Shade Pack. I have no use for a maid, a weakling Omega like you who can't even shift."

My head went very quiet and my gaze swung to Lana's, stinging with betrayal.

She had told him.

And now, the entire hall knew it too. It rippled across the space in waves, whispers, gasps and mocking laughter. They called me a freak. Wolfless. A runt.

"The Pack needs a stronger Luna." He pulled Lana closer to him. "Lana Braxton is much more deserving of being my mate and would make a better Luna than you ever could."

I suddenly realized what was happening.

My heart began to slam against my ribcage like a battle ram.

He was going to reject me.

I suddenly recalled Professor Halven's words.

Goddess, I'm going to die. And if I don't, I might go insane. And in the event that I somehow survived both, I would be faced with the stigma of being rejected for the rest of my life.

Because no he-wolf wanted to be stuck with another man's reject.

I tried to speak, but I didn't get a chance.

"I, Cole Hayes, future Alpha of the Night Shade pack, reject you, Maisie Adams, as my mate and future Luna of my pack," he declared coldly.

Agony split through my chest like a blade of fire. I screamed, loud, raw and guttural. My wolf howled in pain. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before and it split my head in two as she wept for him. It tore into me like a knife being plunged deep to cut my heart right out, piece by piece.

They said I howled like a banshee, cried like a child, threw up and collapsed like a ragged doll in my own vomit.

All I knew was pain.