The mud of the Northern Border was cold, but my feet had long since gone numb. I didn't look back. I couldn't. If I looked back, I might see the torches of the hunting party, or worse—I might see the silhouette of the man who had turned my eighteenth birthday into a waking nightmare. Faster, Elara, I pleaded with my legs. But my legs were nothing but skin stretched over brittle bone. In the Silver-Moon pack, I was the "Ghost of the Scullery." I was the girl who lived on the crusts of bread left by the Alpha’s guests and the lukewarm water from the well. The forest was a blur of black and gray. My lungs burned, each breath a rattling reminder of how weak I had become. "Find her!" The howl echoed through the trees, vibrating in the earth beneath me. It was the Alpha’s command. It wasn't a call of love; it was a call of ownership. Twenty-four hours ago, I was invisible. I was the girl who stood in the shadows of Alpha Caleb’s bedroom, waiting for the sounds of his heavy breathing and the rhythmic creaking of the bed to stop. I was the one who entered when the air was still thick with the scent of s*x and sweat, tasked with stripping the silk sheets and scrubbing the floor while his "comfort women"—the beautiful, high-ranking she-wolves—laughed at my tattered tunic. They would kick my shins as they dressed, calling me a "runt" and a "waste of pack air." Caleb never looked at me then. To him, I was just part of the furniture. Then, the clock struck midnight. I was eighteen. And the world had broken. The moment my scent changed—the moment the "Omega" smell vanished and the scent of wild honey and bruised lilies took its place—Caleb had frozen. He had been mid-laugh, his arm around a Beta’s daughter, when he scented me. I’ll never forget the look on his face. It wasn't joy. It was horror. "You?" he had whispered, his eyes wide with a disgusted realization. "The Moon Goddess gave me... you?" He hadn't even hesitated. Before the sun rose, he had gathered his inner circle. He didn't want a mate who looked like a skeleton. He didn't want a Luna who had scrubbed his floors. He wanted a Queen, not a victim. "I, Alpha Caleb, reject you, Elara the Nameless, as my fated mate," he had declared, his voice cold and flat. Yesterday, I had wept. Yesterday, the bond had pulled at me, begging me to crawl to his feet and ask for mercy. But tonight, as I crouched behind a rotted cedar log, hearing the paws of the trackers thundering nearby, I felt something shift inside me. The bond was a tether. It was a leash he was using to find me. "She went toward the ravine!" a voice shouted—Caleb’s Lead Warrior. I closed my eyes, hot tears finally spilling down my hollow cheeks. I was scared. My heart was a frantic, dying thing. I was a girl who had been beaten for dropping a plate, a girl who had watched her mate f**k other women while I cleaned their mess. I was nothing. But I wouldn't be his property anymore. I accept it, I whispered into the dirt. The words felt like a physical weight leaving my soul. I, Elara... I accept your rejection, Alpha Caleb. The snap was silent, but it felt like a star had died inside my chest. The agonizing pull toward the pack house—the "need" to be near him—simply vanished. For the first time in my life, I was truly alone. No pack. No mate. Just a girl and the dark woods. I forced myself up, my knees trembling. I was a shadow in the moonlight, a ghost escaping its cage. I didn't know where the border was, and I didn't know what lay beyond it. The "Rogues" were said to tear omegas apart. But as the howl of Alpha Caleb rang out again—this time filled with a strange, sudden fury as he felt the bond snap—I knew I’d rather be torn apart by wolves than live one more day being "nothing" in his house. I ran. I ran until the scent of bourbon and betrayal was swallowed by the wind. The rain against the dirt outside my hiding spot felt like a rhythm from a past life. As I huddled under the cedar roots, my mind slipped away from the terror of the hunt and fell back... back into the gray fog of my childhood. I don’t remember my mother’s face. I don’t remember a name before "Elara." All I remember is the smell of smoke and the vibration of a battlefield. I was five years old when the former Alpha, Caleb’s father, found me. He was a giant of a man, his fur matted with the blood of an enemy pack, his eyes glowing with the fading adrenaline of war. I was a shivering pile of rags hidden in the hollow of a burnt-out oak tree. He should have killed me. To any other Alpha, I was a "stray," a potential threat or a useless mouth to feed. But Alpha Silas had a heart that was too large for his own good. "A little bird," he had rumbled, shifting back into his human form and wrapping me in his cloak. "I can't leave a little bird to the crows." He brought me back to the Silver-Moon Pack out of pity. He told the council I was an Omega—the lowest of the low—not to insult me, but to protect me. If I were an Omega, I was "harmless."