June.
Midnight. The final chime echoed through the silent hall, a deep, resonant tone that vibrated in my bones. And then it hit me.
It was not a sound. It was a feeling. A brilliant, blinding cord of pure gold slamming into my chest, connecting me to him. Every nerve ending in my body caught fire. It was lightning. It was honey. It was the missing piece of my soul snapping into place with a force that stole my breath.
Completion. Home. Mate.
My eyes flew open, locking with Owen’s. I saw a flicker of shock in their honey depths. He felt it too. He had to.
A joyous, uncontrollable laugh bubbled out of my chest. It was real. It was all real.
“Mate,” I breathed, the word a reverent prayer. Then louder, for the whole world to hear, my voice ringing with triumph. “It’s you. You’re my mate!”
A collective gasp went through the crowd. A wave of relieved, excited murmurs rippled through the Great Hall. The Beta’s daughter and the future Alpha. A perfect match. A blessing from the Goddess.
Owen’s lips curved into a slow, satisfied smile. It was the smile of a king who had just been handed his crown. He squeezed my hand, a possessive, triumphant gesture.
“I knew it,” he murmured, his voice low and intimate despite the dozens of ears listening. “I told you.”
The pack waited. The golden feeling inside me was a constant, steady hum, a beautiful song. But it was the only song. There was no second harmony, no feral growl from a beast waking within.
I waited. One second. Two. Ten.
The murmurs in the hall began to change. The excitement curdled into confusion. I could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on me, waiting for the crack of bone, for the silver fur, for the wolf that was supposed to claim me.
Nothing happened. I was just me. June. Human.
The golden bond was still there, warm and real, but a cold dread began to seep into its edges. I looked at Owen, my smile faltering. “I… I don’t feel her. My wolf.”
His perfect smile vanished. The warmth in his eyes was instantly extinguished, replaced by a chilling stillness. “What?”
“I can feel the bond,” I said, my voice starting to tremble. “It’s so strong. But my wolf… she’s not there.”
He stared at me, his face a mask of disbelief. The silence in the hall was now absolute, heavy, and suffocating.
“Shift,” he commanded. It was not a suggestion. It was an order from his future Alpha.
“I can’t,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes. “I don’t know how. Nothing is happening.”
Owen’s expression shifted from disbelief to horror. He looked down at our joined hands as if he were holding a venomous snake.
Then he recoiled. He didn’t just let go of my hand, he ripped it away, stumbling back a step as if I had burned him. The gesture was so violent, so full of disgust, that the pack gasped again. This time, it was a sound of shock.
My hand felt icy cold where his had been. The pain of his physical rejection shot through the golden bond, turning it from a comfort to an agony.
“No,” he said, his voice shaking with a rage I had never heard before. “No. This is not possible.”
“Owen, please,” I begged, taking a step toward him. “Don’t. I can feel you. We’re mates.”
“You are wolfless,” he snarled, his voice rising, echoing in the dead silence. “The bond is a mistake. A curse.”
“Son,” Alpha Marcus said, his voice a low warning from the side of the room.
Owen ignored him, his eyes wild with panic. “A curse! The Moon Goddess has shackled me to a human. A defect!”
The word ‘defect’ struck me harder than a physical blow. It was the word I had called myself in the darkest hours of the night, but hearing it from him, from my mate, was an execution.
My father and Finn started moving toward me, their faces thunderous.
“Owen, that is enough!” Finn shouted, his protective brotherly rage flaring. “She is your mate!”
“My mate would be my equal!” Owen roared back, pointing a trembling finger at me. “My mate would be a warrior! My bloodline, the Alpha bloodline, cannot be tainted by this… this weakness!”
Each word was a fresh tear in the fabric of the bond. I could feel it fraying, the beautiful connection now a source of excruciating pain.
“It will come,” I cried, my voice breaking. “My wolf will come. Just give me a minute. Please.”
“A minute?” he laughed, a horrifying, bitter sound. “We have given you eighteen years, June! There is nothing inside you. You are empty.”
He looked around the hall, at the faces of our pack members, his expression hardening into cold, calculated resolution. He was no longer the boy I loved. He was an Alpha making a political decision.
He turned his gaze back to me, and there was no warmth, no history, no friendship in his eyes. There was only the cold ambition I had seen a flicker of before. The king was casting aside a useless pawn.
“A wolfless mate,” he said, his voice now dangerously calm and clear, carrying to every corner of the hall. “Is no mate at all.”
