The Return

The moon was mercilessly bright that night.

Not warm.

Not gentle.

Just... watching.

The clearing was filled with murmurs, rustling silk, flickering torches, and the faint scent of wild roses. All pack members had gathered—young and old, ranked and rogue-born. The Moon Gathering happened only once every few years, and this was the one where fates would be sealed. Mate bonds revealed. Vows spoken.

Aria Nightwind stood at the center of the ceremonial circle, her heart pounding like a war drum inside her chest. She could feel it—that invisible tug at her soul. It had started that morning, and by now, it was undeniable.

The pull. The bond. The mate.

Her hands trembled. Not from fear, but from the overwhelming ache of hope.

Then he stepped into the circle.

Alpha Kael Draven.

Blackfang's fiercest Alpha. Feared, respected, untouchable.

The moment their eyes met, it hit her like lightning through her veins.

The bond snapped into place.

Everyone around them gasped.

Even the Moon acknowledged it. A beam of light broke through the clouds, illuminating the pair.

Whispers rippled through the pack.

"The Beta orphan and the Alpha?"

"She's just a healer. A nobody."

"But the bond... it's real."

Aria stepped forward slowly, her voice shaking with raw emotion. "You feel it too... don't you?"

Kael didn't answer immediately.

His dark eyes scanned her face. Not with warmth. Not even surprise. Just... calculation. Cold, unreadable calculation.

The silence stretched too long. Long enough to hurt.

Aria's lips parted again. "Kael... I—"

He cut her off.

His voice was steel.

"I reject you as my mate."

The words rang like a death sentence.

Silence.

No one moved. Not even the wind dared to rustle the trees. The bond between them—newly formed and glowing—sputtered, then began to fray like broken threads of light.

Aria stood frozen. Her heart didn't just crack—it caved in. Her knees buckled slightly, but she forced herself to stand tall. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her shatter.

Kael turned away like she was nothing more than an error in the script of his perfect life.

Then something shifted in her. Something primal. Her chest ached, not from heartbreak, but from fury.

She straightened. Her voice was no longer weak. It was sharp. Final.

"Then may the Moon curse you back, Alpha Kael. May your soul ache every night like mine did tonight."

She didn't wait for his reaction.

Aria stepped out of the circle, leaving behind the man who ruined her, the pack that watched her bleed, and the Moon that had betrayed her.

The bond may have broken, but something new was born inside her that night.

Vengeance.

And the Moon didn't shine on her again for years to come.

The world outside the pack was not kind.

The rogues didn't welcome her. The forests didn't protect her. Even the Moon—who once marked her for a bond so sacred—had turned silent.

Aria had walked for hours. Maybe days. Her feet bled, her throat cracked, and her heart... well, that had stopped beating properly the moment Kael said those words.

"I reject you as my mate."

Even now, the memory replayed like a cruel song stuck in her head. Over and over again, until she wanted to scream just to drown it out.

She didn't cry. Not even once. Not when her legs gave out. Not when her wolf refused to rise. Not when she found herself collapsing by a nameless stream, surrounded by nothing but trees and emptiness.

The Moon remained silent.

For days, she begged.

For answers.

For healing.

For death.

None came.

On the fourth night, Aria woke with a fever. Her skin burned. Her body trembled. Her bond—though severed—still lingered like a ghost that refused to leave.

"Why me?" she whispered, staring up at the darkened sky. "Why did you choose him for me?"

No answer.

Just wind.

Just leaves.

Just silence.

Her wolf whimpered inside her—weak, curled up, grieving.

And then... a single thought pushed through the fog:

If the Moon won't save me, I'll save myself.

Aria tore off the ceremonial dress she had worn during the rejection. She burned it in the fire she barely managed to light. As the fabric curled into ash, so did the last traces of the girl who once believed in destiny.

From the flames, she was reborn.

Not as a mate.

Not as a Beta.

Not as a weakling.

But as Aria Nightwind, the rogue no one would break again.

Three years later.

The name Aria Nightwind was nothing more than a whisper. A ghost story. A shameful memory the Blackfang Pack pretended never existed.

No one spoke of her.

No one dared to.

The girl who had been rejected by the Alpha during a sacred Moon Ceremony had become a stain in their history—an inconvenient truth they buried beneath duty and pride.

Some said she ran off into the mountains and was devoured by rogues.

Some said she killed herself under the Moon she once cursed.

Others, the bolder ones, claimed she never existed at all.

"No Beta could ever be chosen for an Alpha. That was a glitch. A fluke."

But the elders knew.

And Kael Draven knew.

Even if he never said her name again.

Now, the name was back.

Only it no longer belonged to a girl in silks.

It belonged to a warrior.

The border patrol spotted her first—just a silhouette walking alone through the forest mist, hooded, straight-backed, with the gait of someone who feared nothing and no one.

"State your name," the guard barked. "You're trespassing on Blackfang territory."

The figure slowly pulled down her hood.

Hair like ink. Eyes like fire. And that smirk—the kind that dared the world to test her.

"Funny. I used to call this home."

He froze. "A-Aria...?"

She stepped forward, the light catching the old crescent-shaped mark at the base of her neck. Faded, but not gone.

"Run along, wolf," she said calmly. "Tell your Alpha his past just walked through the front gates—and this time, she's not leaving in tears."

The news hit Kael like thunder.

He was in the training yard when the messenger stumbled in, breathless.

"Alpha—it's her. Aria. She's back."

Kael stiffened.

No one had said her name aloud in three years. Not even him.

For a moment, he said nothing. Then his fingers tightened around the blade he was holding until his knuckles turned white.

"Bring her to me."

His Beta hesitated. "She didn't come alone, Alpha... she came with purpose."

Kael turned, eyes dark. "I don't care if she came with the Moon itself. She enters my territory, she plays my game."

But he was wrong.

Aria wasn't playing anymore.

She was rewriting the rules.

And Blackfang wasn't ready for the storm she'd become.