"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 floating city of **Vector Prime** is a carcass held aloft by dying tech. Its gravity cores sputter, sending districts lurching drunkenly against one another, buildings shearing apart in showers of glass and sparks. What remains of the Primal Verse’s crown jewel is a labyrinth of unstable platforms and airborne debris, the air thick with the ozone stench of decaying energy grids. We navigate its corpse via a stolen skiff, Jara piloting with grim precision while Veyd shivers under a thermal blanket, his blue-tinged eyes tracking the shadows. 


Eden’s laughter echoes in my skull, a ghostly refrain. *Let’s play.* 


Jara banks the skiff hard, avoiding a collapsing spire. “The Verse used this place to refine Lumen’s ore. If there’s a cure for Veyd, it’s here.” 


“Or a faster death,” Veyd mutters, coughing into his glove. The poison has retreated, but the Lumen energy in his veins is metastasizing, etching faint gold filaments beneath his skin. 


The transformation