Not His Luna,But the Lycan's Queen

Tonight was the Mating Run, the sacred night my fated mate, Alpha Lucas, was supposed to finally accept my ribbons and claim me.

Instead, he dodged my advance, letting me crash into the dirt and shatter my crippled leg in front of the entire pack.

Then, he walked right past me and knelt before Jessica, a fake city wolf, offering her the Luna scarf.

He stripped me of every ounce of dignity.

He even took the protective rogue fang-the charm I had sacrificed my own finger to win for him-and fastened it around Jessica's neck.

But the true betrayal came when a rabid rogue wolf attacked us in the mountain fog.

Lucas didn't shift to protect me.

He ripped my only silver dagger from my hand, shoved me to the ground, and dragged Jessica away.

He left me bleeding in the snow to be eaten alive.

As the beast's heavy claws tore through my flesh, the eight years I spent loving him shattered into cold dust.

I didn't understand how the Moon Goddess could pair me with a man who would so ruthlessly trade my life for a cheap grifter.

But I didn't die in that snow.

At his grand Luna Ceremony, I arrived not to grovel, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the billionaire Lycan King.

Looking down at the Alpha who abandoned me, I calmly spoke the forbidden words.

"I, Sierra, reject you, Lucas, as my mate."

Chapter 1

Sierra POV:

The autumn wind was a restless thing, carrying not the scent of dry leaves but the metallic tang of an unspoken verdict.

Tonight was the Mating Run, the most hallowed tradition of the Blood Moon Pack.

I stood at the forest's edge, the fabric of my late mother's red dress a thin barrier against the cold.

In the heavy, dark braids of my hair were woven nine ribbons of crimson silk.

These were the Mate's Ribbons.

It is said that the Moon Goddess herself pairs every wolf with a destined counterpart, a soul to complete their own.

When a she-wolf overtakes her mate during the ritual chase, she binds him with these ribbons, tying their fates into a single, unbreakable thread.

My mate was Lucas, the Alpha of our pack.

He was a creature of absolute command, his voice a low thunder that could stir the very marrow in our bones.

But for years, long after we had come of age and the invisible tether of our bond had been confirmed by the Elders, he refused to complete the ritual.

He despised me for being an Omega, a wolf born to the lowest rung of the pack's brutal ladder.

I forced the familiar ache down my throat and turned my attention to the ceremony, to the low, guttural pulse of the drums that vibrated up from the soles of my feet.

I surrendered to the ancient instinct, feeling the sharp, welcome agony as my bones unlocked and reshaped themselves into the slight frame of a white wolf.

I launched myself into the treeline, my gaze fixed upon the hulking shadow of a black wolf that stood waiting in the moon-drenched clearing.

Lucas.

I ran toward him, my heart hammering with the urge to shift back and present the silk ribbons.

Just as my claws dug into the earth before him, the great black wolf curled its lip in a gesture of profound contempt, sidestepping my advance with a speed that was nothing less than brutal.

My momentum carried me forward into empty air, and I tumbled, not gracefully, but in a violent, sprawling heap across the packed dirt. My damaged leg twisted beneath me, sending a bolt of white-hot fire screaming up my spine.

I lay in the dust, the air burning in my lungs.

The low murmuring of the assembled wolves ceased, plunging the clearing into a dead, ringing silence.

Lucas shifted back, his human form emerging from the heat of the change.

He offered me not so much as a glance, his back a rigid line as he strode through the parted crowd and came to a halt before the viewing stands, before Jessica.

She was a recent arrival, a woman from the city who had appeared some months ago with a dubious claim to a rare White Wolf lineage.

The acrid scent of her cheap, industrial perfume hung in the air like a chemical burn, a vulgar mask for the wild musk of a true wolf.

With a practiced motion that was less submission than theater, Lucas lowered himself to one knee.

He presented her with the white silk scarf, the venerated symbol of the future Luna, the mother of the pack.

Alpha, what is this madness? Sierra is your fated mate.

The voice was a shard of ice in my mind.

It was the Mind-Link, the telepathic current that binds us all, and the thought belonged to Bart, the pack's Beta and second-in-command.

"Stay out of this, Bart," Lucas's voice crashed through the link, each mental syllable dripping with a cold, dismissive disgust. "She is a creature of instinct, nothing more. Toss her a scrap later, and she'll come crawling."

A hot, dry pressure built behind my eyes, but no tears fell.

I pushed myself up, my limbs heavy with a new kind of exhaustion, and let my human form reclaim me.

My mother's dress was ruined, caked in mud and humiliation.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over me. A man detached himself from the silent throng and came to stand at my side.

It was Shane. I'd seen him for years haunting the edges of the territory, a perpetual outsider, always watching, always silent. A stray, it was whispered, who never felt the call to shift.

But as he stood there, a clean, cold scent of splintered wood suddenly severed the surrounding stench of damp earth, and under its invisible pressure, the muscles across my shoulder blades, coiled tight as watch springs, gave way by a grudging half-inch.

My inner wolf, long cowed into a broken quiet, let out a low, involuntary whine of recognition.

His nearness was not a blanket, but a bulwark, a solid, living wall against the freezing dread.

"Oh, my God, Sierra, I am so sorry," a voice chirped, sharp and entirely without substance.

Jessica drifted over, pressing herself against Lucas's chest.

She fixed me with a look of theatrical pity. "I was only here to observe your quaint traditions for my blog. I never intended to... well, to poach your Alpha."

Lucas coiled a possessive arm around her waist. He looked down at me, his eyes as flat and cold as river stones.

A crushing weight emanated from him, the suffocating pressure of his Alpha aura, a force designed to break the will of lesser wolves.

"Spare us the pathetic display, Sierra," Lucas warned, his voice a low rasp. "The pack requires the strength of a noble White Wolf. Not a crippled liability."

A fresh poison flooded the Mind-Link.

Did you see the way she fell? An Omega's grace.

She truly believed he would choose her. The delusion of it.

What an utter joke.

The whispers were not whispers at all, but sharp, deliberate stabs of mockery and contempt.

The cold night air turned the dampness on my cheeks to ice.

I looked at the man I had believed was my other half, and felt not the tearing of a soul, but the quiet, final click of a lock disengaging deep within my ribs.

I reached up to my hair.

With fingers that felt numb and disconnected from my own body, I began to un-weave the first red ribbon.

Then the second.

Then the third.

Lucas's brow furrowed, and the air thickened as his aura flared with indignant rage.

I ignored the furious heat of his glare.

*I gathered all nine silken promises in my hands, turned my back on the man the Goddess had chosen for me, and held them out to the silent stranger at my side. And for the first time in eight years, I did not look back to see if Lucas would call my name. *