The stone floor was cold against my knees. I had been scrubbing the same grease stain for an hour, watching it stubbornly cling to the marble like it had more right to be here than I did.
Maybe it did.
"You missed a spot."
I didn't look up. Mara's voice had the same grating quality it always did, like she practiced being annoying in her spare time.
"I'm working on it," I said, keeping my tone flat.
"Work faster. The Alpha King arrives tomorrow." Her designer boots stepped directly into my wet section, tracking mud everywhere. "Everything must be perfect."
I watched the mud spread across the clean floor and felt something cold settle in my chest. Not sadness. Not anymore.
"One day," I thought, scrubbing harder, "people like you are going to choke on my name."
"Some of us will be shifting tomorrow," Mara continued. "Showing our worth to the visiting packs. But I suppose you will be here. Unless…"
She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Tomorrow was my eighteenth birthday. My last chance to shift. After that, I would be officially defective. Packless. Probably dead within a year.
"Get back to work, Aria."
Her boots clicked away, leaving destruction in their wake. Destruction I would have to fix.
I sat back and pushed brown hair from my face with my wrist. The dye was fading, I would need to redo it soon or the silvery undertone would show through. Just one more thing that made me different. Different was dangerous when you were already at the bottom.
The kitchen finally emptied. I gathered my supplies and headed to my basement room, taking the back stairs to avoid running into anyone else.
My "room" was a converted storage closet with a cot, a plastic dresser, and one small window that showed a slice of sky. Through it, the moon hung like a watching eye.
I sat on the cot and stared at it.
"Please,"I thought. Not a prayer exactly. More like throwing wishes into a void. "Let tomorrow be different."
But hope was a luxury I had learned not to afford. Hope got you hurt.
A knock made me flinch.
"Aria? It's Thorne."
I opened the door. He stood in the dim hallway in his training gear, holding a covered plate.
"You missed dinner."
"I was working."
"You're always working." He pushed the plate into my hands. Real food this time, chicken, vegetables, bread. His portion, probably. "Eat. You need strength for tomorrow."
I took the plate because refusing would just start an argument. "Thanks."
His green eyes studied me too closely. He had been doing that since we were kids, watching me like I was a puzzle he couldn't solve. It made me uncomfortable.
"Your wolf is in there," he said. "I know it."
I didn't respond. What was I supposed to say? That I had stopped believing that years ago? That I had made peace with being nothing?
"Whatever happens tomorrow," Thorne continued, "you're not alone."
Before I could tell him he was wrong, he left.
I ate in silence, then lay back on my cot. Through the window, the moon stared down at me, indifferent and cold.
Tomorrow everything would change, one way or another.
I just didn't know how right I was.
The Next Morning
The ceremonial grounds looked different in daylight, transformed into something almost beautiful. White tents, snapping banners, the buzz of excited wolves gathering from across the region.
I felt their power like pressure against my skin. All that concentrated dominance made me want to disappear.
"Stop gawking."
Beta Marcus shoved a serving tray into my hands. "You'll serve drinks during the ceremony. Eyes down. Move fast. And do not embarrass this pack in front of the Alpha King."
"Yes, Beta."
He was already walking away, barking orders at someone else.
I loaded the tray with crystal glasses and wove through the crowd. Around me, wolves laughed and postured. The hierarchy played out in every interaction, who stood straighter, who moved aside, who got to speak first.
I was so far beneath it all I might as well have been furniture.
Which was fine. Furniture didn't get hurt.
"Alpha King is coming himself"
"youngest king in history"
"they say he's brutal"
"still unmated, imagine the power"
Conversations washed over me. The Alpha King. Kael Darkridge. Even I'd heard the stories took the throne at nineteen after his father's murder, spent seven years crushing anyone who challenged him.
I didn't care. Kings and politics didn't touch my small world of survival.
"Attention!"
Beta Marcus's voice cut through the noise. Everyone turned toward the platform where our Alpha stood with the regional leaders.
"The Alpha King has arrived!"
The energy shifted instantly. Necks craned. Bodies moved.
And then I felt it.
Not ordinary Alpha dominance. Something heavier. Like gravity itself had intensified. Every wolf present straightened, their wolves responding to something ancient and absolute.
I shouldn't have looked up.
But my head lifted anyway, searching for the source.
The crowd parted.
He walked through like he owned the air itself.
Kael Darkridge was tall, taller than seemed possible moving with predatory precision. Black hair. Sharp features. And eyes that gleamed gold even from a distance.
He wore simple black clothes that somehow looked like armor. He didn't smile. Didn't acknowledge the respectful murmurs. Just walked toward the platform like everyone else was an afterthought.
I should have looked away.
But something in my chest, that empty space where my wolf should have been suddenly "moved"
A flutter. A whisper.
Like something waking up.
The Alpha King mounted the platform. Our Alpha bowed. The others followed.
I stood frozen, the tray heavy in my hands.
And then Kael Darkridge's head turned.
Across the entire ceremonial ground, through hundreds of bodies, his golden eyes locked onto mine.
The world narrowed.
The tray slipped. Crystal shattered. Wine splashed.
I barely noticed because something was happening in my chest, a pulling sensation, violent and wrong, like a hook had caught behind my ribs and was yanking me forward.
And then it snapped into place.
Pain.
Not romantic. Not magical.
It hurts like a bone breaking and healing wrong, like my chest was being ripped open. Deep inside, something that had been dormant my entire life suddenly roared awake, wild and savage and completely foreign.
MATE, it snarled. Not a whisper. A demand.
No.
No, this couldn't
I looked up at him, desperate for… I didn't know what. Confirmation? Denial?
Kael Darkridge's expression shifted.
Not wonder. Not warmth.
His jaw clenched. His eyes went cold.
He looked at me like I was a problem he didn't want to solve.
Then his Beta leaned in, whispering urgently. The Alpha King's face became a mask—blank, controlled, empty of anything that had been there a second ago.
He looked away.
Just… looked away.
Like I was nothing.
The bond pulled harder, vicious and insistent. My wolf, my wolf, when had I gotten a wolf? was clawing inside my chest, demanding I go to him.
But I stood there, surrounded by broken crystal and spreading wine, while the most powerful wolf in the realm dismissed me like I didn't exist.
And I knew.
Whatever this was, whatever the bond meant…
It was about to destroy me.