The moon was full on the night I learned that my boyfriend had been unfaithful.
That detail stayed with me.
In our pack, the full moon is sacred.
That night is set aside for loyalty, vows, and formal claiming.
Betrayal arrived on the very evening that demands the opposite.
I had not planned to enter the pack house so early.
I spent the afternoon helping my stepmother prepare dishes for the Harvest Banquet.
My father ordered me to arrive ahead of the guests - he said the event carried special weight and that Marcus had prepared a surprise.
A warning should have formed in my mind.
Music rolled down the main hall when I stepped inside.
I heard laughter, the strike of crystal, the scent of roast meat, and the tang of spiced wine. Q
Wolves from nearby packs stood among the tables, wearing silk and pride.
I looked for Marcus.
I believed he was my intended mate, the next Alpha.
I located him behind the ceremonial staircase.
He was with her - Arinola, my stepsister.
She leaned against the wall - her fingers were locked in his hair and his hands rested on her waist as if that place belonged to them.
Air refused to enter my lungs.
I must have made a small sound - Marcus broke the embrace first.
His eyes expanded once he saw me.
"Elara—"
Arinola showed no shame.
She smiled. Was
That hurt more than anything else.
"You weren't supposed to see it like this" Marcus stepped closer and spoke.
"Like this?" he asked.
"Like your world split into two pieces?"
"How long?" My voice came out strange, thin, and faint.
Marcus paused.
Arinola replied.
"Since winter"
Cold season.
Five months.
Five months of his kisses. Five months of his promises - five months of him saying I would stand at his side once he took the Alpha title.
I gave a short laugh.
The sound was not rational.
"You said you loved me" I spoke under my breath.
Marcus clenched his jaw. "You don't even have a wolf, Elara"
The fact lay open.
He had kept it guarded until now.
My wolf never woke.
At eighteen - nothing.
At nineteen - nothing.
At twenty-one - still nothing.
A child of an Alpha but no wolf inside.
Shame dressed in fine cloth.
"I need a strong Luna" Marcus went on, his tone turning stiff. "Someone who can stand beside me. Someone the pack respects"
Arinola moved to his side and slipped her arm through his.
Her wolf had stirred early. It was strong. It was fierce - people praised it.
"I didn't mean for you to find out like this" She spoke in a low voice - it sounded close to gentle. "But you must have known you weren't enough"
Her sentence struck like sharp claws.
A part of me broke.
Not my heart.
My pride.
Music from the great hall rose - the feast started.
Marcus met my eyes with a look that seemed close to pity.
"Stay tonight" He said, "We'll announce the change together. It will look better"
"The shift"
He spoke as though I were an old rank no longer used.
I looked at the two of them. At their equal certainty - at
Not average.
Not a pack member.
Not safe.
"I'm not a wolf, " I said quietly.
He gave a small smile.
"Everybody has teeth, " he explained. "Only some of them don't know how to use them."
His smell came to me then.
Pine. Smoke. Something sharper under it.
Strength.
Even without a wolf, I could sense it pushing against my skin.
"You shouldn't be here, " he went on.
"I could say the same to you."
Stillness filled the space where words should go.
Some guys might have stared, seeing my unawareness - then softened their gaze like rain on stone. A few stepped back, uneasy. Others stayed too long, eyes sharp. One smiled, not unkindly, but wrong. Their silence spoke louder than words ever could.
He didn't.
His eyes passed right through mine, landing on a memory. That gaze didn't stay with me - it drifted toward an old shape only he could make out.
"Who hurt you?" he asked.
A crack ran through it then, the thing I'd kept whole just barely. One word did that.
Again, a laugh came - quieter now, barely more than breath.
"Does it matter?"
He stepped closer.
Warmth rolled off his skin, near enough to touch. A breath away, really - close like a shadow on stone at noon.
"It always matters."
A pause came before his fingers rose. I could have stepped back if I wanted.
I didn't.
A thumb moved across my face, catching something wet near the corner of one eye.
Tears were already falling before I noticed them.
"You smell like betrayal," he murmured.
I swallowed.
"And you smell like trouble."
This moment brought a full smile across his face.
"I am."
The wind shifted.
For a single heartbeat, time hung motionless. The air stopped moving. Everything waited.
A shift, quiet but sure. As if the air itself settled into place.
His eyes darkened.
Mine widened.
Something shifted in the space we shared.
Thick.
Electric.
Dangerous.
A flicker passed between us. His clenched teeth gave him away.
Out of nowhere, he spoke up. Go now, he told her without warning.
"Why?"
A look slipped down to my throat. It lingered there a breath before drifting lower still. Only then did it return, steady, meeting my stare.
"Because if you stay," he said quietly, "I won't."
My heart pounded.
Footsteps came too late. I stood still when speed mattered most.
Marcus slipped my mind, truth be told. Humiliation stuck around, though. A wolf's shadow made me real - without it, just air.
Yet within that unfamiliar gaze…
I wasn't sure what it was - just blank, maybe. A kind of emptiness sat there, making no noise.
I stepped closer.
"Maybe," I whispered, "I don't want you to."
Breathe stopped among the trees.
Beyond our heads, way up high, light from the moon grew stronger.
His name was a mystery to me.
That fact slipped past me - he turned out to be the Lycan King. The truth came later, quiet and unannounced.
By dawn, it turned out he was already looking for the one marked by him - something I hadn't seen coming.
It never crossed my mind that another person might start pretending they were me.
All I knew was this
The Night I Lost Everything
That evening, chance handed me a risk I hadn't seen coming.