The Wolfless Girl and Her Forbidden Alpha

POV: Brill Cox

Tonight the moon was full — the night of the Silver Moon Pack's twice-yearly werewolf awakening ceremony.

"She's here again?" A low snicker sounded behind me.

Then a few voices, making no effort to hide their mockery, reached my ears.

"Twenty years old, and not a trace of wolf on her. Does she really think she'll awaken tonight?"

"Shh, keep it down. What if the Moon Goddess goes blind tonight?"

I didn't turn around. My hands, stiff with cold, clenched the patched cuff of my sleeve.

I'd heard this kind of talk far too many times.

Ever since my awakening failed at eighteen, I'd become the lowest creature in the pack.

When my mother was still alive, she would shield me with her frail body and tell those people I had simply awakened later than the others.

But a year ago, she'd been torn to pieces by wild beasts beyond the border.

Since then, no one in this territory had protected me. Anyone could trample me. Anyone could spit on me.

I refused to accept it.

Someone like me — wolfless — couldn't sense a mate's aura.

But I still couldn't help dreaming that somewhere in this world there might truly be someone born to belong to me, someone willing to protect me.

Never once had I dared to hope that person would be anyone important.

Even a crippled Omega werewolf would do.

As long as he was willing to stand by my side, as long as he would acknowledge to others that I was his mate, I wouldn't have to be bullied everywhere like some stray dog. I could have a home that was truly mine.

Just then, the whole noisy square fell deathly silent.

The crowd parted quickly to both sides. I followed the empty path with my eyes, and my heart lurched to a stop.

It was Adrian Voss!

No one in the pack would mistake him.

He was the old Alpha's only son, and the next Alpha.

From childhood, he had been as high and untouchable as the sun in the sky, while I was mud rotting in the ground.

He and I had never had the slightest contact.

While he stood on high ground receiving everyone's bows, I could only huddle in the darkest corner and watch from afar.

The crowd lowered their heads one after another, and I hurriedly knelt down too.

But that steady tread of footsteps suddenly stopped, not far from me.

Confused, I stole a glance upward.

Adrian stood three paces away, staring fixedly at me.

On his handsome, cold face was a shock so immense I had never seen its like. His gray pupils were contracting violently, and his Adam's apple gave an uncontrollable, hard swallow.

I had never seen him so utterly lose composure.

Before I could make sense of it, he strode forward on his long legs, heading straight for me.

Every step he took on the snow felt like a blow to my heart.

Everyone's eyes were boring into my back. My palms were slick with cold sweat, and I was so nervous I could barely breathe.

Why was he walking toward me? What was happening?

My mind was a mess, until he stopped in front of me and his tall shadow swallowed me whole.

I had to tilt my head back to look at his face.

Adrian looked down at me, his eyes impossibly complex, churning with a violent impulse I couldn't read.

Then, slowly, he raised his hand and reached toward me.

Staring at that large hand extended before me, my mind went completely blank.

What? What did this mean? Why was he reaching out his hand to me?

Some guess stirred faintly in my heart, but I didn't dare think in that direction.

What if I was reading too much into it?

But if it really was me...

Did that mean I would never be bullied by others again? Did it mean I could have a home too?

My thoughts were in chaos, my heart pounding out of control. I didn't dare lift my head to see what he looked like now, nervously pinching the corner of my tattered clothes.

Then his hoarse, low voice dropped against my ear: "Brill, you are my fated mate."

Boom —

Every sound in my head was blasted away.

Fated mate?

Me? It really was me? My guess was right!

Tears surged up uncontrollably, blurring my vision.

All the despair since I turned eighteen, the helplessness after my mother's death, every beating and humiliation I'd endured this past year — all of it churned wildly in my chest at that instant.

The Moon Goddess hadn't abandoned me.

Not only had she not abandoned me — she had sent me the strongest, most noble man in the entire pack!

Looking at his palm hovering before me, I thought he meant to pull me up.

I thought he was going to, in front of everyone who had ever tormented me, pull me into his arms and tell me that from now on he would protect me, that no one would ever dare bully me again.

Sobbing so hard my whole body shook, I couldn't wait to raise my own hand — covered in frostbite and calluses — to take his.

"Adrian..." I choked out, my fingertips almost brushing his palm.

But in that very instant, the expression on Adrian's face changed abruptly.

The instinctive shock and wavering of a moment ago suddenly twisted into undisguised disgust.

He snatched his hand back.

He even wiped it on his leather armor, as if he had touched something filthy, with utter revulsion.

Then, without even lifting his eyelids again, he walked straight past me.

His heavy cloak swept hard across my cheek, scraping my skin raw.

My outstretched hand froze in midair. The heart that had just been blazing with wild joy stopped beating for a moment.

Adrian strode up the steps and looked down at me from his height, still sprawled on the ground.

He straightened his back, his gaze as cold as if he were looking at a filthy dead dog.

In front of the entire pack, in a voice that could carry across the whole square, he pronounced coldly: "I, Adrian Voss, reject Brill Cox as my fated mate."