"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 emerald star isn’t a star—it’s a *cage*. 


Its light doesn’t illuminate; it *dissolves*. The wasteland’s obsidian spires crumble under its gaze, reduced to ash that swirls in toxic, glowing clouds. The survivors call it "the Verdant," a name that feels too gentle for something that peels flesh from bone. But the real horror isn’t the star—it’s what crawls out of the fissures it opens. 


They arrive at dawn, slithering from the cracks in the earth: humanoid figures cloaked in moss and rot, their bodies fused with bioluminescent fungi. They don’t attack. They *sing*. 


The first fungal husk steps forward, its face a grotesque mimicry of Veyra’s—thorn scars replaced by pulsating spores, eyes hollowed by glowing mycelium. 


***“Kelly,”*** it croons, decayed lips splitting into a smile. ***“You left me in the garden. But I grew anyway.”*** 
