"Hi, yes you aren't dreaming, it's the chubby Kelly," I say inwardly as I see the unhappy face expression of Jason who is disheartened. 

The guests laugh at us. They call our couple all sort of names. "The prince charming and the pancakes' eater Kelly" is one I can sadly remember."

"I, Jason Bentley of the South pack, reject you Kelly Thompson as my mate and the Luna Queen," he declared fiercely.

***
Kelly Thompson, an eighteen-year-old curvaceous and wolfless she-wolf, has been quietly admiring Jason Bentley, the heir apparent to the throne of the dominant South pack, for a number of years.

Unfortunately for Kelly, she doesn't get the same attention in return from Alpha heir Jason, as the handsome daughter of his old father's Gammas, Betty Nord, is already the love of the pack's future Alpha. But, the plump Kelly has an advantage over the skinny Betty because of a strong vow made by Jason's father, the Alpha King Don Bentley, that his son will marry the daughter of his Betas who gave their lives two years ago in a fight against the North pack's fiercest adversaries in order to preserve the life of the Alpha heir.

But clearly, nothing goes as smoothly as Kelly imagines.

The Rejected Curvy Luna Queen

The sprout isn’t a sprout anymore—it’s a *cage*. 


Its once-delicate stem has thickened into a lattice of thorns and starlight, ensnaring the field of wildflowers in a grotesque parody of a garden. The fragile blue sky is now veined with luminous green cracks, bleeding light that scalds the earth. The survivors whisper of miracles, but I know the truth: miracles are just disasters in disguise. 


Ravel finds me at the edge of the thorn-lattice, her smoke-hair dulled to ash-gray. “It’s taken Lirin,” she says, voice clipped. The storm-wolf’s pup, the last of its kind, had been her shadow. Now only tufts of electric fur cling to the thorns. 


“It’s hungry,” I mutter, pressing a palm to the lattice. The structure hums, echoing the Seed’s old song. But this melody is sharper, angrier. *Betrayed*. 


Ravel’s lips peel back. “Then starve it.” 
