Prologue
The ballroom went completely silent. Not the kind of quiet that came when people paused their conversations, but the horrible kind where everyone stopped breathing at the same time.
Thousands of wolves stared at me like I was some kind of freak show. The fancy chandeliers hanging from the ceiling made everything look golden and beautiful, but all I felt was darkness eating me alive from the inside.
I stood there in my simple sundress. The dress my mother had sewn for me with love, hoping I would find love and acceptance from my fated mate today.
I thought it would make me pretty. I thought it would make me good enough. I thought maybe, just maybe, someone could love a girl like me. A girl without a wolf.
But now the dress felt like a joke. Like I was wearing a costume that screamed how ****** I was for believing in happy endings.
Alpha Richard Brown stood in front of me. He was tall and strong and everything an Alpha should be.
Just some minutes ago, he had looked at me from across this same ballroom. His beautiful eyes had made my heart race with hope.
For one perfect moment, I thought maybe the Moon Goddess had finally smiled on me.
Now those same eyes looked at me like I was garbage.
“You?” His voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. He wanted them all to witness this. “You think you’re good enough to be my Luna? You think you can stand beside me and lead my pack? You think someone like you deserves to carry an Alpha’s blood?”
People started laughing. Soft giggles at first, then louder and meaner. I heard my own pack members laughing too.
These were people who had watched me grow up. The people who bullied me, who looked down on me even though I was the beta’s daughter.
“I—” I tried to speak, but my throat felt like it was full of broken glass. I had practiced what I would say to him. I had stood in front of my bedroom mirror and rehearsed words of love. But now I could barely remember how to talk.
“Look at yourself,” Richard said, his voice getting quieter, but somehow everyone still heard him perfectly. “Eighteen years old and you still don’t have a wolf. You’re empty inside. What could you possibly give me? What could you offer my pack except weakness?”
His words were cruel, and my knees wanted to give out. My hands started shaking. Someone in the crowd whispered, “Poor thing.”
“The Moon Goddess marked you as broken,” Richard kept going. “You have no wolf. No strength. No purpose except to show everyone else what failure looks like. Did you really think I would lower myself to mate with something so incomplete?”
Incomplete. That word echoed in my head like a bell ringing over and over. It wasn’t just mean. It was true.
I was incomplete. I was the girl who couldn’t shift when everyone else ran free under the full moon. I was the daughter who brought shame to her family. I was the pack member who didn’t really belong anywhere.
“I thought—” I whispered.
“You thought wrong.” He cut me off, fast and final. “I, Alpha Richard Brown of the Silver Moon Pack, officially reject you, Jane Biller, as my mate. You have no claim to my heart, my pack, or my future. You are nothing. To me. To my pack. To the Moon Goddess herself.”
When he said those formal rejection words, something inside my chest snapped. It felt like lightning striking me from the inside. I gasped out loud, and the sound echoed through the silent room.
“I always knew she was cursed...” someone said among the cowards.
“Poor Alpha Richard, having to deal with that...”
“Her poor parents, how embarrassing...”
“What was she thinking?”
“To think the beta’s only child is this useless.”
I couldn’t stand it. I had never thought I could be humiliated like this. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father, the beta, standing tall and proud beside our Alpha.
“Father,” I whispered, reaching out for the one person who should protect me. But when I looked into his eyes, what I saw there stopped my heart cold.
I had always known he didn’t love me the way he should. I had always felt his disappointment. But this? This was something else entirely.
The hatred burning in his gaze was so deep, so complete, that I realized I had never truly understood how much he despised my very existence.
“Do you think I will offer you my helping hand, Jane? Stop this pathetic display—you’re humiliating yourself,” he snapped. “Even as your father, I regret the day you were born.”
I couldn’t breathe. My hand went to my chest. It hurt so much. How could my own father say this to me?
He wasn’t done hurting me. His face grew meaner.
“If I could erase you from existence, I would do it without hesitation. You’re nothing but a stain on this family’s name—worthless garbage that I’m ashamed to call my own.”
My world fell apart. My legs felt weak. His words kept playing in my head. Trash. Garbage. Nothing.
“Ha!” I made a sound that was part laugh, part cry, and part scream. My hands shook as I tried to stop the tears.
But the more I tried not to cry, the more my body shook. The crazy laugh kept coming out because I didn’t know what else to do. What did you do when the person who should love you most told you that you were nothing?
“You have said well, Beta,” my rejected mate said, nodding like he agreed with every cruel word. “No one could accept a daughter like that. If I were the one, I would also be disappointed.”
Now it wasn’t just my father—it was him too. The man I thought I would spend my life with now stood there, backing up my father’s hate.
Two people who were supposed to love me, protect me, care for me. Instead, they had teamed up to tear me down.
I felt like I was drowning. Like I couldn’t get air into my lungs. How had I become so alone? How had the two most important men in my life decided I was worth nothing?
“I know no one can accept her as a mate,” my father said. People around us gasped and whispered. “What I didn’t imagine was that she could be matched with someone as powerful as you. The goddess must be blind.”
That was it. That was the final blow that broke me completely. My father had just told everyone—the whole pack—that I was so worthless that even the goddess had made a mistake. The whispers grew louder. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, judging me, agreeing with him.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Everyone hated me. No one wanted me to exist. No one thought I deserved to be here, to be alive, to be anything.
My feet moved before my brain caught up. I turned around fast, pushing past people who stepped back like I might dirty them just by touching them. I had to get out of there. I had to leave this hell before it killed me.
As I reached for the handles, I heard Richard talking to the crowd like I was already gone:
“Let this be a lesson to everyone. The Moon Goddess doesn’t make mistakes. Some people are born to lead. Others...” He paused for dramatic effect. “Others are born to remind us why being strong matters.”
The doors slammed shut behind me. The sound was like thunder. It didn’t just shut out the ballroom. It shut out everything I had ever known. Everyone I had ever loved. Every dream I had ever dared to dream.
I stood alone in the fancy entrance hall. My reflection stared back at me from the shiny walls. I looked like a broken girl in a beautiful dress.
The silence here was different from the ballroom. This was the silence of being completely alone. Of being abandoned.
I walked out into the cold night air. I knew my wolf slumbered, waiting for the storm that would wake her— and when she rose, the world would tremble.
I knew that I would come back to this place years later. Not as the broken girl begging for scraps of love, but as a force of nature that would make them all remember why they should have treasured what they threw away so carelessly.
All I knew was the taste of tears and the weight of being rejected. The sound of my own footsteps echoed as I walked away from everything I used to be and toward everything I would become.
Behind me, the music started again. The dancing continued. The party went on like I had never existed at all.
But I did exist.
And someday, they would all remember my name, and I would make sure they paid.
Prologue
The ballroom went completely silent. Not the kind of quiet that came when people paused their conversations, but the horrible kind where everyone stopped breathing at the same time.
Thousands of wolves stared at me like I was some kind of freak show. The fancy chandeliers hanging from the ceiling made everything look golden and beautiful, but all I felt was darkness eating me alive from the inside.
I stood there in my simple sundress. The dress my mother had sewn for me with love, hoping I would find love and acceptance from my fated mate today.
I thought it would make me pretty. I thought it would make me good enough. I thought maybe, just maybe, someone could love a girl like me. A girl without a wolf.
But now the dress felt like a joke. Like I was wearing a costume that screamed how stupid I was for believing in happy endings.
Alpha Richard Brown stood in front of me. He was tall and strong and everything an Alpha should be.
Just some minutes ago, he had looked at me from across this same ballroom. His beautiful eyes had made my heart race with hope.
For one perfect moment, I thought maybe the Moon Goddess had finally smiled on me.
Now those same eyes looked at me like I was garbage.
“You?” His voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. He wanted them all to witness this. “You think you’re good enough to be my Luna? You think you can stand beside me and lead my pack? You think someone like you deserves to carry an Alpha’s blood?”
People started laughing. Soft giggles at first, then louder and meaner. I heard my own pack members laughing too.
These were people who had watched me grow up. The people who bullied me, who looked down on me even though I was the beta’s daughter.
“I—” I tried to speak, but my throat felt like it was full of broken glass. I had practiced what I would say to him. I had stood in front of my bedroom mirror and rehearsed words of love. But now I could barely remember how to talk.
“Look at yourself,” Richard said, his voice getting quieter, but somehow everyone still heard him perfectly. “Eighteen years old and you still don’t have a wolf. You’re empty inside. What could you possibly give me? What could you offer my pack except weakness?”
His words were cruel, and my knees wanted to give out. My hands started shaking. Someone in the crowd whispered, “Poor thing.”
“The Moon Goddess marked you as broken,” Richard kept going. “You have no wolf. No strength. No purpose except to show everyone else what failure looks like. Did you really think I would lower myself to mate with something so incomplete?”
Incomplete. That word echoed in my head like a bell ringing over and over. It wasn’t just mean. It was true.
I was incomplete. I was the girl who couldn’t shift when everyone else ran free under the full moon. I was the daughter who brought shame to her family. I was the pack member who didn’t really belong anywhere.
“I thought—” I whispered.
“You thought wrong.” He cut me off, fast and final. “I, Alpha Richard Brown of the Silver Moon Pack, officially reject you, Jane Biller, as my mate. You have no claim to my heart, my pack, or my future. You are nothing. To me. To my pack. To the Moon Goddess herself.”
When he said those formal rejection words, something inside my chest snapped. It felt like lightning striking me from the inside. I gasped out loud, and the sound echoed through the silent room.
“I always knew she was cursed...” someone said among the cowards.
“Poor Alpha Richard, having to deal with that...”
“Her poor parents, how embarrassing...”
“What was she thinking?”
“To think the beta’s only child is this useless.”
I couldn’t stand it. I had never thought I could be humiliated like this. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father, the beta, standing tall and proud beside our Alpha.
“Father,” I whispered, reaching out for the one person who should protect me. But when I looked into his eyes, what I saw there stopped my heart cold.
I had always known he didn’t love me the way he should. I had always felt his disappointment. But this? This was something else entirely.
The hatred burning in his gaze was so deep, so complete, that I realized I had never truly understood how much he despised my very existence.
“Do you think I will offer you my helping hand, Jane? Stop this pathetic display—you’re humiliating yourself,” he snapped. “Even as your father, I regret the day you were born.”
I couldn’t breathe. My hand went to my chest. It hurt so much. How could my own father say this to me?
He wasn’t done hurting me. His face grew meaner.
“If I could erase you from existence, I would do it without hesitation. You’re nothing but a stain on this family’s name—worthless garbage that I’m ashamed to call my own.”
My world fell apart. My legs felt weak. His words kept playing in my head. Trash. Garbage. Nothing.
“Ha!” I made a sound that was part laugh, part cry, and part scream. My hands shook as I tried to stop the tears.
But the more I tried not to cry, the more my body shook. The crazy laugh kept coming out because I didn’t know what else to do. What did you do when the person who should love you most told you that you were nothing?
“You have said well, Beta,” my rejected mate said, nodding like he agreed with every cruel word. “No one could accept a daughter like that. If I were the one, I would also be disappointed.”
Now it wasn’t just my father—it was him too. The man I thought I would spend my life with now stood there, backing up my father’s hate.
Two people who were supposed to love me, protect me, care for me. Instead, they had teamed up to tear me down.
I felt like I was drowning. Like I couldn’t get air into my lungs. How had I become so alone? How had the two most important men in my life decided I was worth nothing?
“I know no one can accept her as a mate,” my father said. People around us gasped and whispered. “What I didn’t imagine was that she could be matched with someone as powerful as you. The goddess must be blind.”
That was it. That was the final blow that broke me completely. My father had just told everyone—the whole pack—that I was so worthless that even the goddess had made a mistake. The whispers grew louder. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, judging me, agreeing with him.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Everyone hated me. No one wanted me to exist. No one thought I deserved to be here, to be alive, to be anything.
My feet moved before my brain caught up. I turned around fast, pushing past people who stepped back like I might dirty them just by touching them. I had to get out of there. I had to leave this hell before it killed me.
As I reached for the handles, I heard Richard talking to the crowd like I was already gone:
“Let this be a lesson to everyone. The Moon Goddess doesn’t make mistakes. Some people are born to lead. Others...” He paused for dramatic effect. “Others are born to remind us why being strong matters.”
The doors slammed shut behind me. The sound was like thunder. It didn’t just shut out the ballroom. It shut out everything I had ever known. Everyone I had ever loved. Every dream I had ever dared to dream.
I stood alone in the fancy entrance hall. My reflection stared back at me from the shiny walls. I looked like a broken girl in a beautiful dress.
The silence here was different from the ballroom. This was the silence of being completely alone. Of being abandoned.
I walked out into the cold night air. I knew my wolf slumbered, waiting for the storm that would wake her— and when she rose, the world would tremble.
I knew that I would come back to this place years later. Not as the broken girl begging for scraps of love, but as a force of nature that would make them all remember why they should have treasured what they threw away so carelessly.
All I knew was the taste of tears and the weight of being rejected. The sound of my own footsteps echoed as I walked away from everything I used to be and toward everything I would become.
Behind me, the music started again. The dancing continued. The party went on like I had never existed at all.
But I did exist.
And someday, they would all remember my name, and I would make sure they paid.
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