The Rejected Luna Returns

What would you do if the people who were supposed to protect you, the ones who swore loyalty, unity, and strength, looked at you like you were something rotten?

That's what my life has been for the past five years.

They call me a murderer. Not out loud. Not always. But I see it in their eyes, in the way they flinch when I enter a room, in the way their whispers spike when I pass by. Sometimes, they don't bother to hide it. Sometimes I hear the words as clear as day.

  "She's cursed."

  "She brought death to this pack."

  "Stay away from her."

There was a time when their hatred came with bruises. A shove in the hallway. A blow to the ribs during training. My books tossed into the mud. Cold water poured over my head. The kind of cruelty that made you wish you could disappear.

It only stopped when Alpha Gray found out. He made it clear that if anyone laid a hand on me again, they'd deal with him. No one's dared touch me since.

But just because they stopped hitting me doesn't mean the pain ended.

Now, their silence hurts more than the punches ever did. They act like I'm a ghost haunting the packhouse. A reminder of something they all wish they could forget.

I'm seventeen. Turning eighteen in three days.

That age is supposed to mean something. It's when a wolf comes of age. It's when the mate bond can awaken. It's when we're finally supposed to feel whole.

But me?

I feel anything but whole.

I haven't shifted. Not once. Not even a glimpse of my wolf. No fur. No howling instinct. No rage beneath my skin. Just emptiness. I've been waiting for six years. And I'm still waiting. My wolf was supposed to come out when I was twelve, but it didn't.

My mother used to say I was special. "Your wolf will come when she's ready," she told me once, brushing my hair while we sat by the fire. "Wolves like you take time."

I believed her back then.

But she's gone now.

And I'm starting to wonder if she was wrong. Perhaps the moon goddess has forgotten about me.

I live in the farthest room in the east wing of the pack house. It's small, cold, and smells faintly of mold no matter how many times I scrub the corners. The mattress is thin. The sheets are older than me. And the single window barely lets in the moonlight.

Not that I deserve more. I guess I should still be thankful that I have a place that I can call mine.

I'm not stupid. I know what they think. I've heard the stories, how I was the only one who survived the rogue attack that killed my parents. How I didn't have a scratch on me. How the Beta found me hiding in the closet while my parents' blood soaked the floor, but what probably made them