Happy Birthday to Me, I Guess

Elowen

The taste of iron filled my mouth as consciousness crawled back, each bump of the wooden wheels sending fresh spikes of pain through my skull. My tongue felt thick and foreign, the bitter aftertaste of whatever they'd used to knock me out still coating my throat like poison.

Happy birthday to me.

The thought emerged through the fog of pain and confusion, so absurd I almost laughed. Almost. The sound died in my throat as reality crashed over me in waves—the bite of silver against my wrists, the stench of fear and unwashed bodies, the rhythmic creak of wagon wheels that seemed to count down to something terrible.

I forced my eyes open, squinting against the dappled sunlight filtering through iron bars. We were in some kind of mobile prison, a crude cage on wheels with maybe fifteen other prisoners crammed inside like livestock heading to market. The silver shackles around my ankles and wrists burned with every slight movement, a constant reminder that whatever this was, it wasn't a mistake.

"Finally awake, are you?"

A gruff voice made me turn my head, sending another wave of nausea rolling through me. A middle-aged wolf with a warrior's build and a face full of fresh bruises watched me with calculating eyes. Even in chains, he carried himself like someone used to command.

"Been out for hours," he continued. "Thought maybe they'd given you too much of whatever they used on the rest of us."

Hours? I tried to piece together what had happened, but everything after walking into that bakery in Willowbrook was a blank. All I'd wanted was their honey cinnamon bread—the good stuff they only made on special occasions. It was my twenty-second birthday, damn it. I'd been planning this little celebration for weeks.

Now here I was, shackled like a common criminal and heading... where?

Through the bars, I watched the landscape roll by. We'd left the flat plains behind hours ago, judging by the rolling hills and dense forest that pressed close to the road. The trees were ancient here, their canopies so thick they blocked out most of the sky. Stone markers appeared at regular intervals, carved with symbols I didn't recognize but somehow felt familiar.

In the distance, mountain peaks rose like jagged teeth against the horizon. And there, perched on the highest summit like some dark crown, the outline of a massive castle caught the afternoon light.

Only the most powerful Alphas could claim the highest peaks. Whoever ruled here wasn't someone you crossed and lived to tell about it.

My stomach dropped.

"First time seeing Moon Peak?" A young wolf, barely more than a pup, followed my gaze. His face was gaunt with hunger, and his clothes marked him as one of the traveling rogues who drifted between territories. "Impressive, isn't it? Too bad we're probably going to die there."

"Shut up, kid." The warrior shot him a sharp look. "Don't make it worse than it already is."

"Worse?" The young wolf laughed, but there was no humor in it. "We're prisoners of the Alpha King. How exactly does it get worse?"

Alpha King.

The words hit me like a physical blow, even though I'd been dreading them since I first glimpsed that castle. My heart started hammering against my ribs, each beat painful in the sudden silence that followed the young wolf's declaration.

"Which Alpha King?" The question slipped out before I could stop it, though I already knew the answer. My voice sounded strange, hoarse from whatever they'd used to drug me.

"Kaius Blackthorne," an elderly she-wolf answered from the corner of the cage. Her voice carried the weight of someone who'd seen too much, lost too much. "You really don't know where you are, child?"

Kaius.

God, no. Not him. Anyone but him.

I must have made some sound—a whimper, maybe, or a sob—because suddenly all eyes were on me. The warrior leaned forward, studying my face with new interest.

"You know that name," he said. It wasn't a question.

I pressed my lips together, fighting the urge to curl up in a ball and disappear. Four years. Four years I'd managed to stay hidden, to build a brand new life away from everything that name represented. And now, thanks to a craving for birthday bread, I was being delivered straight back into the nightmare I'd fled.

"Course she knows it," the old she-wolf said softly. "Kaius's been conquering packs left and right. Building his empire on the bones of anyone who won't kneel."

"Is it true what they say about Moonridge? The ones who used to call this place home?" The young rogue's voice dropped to a whisper, glancing nervously at the ancient trees surrounding us. "That he killed them all in one night?"

The she-wolf nodded grimly. "Four thousand wolves. Every male, female, and pup. They said Moonridge was plotting against him, working with enemy packs. Whether it was true or not..." She shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. Nightfall Pack sits on what used to be their territory. The Alpha King moved his capital here after the massacre, turned their sacred lands into his seat of power."

My hands clenched into fists, the silver shackles biting deeper into already raw skin. Four thousand. I'd known Kaius was ambitious—that calculating ruthlessness had always been part of him, the quality that made him a feared Alpha King. But this? Wiping out entire bloodlines, pups who'd never even shifted, elders who remembered the old songs?

Thank God I'd escaped that pack when I did.

The wagon lurched as we started climbing, the road winding up the mountainside in steep switchbacks. Through the bars, I caught glimpses of watchtowers and patrol routes, the forest itself seeming to bristle with hidden sentries. This wasn't just a royal residence—it was a fortress.

"What did you all do?" I found myself asking, desperate for any distraction from the growing dread in my chest. "To end up here?"

The answers came in a flood of bitter voices:

"Poached deer from the royal hunting grounds."

"They said I was spying for the Eastern Coalition. Bullshit."

"Asked too many questions about my son's death in the border wars."

"Wrong place, wrong time."

Each confession was punctuated by the creak of wheels and the jangle of chains. Normal wolves caught in the web of a paranoid king's suspicions. And then there was me.

I almost laughed again, imagining how I'd explain my situation: Well, Your Majesty, I was trying to buy bread for my birthday when your patrol decided I looked suspicious lurking behind a bakery at dawn.

The truth was so much more complicated. So much more painful.

If they hadn't drugged me, if I hadn't been caught off guard by silver-tipped arrows while my defenses were down, none of this would have happened. I could have disappeared into the forest, could have outrun any normal patrol. But no—I'd been daydreaming about honey cinnamon bread when the world came crashing down around me again.

The scent hit me before I saw the gates. He was probably waiting for me behind those gates. God, I'd rather die than see his face again.

Sandalwood and winter pine, with something darker underneath. Something that belonged to night hunts and blood-soaked victories and the kind of power that bent entire kingdoms to its will.

My breath caught in my throat. After four years, I'd hoped that particular combination of pheromones would have lost its hold over me. Instead, it slammed into my consciousness like a physical blow, dragging up memories I'd spent every day since trying to bury.

The great hall had been decorated for my eighteenth birthday, silver and white banners hanging from every surface while the entire pack watched and waited. Everyone knew what was supposed to happen—the moment when I'd finally shift, when I'd take my place as an adult member of the pack.

But the hours ticked by, and nothing happened. No transformation, no wolf emerging to claim her place. Just me, standing there in my carefully chosen dress while whispers started rippling through the crowd.

"Maybe she's just a late bloomer."

"Has anyone in her bloodline ever had trouble shifting?"

"What if she's—no, that's impossible."

Then the Moon Goddess had decided to play the cruelest joke of all. The mate bond had snapped into place like a physical cord, connecting me to the one person I'd been watching from afar for years. Kaius Blackthorne, future Alpha King, standing across the room with his perfect posture and those cold, calculating eyes.

For one shining moment, I'd thought maybe it didn't matter that I couldn't shift. Maybe the goddess had a plan, maybe—

"I need a luna who can stand beside me in war, not a broken wolf who can't even shift."

The words had cut through the sudden silence like a blade. Every face in that room turned to watch as he destroyed me with clinical precision.

"The Moon Goddess made a mistake."

"I, Kaius Blackthorne, reject this mate bond."

The rejection had hit me like a physical blow, doubling me over with pain that went beyond anything I'd ever imagined. But worse than the agony was the humiliation—standing there while four hundred pack members watched their future Alpha King declare me defective goods.

I'd run that night. Packed a single bag and slipped away while my parents fought in the kitchen below, their voices carrying through the floorboards.

"He humiliated our daughter! Our family!" Mother's voice, sharp with rage.

"The pack needs me. The war isn't over." Father's response, duty-bound and immovable.

"Then choose your pack. I choose my daughter."

But I'd already chosen for them. Rather than watch my family tear itself apart over my failures, I'd disappeared into the night where no one knew my name, where my past didn't define me, where I could finally breathe without the weight of everyone's expectations crushing my chest.

The irony was almost funny now. Broken wolf who can't even shift—if only Kaius could see me now. Well, not exactly me now, considering I looked like roadkill and smelled worse, but me once these lovely drugs wore off and the silver stopped burning through my veins.

Too bad my current circumstances told a different story.

Once again, this fucking asshole would get to savor my pain, and worse yet, my current pathetic state would only validate everything he'd said about me four years ago.

My twenty-second birthday. Another birthday ruined by Kaius Blackthorne.