2

Riven

I rejected her once.

The moon remembers, even if I tried to forget.

The city stretches beneath me like a living thing, breathing smoke and neon and blood. From the rooftop, I can see DeLuca territory clearly—the compound glowing too clean, too proud, like it believes itself untouchable. Kael always did like pretending he owned the world.

Tonight, I remind him he doesn’t.

The bond burns through my chest, fresh and violent, like a brand pressed into skin that never healed properly. It shouldn’t exist. I made sure of that years ago. I severed every possibility. Walked away before the Moon Goddess could finish her cruel work.

And yet here it is.

Lyra.

Her name tastes like sin and regret.

The first time I saw her, she was nothing but a girl standing in the shadows of a pack gathering, eyes too big for her face, spine straight despite the way everyone else looked through her. An omega. Quiet. Forgettable to most.

Not to me.

The pull had been faint then, unfinished, like a whisper carried on bad timing. I felt it coil low in my gut, dangerous and wrong. I was still an Alpha in exile, still hunted, still bleeding from betrayals I hadn’t buried yet. A mate would have been a weakness I couldn’t afford.

So I did what monsters like me do best.

I crushed it.

I remember the way her eyes widened when I told her to stay away from me. The way her wolf flinched when mine surged forward, all teeth and warning. I was brutal on purpose. Cold. I made sure it hurt enough that she would never come looking for me again.

Better she hated me than died because of me.

I left that night knowing I’d broken something sacred.

I just didn’t know it was fate itself.

Now the bond snaps into place like it’s been waiting all this time, patient and furious. It slams through me the moment she steps into Kael DeLuca’s office, and the pain nearly brings me to my knees.

Mate.

The word lands heavy and absolute.

My mate.

Not Kael’s. Not the pack’s. Mine.

I laugh then, low and sharp, because of course the Moon Goddess would be this cruel. She lets me reject my mate in ignorance, lets her be dragged into another Alpha’s orbit, lets Kael build half a bond around her like a claim he never earned.

And then she shows me the truth.

The roar tears out of me before I can stop it, ripping through my chest, shattering glass across the compound as my wolf surges forward, incandescent with fury and need. Every instinct screams to tear through iron gates and marble halls and rip her out of Kael’s grasp with my teeth.

Mine.

I force myself to breathe.

This isn’t a forest. This is war territory.

My men move behind me, silent and efficient. Rogues, exiles, wolves the world forgot and I reforged. They don’t ask questions. They feel the shift in me, the way the air tightens with intent.

“Boss?” one of them murmurs.

I lift a hand. “Stand down. Not tonight.”

Yet.

Because Lyra doesn’t know.

Not yet.

Through the bond, I feel her panic, her confusion, the way her wolf finally wakes after years of enforced silence. It twists something ugly in my chest. I did that. My rejection stunted her, muted her nature before it ever had a chance to bloom.

Guilt is a useless emotion.

But regret?

That one sinks its claws deep.

Kael will try to cage her now. He’ll call it protection. He always does. He believes love is something you lock behind walls and guards and duty. He believes fate chose him because power always chooses itself.

He’s wrong.

The bond between him and Lyra is incomplete, frayed at the edges. I can feel it when I brush against her mind carefully, gently, afraid of hurting her again. His presence is there like cold iron, heavy but impersonal.

Mine is fire.

Emotion. Heat. Recognition.

She feels it too. I know she does. Even through the haze of fear, there’s a pull toward me that answers something deep and starving inside her. Her wolf reaches instinctively for mine, confused but yearning.

I close my eyes and rest my forehead against the cool concrete.

I rejected her once to save her.

Now I’ll burn the city down to claim her.

The Moon Goddess doesn’t give second chances. She gives consequences.

And Kael DeLuca is standing between me and what’s mine.

I straighten, the decision settling into my bones like a vow. This time, I won’t approach her with cruelty or silence. I won’t let her think she’s unwanted, cursed, or broken.

I’ll tell her the truth.

That I walked away before I knew.

That fate finished what I interrupted.

That no Alpha has the right to keep her from me.

Below, the compound locks down, wolves scrambling like ants who sense fire too late.

I smile slowly, feral and sharp.

Lyra Vale was never meant to be a pawn.

She was meant to be a reckoning.

And this time, I won’t reject my mate.

I’ll take her back from the world that dared to claim her first.