Rejected by the Lycan King, Awakened as Luna

POV: Female Lead

The moon was wrong.

It hung too low in the sky, a pale disc split by faint fractures that shimmered like broken glass. Moonlight spilled through those cracks in uneven waves, silver and cold, touching the forest in a way that made her skin prickle. She slowed her steps, breath fogging in the night air, and pressed her palm briefly against her chest as if that could still the unease tightening there.

Nothing about this path was unfamiliar. She had walked it countless times, gathering herbs, cutting through the outer woods to save time, keeping carefully to the boundary stones that marked where her pack's territory ended.

Tonight, without deciding to, she crossed them.

The realization came only after the fact. One step past the marker. Then another. The air changed immediately, sharper, heavier, threaded with something that made her pulse stutter. Lycan land. She knew the stories. Everyone did. Lycans were not just stronger wolves. They were dominant, given flesh, kings who ruled instinct and fear as easily as breath.

She should turn back.

The thought came clear and rational, but her feet did not obey. Her body leaned forward instead, drawn by something deep and unreasoning. Her wolf stirred, restless, not in warning but in recognition, and that frightened her more than any tale she had ever heard.

"What is wrong with you?" she whispered to herself.

The forest answered with silence.

Then the scent hit her.

It was like nothing she had ever known. Cold iron and moonlight, smoke and snow, power coiled tight and restrained. It flooded her senses so violently that she staggered, fingers digging into the bark of a nearby tree to keep from falling. Her heart slammed against her ribs, too fast, too loud.

Mate.

The word did not arrive as language. It arrived as truth.

Her breath caught painfully. No. That was impossible. She was unmated, unclaimed, ordinary. And Lycans did not mate outside their kind. They certainly did not mate with wolves like her. The very idea was laughable.

Except her body did not laugh.

Her knees weakened. Heat pooled low in her belly, sharp and humiliating, completely at odds with the cold night air. Her wolf surged forward, desperate, recognizing something ancient and absolute. Fear tangled with desire until she could no longer tell them apart.

She forced herself to straighten.

Do not run toward him, she told herself. Do not chase. Do not beg.

She had learned that lesson long ago, in quieter ways. Survival did not come from throwing yourself into danger. It came from restraint.

Still, she did not flee.

Branches parted ahead, and she felt him before she saw him. The pressure of his presence rolled through the clearing like a storm front, bending the night around it. When she finally stepped into the open, the sight of him drove the breath from her lungs.

He stood at the center of the clearing as if the world had arranged itself around him. Tall,