Damien's wolf senses Aria for the first time. He brutally suppresses the bond.
The ritual fire's flames burned low and smoldered softly, dying to a pale orange ember. The clearing that had throbbed with snarls and unchecked energy mere hours before now slept quietly under the moon's fading light. Shadows deepened and stretched longer across the grass as the celebration wore thin, the pack dispersing in twos or threes—some jubilant, some silently disappointed.
Not Damien, however.
The Alpha did not celebrate.
He stood quietly, steadily, and unwavering.
He stood on the edge of the tree line, a statue carved from the darkness, arms locked over his chest, jaw set, eyebrows low. He was exactly where he shouldn't be. This was the Omega Shifting Ceremony—a yearly ritual in which the lowest-ranking members of the Moonfang Pack if blessed, shifted into their wolves under the blessed moonlight.
All the Alphas failed to appear. It was not worthy of them. The circus of it all—the chanting, the pacing, the naked desperation of omegas scrambling towards worthiness—wasn't something he had any respect for.
But Damien had appeared.
Not for ritual.
Not for tradition.
Because something had pulled him.
And now, a few hours later, he still hadn't moved.
His wolf had awakened the moment the moon was highest. It wasn't right—wasn't natural. For weeks, he'd felt something building inside his blood. A irritation. A searing he couldn't cool.
This night, it had peaked.
He could feel his wolf running through his blood, restless and tearing at him.
He was furious at first. He assumed maybe it was proximity to desperation. Omegas always carried a scent—fear with hope, weakness with hope. It was maddening. Choking.
But this. this was different.
A hard gust of wind blindsided him and jerked his head to the side.
And there it was.
The smell.
At first, it was subtle. A whisper of something flower-scented. Not perfumed. Natural. Untamed. Clean. Then the depth hit—something warmer, something intimate.
He tensed.
Time splintered into shards.
The air thickened. The world drew in.
And his wolf unleashed.
Mate.
It kept echoing in his mind, a bellow that had nearly dropped him to his knees.
"No," Damien breathed, unaware he'd spoken.
But the scent only deepened, twining around him like a creeper, curling into the depths of his lungs, his blood, his soul.
The wolf rushed.
Yearning ran like a tide in his blood, uninvited and all-consuming. He clenched his fists. His muscles flexed as if trying to hold the beast in place, but the bond—the bond—was not sleeping now.
The wolf was not simply stirring.
It was demanding.
"Where is she?" he breathed again, as if against his will, even as his sane mind raged in protest.
Claim her. Touch her. Mate.
He clenched his teeth so hard they cracked. "No."
But the scent drew him in.
Beyond the trees.
Across the clearing's borders.
Until he was staring at her.
Aria.
She was alone, huddled in on herself between the charred logs of the fire pit. Her hair was loose and fell, clinging to her cheeks. Dirt smeared down her white arms. Her shoulders shook—tears, maybe, but she made no sound.
His wolf growled in recognition.
His mate.
The ache in his chest was something he'd never experienced, a crushing, deep-down pull towards her. His wolf writhed inside him, pressing against his ribcage as if it would burst free to reach her.
He retreated a step.
His head wasn't clear. His thinking was fire and rage and hunger. All he understood—all he could feel—was her.
The bond stretched taut between them, invisible and absolute.
Ours.
The wolf's voice was deeper now. Spinning. Irreversible.
Damien shook his head violently. "No. She can't be—she can't."
But even as he uttered the words, he knew them to be true.
His soul knew it.
His body craved it.
His wolf rejoiced.
He took a shaking breath and forced himself to look at her—really see her.
She was small.
Too small.
Bones showing too high. Weak wrists. Emaciated face from lack of sleep, or perhaps starvation. Her dress was a hand-me-down, frayed at the collar. Her shoes did not match. A bruise bloomed beneath her right eye—old, but still discernible.
An omega.
The pack's lowest ranking. Albeit meagerly defended. Albeit barely accepted.
And worse still…
She hadn't undergone her first shift.
She was eighteen and still wolfless.
He had watched her shatter during the ritual—watched her shriek, cry, tremble beneath the radiance of the Blood Moon as the rest of the pack stood frozen in stunned silence. Her humiliation had spread like a storm.
And she was his now?
No. No, no, no.
The wolf snarled in defiance, grew more powerful, and fought against the barriers Damien was building to hold it at bay.
He had to stop this.
Now.
With a growl, Damien turned away from her and drove a fist into the nearest tree. Bark cracked. Splinters dropped to the forest floor.
Pain exploded in his knuckles.
Good.
He accepted it.
Pain anchored him. Kept him tethered to the man—not the beast.
He leaned his forehead against the trunk, breathing hard, eyes shut, heart thudding like he'd run for miles. His wolf howled once more—now sorrowful. Tormented.
It yearned for her.
And it would never cease wanting her.
But Damien wouldn't let it happen.
He couldn't.
His life was precisely planned. He was Alpha. His bloodline superior. His power was unmatched. He didn't lead—he ruled.
His Luna had already been chosen.
Talia.
Blackclaw Alpha's daughter. Gorgeous. Fierce. Powerful.
She was the pack's solution to all. All he was worthy of.
She would bear him mighty sons. Political marriage. Cement his supremacy.
And Aria?
Shame.
He stood tall, demanding his breathing to settle.
"I won't do this," he muttered to himself, low, venomous. "I won't choose her."
The wolf did not respond.
It hurt.
Damien turned to the clearing once more, compelled by something darker than rage—fate. And yet, she still did not move.
She did not realize.
She had not scented him. Had not felt the bond. Maybe her wolf wasn't out yet—maybe that's the reason she didn't sense it. Maybe, she never would.
Good.
He would sow this bond so deep that even the moon would not recognize it.
He retreated into the darkness.
And left her there, unaware the moment had passed. Unaware that fate had reached out to her—then withdrawn in fury.
Damien glided without noise, his steps fluid as he blended deeper into the trees. Yet his mind was in turmoil—broken pieces of thought colliding.
His wolf had become ominously silent.
That scared him more than the growls.
She has no idea what she is, he thought, walking beneath the branches of towering pines. She didn't shift. She doesn't have a wolf. No power. No voice.
And yet.
His hand went to his chest reflexively—right where the heat of the bond had stayed. A burning sore pulsed there now. Residual. Lingering.
He cursed under his breath and slammed his fist into a second tree, the bark scoring deeply into his already bruised knuckles. Blood seeped from ripped skin, but he didn't even feel it.
The trees that surrounded him bore the marks of his wrath. He'd had a reputation for restraint once. For calculation. He did not let his emotions guide him.
But this—this—was primal.
The moon had chosen the only girl in the entire damn pack he was unable to accept.
Was it punishment?
Or fate?
"Damien."
He turned to the sound of the voice.
Talia.
Her shape emerged from behind the trees with the sinuous grace of a predator. Braids dark streaming down her back, ritual attire cinched in at the waist to show off her warrior's build. She was untouched by the night—clean, poised, lethal.
"Talia," he said stiffly, folding his hands behind his back to hide the blood.
"I've been looking for you," she said. "You disappeared before the end."
"I needed air."
She arched an eyebrow, stepping closer. "Your wolf's all over the place."
He stiffened.
Of course, she could feel it. She was dominant, too—second only to him.
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "What happened?"
He stayed quiet.
She didn't like that.
"You sensed something," she said slowly, her eyes raking over his face. "Someone?"
He did not respond.
Talia's jaw clenched. "No. No, no, no. Not her."
So she had picked up on it.
Damien's voice was harsh. "It doesn't matter."
"It does matter," she snapped. "She's a damn omega, Damien. And she didn't shift."
"I told you, it doesn't matter," he growled, a trace of his alpha tone surfacing.
Talia winced but did not retreat. Her eyes flashed with something dangerous—possessiveness.
"I'm your mate," she said quietly.
"You're my chosen Luna."
"It's the same thing."
"No," Damien murmured. "It's not."
Talia's lips parted in shock, but he brushed past her before she could respond. He couldn't stand there another second. Not when the scent still clung to his skin. Not when the pull toward Aria had left him shaken.
He needed to run.
He needed to forget.
But huddled over by the fire pit, Aria remained coiled beneath the trees, ensnared in her own storm.
---
Aria hadn't moved for nearly an hour.
Her dress clung to her flesh, drenched with dew. Her hands were cinched across her knees, knuckles white.
The pain from earlier still throbbed—not the type of pain that bruised. The other type.
The shame.
How the crowd had stared at her.
How the Elder had turned away with something that might have been pity—or disgust.
How Talia had laughed.
The words themselves lingered in her mind. "Of course, she didn't shift. The moon doesn't waste its light on rejects."
The other omegas had glanced away or looked on with thinly veiled relief. None of them had gone to her. None of them had touched her.
She was the pack's only unshifted eighteen-year-old.
A shame.
A failure.
Aria let her forehead drop to her knees and let the quiet settle around her. The fire had burned down. The wolves had retreated to their dens. But she couldn't bring herself to stand up.
She had felt something tonight. Not a difference—but an ember. Something more, buried so far in that it was nigh-on impossible to reach. Another heartbeat that wasn't hers. A breath that had made her lift her head at one point… as if being watched.
But there'd been nothing.
Nothing but the cold.
The silence.
And the awful sense that something in her world had shattered apart—only a little—and then sealed itself over before she could reach out and touch it.
Was she dreaming?
Was shame playing tricks on her senses?
She didn't know.
But in her heart, beneath the sorrow, there was another presence now.
Something waiting to strike.
Damien had barely spoken a sentence since he'd come back to the packhouse.
He leaned on the side of his bed in the wing of the Alpha, shirt cast off on the floor, dried blood on his knuckles. Silver and pale, moonlight poured through the top window, but it taunted him.
He hated that her scent still clung to him.
He'd rinsed it away. He'd shifted and run. He'd fought his wolf until his body trembled. It all didn't matter.
Aria.
The mere sound of the name stirred something he didn't want in his heart.
His wolf prowled just beneath the skin, not so much growling—but waiting. Guarding. Holding its breath through Damien's body, knowing she still lingered in the pack's territories, shivering somewhere alone, discarded like the shattered fragment she was meant to be.
She doesn't even know, Damien growled. She doesn't have a clue about the kind of danger she's in now that the bond is activated.
A growl rumbled from his throat.
The bond didn't have the right to choose her. She wasn't worthy. She hadn't shifted. She had no right to stand beside him, no strength to carry his name.
And yet… another man coming to her?
His fists clenched.
He didn't want her.
But he wouldn't let anyone else touch her either.
That inconsistency burned like acid.
There was a knock on the door.
He ignored it.
The knock sounded again—this time harder. A moment later, Talia came in without knocking.
Her eyes raked the room, coming to rest on his half-nude body and the blood on his flesh.
"I thought I'd find you like this," she said coldly. "Moping."
Damien remained silent.
Talia crossed the room slowly. Her heels scraped against the hardwood floor until she stopped right in front of him. She leaned in to his height, smoothing over his jaw.
"You have to release it," she whispered. "It's not real."
"It is real," Damien growled. "That's the whole thing."
"You can fight it. You are fighting it. You're strong enough."
He finally raised his eyes to hers, locking eyes with a storm-grey gaze. "I don't want to fight it."
The words escaped before he could shut himself up.
Talia froze in her movement.
"What did you say?"
Damien stood up from his seat, towering over her now, his shoulders coiled tight, the Alpha aura washing from him like a tsunami.
"I said I don't want to fight it. I want to break it."
Her expression was firm. "You can't cut the tie, Damien. You can turn it down—or embrace it."
His jaw locked.
"I won't accept her."
"Then turn her down."
The silence between them became long.
Damien's wolf stirred again, rising up on warning with the very word reject. His body didn't respond to it easily. Pain ripped through his chest as if merely the thought of turning her away placed the bond in revolt.
He didn't respond.
Talia noticed it. Her jaw clenched.
"Don't make me look a fool," she said, voice snapping now. "You chose me. I've stood by your side since we were whelps. You owe me—"
"I owe this pack," Damien cut in. "And I can't rule it properly with a curse lodged inside my chest."
The curse, of course, was Aria.
---
While that, at the opposite end of the pack's land, Aria snuck into the small shed she called home.
It wasn't even insulated—just wood and stone, enough to keep out the wind. Omegas weren't given real pack rooms. They were given leftovers. Left to sleep beside the animal enclosures or the training yard, out of the heat of the fire.
She moved as a ghost, barefoot, her dress wrapped tightly around her body. Her legs ached from the long sitting, and her throat dry. She had not eaten all through the ceremony. Her stomach was emptying out on itself.
She crouched on the pile of blankets in the corner, the scent of hay clinging to her. Her eyes shut, but her mind could not rest.
The humiliation hadn't dissipated. It pulsed beneath her skin like a bruise.
But something else was there, too.
A pressure.
Low. Unusual. Like something invisible had taken root within her and was quietly coming to life.
She placed a hand across her ribs.
That whisper… whatever it was… was not gone.
And she was more frightened of it than the humiliation.
Because it felt like something waiting.
Something coming.
She didn't have any idea what it meant.
But something within her had changed.
---
In the Alpha's wing, deep in the warmth of night, Damien remained standing in the darkness, looking out over the lights of the city below.
He could feel her.
The
bond thudded in the back of his spine—constant, raw, primal.
He hated her.
He wanted her.
He'd never acknowledge her.
But he wouldn't let her go either.
And if the bond wouldn't break…
Then he'd claim her.
One way or another