Continue the Story
Fated to My Forbidden Alpha – Episode 01
After the last of the Blood Moon wolves drifted out of the courtyard, Selene remained on her knees beside the overturned serving tray. Laughter still seemed to cling to the stone walls, though the people who had mocked her were already gone. Broken glass glittered around her in the torchlight, and the side of her face throbbed where Tiffany’s palm had struck it.
No one had stayed to help. A few pack members had stepped around her on their way inside, careful not to soil their polished shoes, but none had offered even a glance of sympathy. To them, Selene was only the wolfless orphan who scrubbed their floors and carried their meals—a useful shadow who belonged to Blood Moon without ever truly belonging among them.
She picked up the largest shard, ignoring the sting when its edge nicked her thumb. A bright bead of blood welled against her skin. “One day, I’ll leave this place,” she whispered, giving shape to the promise she had repeated in silence for years. Beneath the open sky, however, the words sounded painfully small.
Leave and go where? Jackson had reminded her of the answer often enough. Until she turned eighteen, pack law gave her no right to choose her own territory. Even afterward, a lone girl without a wolf would be defenseless beyond the border. Rogues survived through strength, cunning, or savagery, and Blood Moon had made certain Selene believed she possessed none of those things.
A winter-cold gust swept through the courtyard, lifting loose strands of her dark hair. Selene gathered the last fragments onto the tray and rose, forcing feeling back into her stiff legs. High above the battlements, the moon hung full and silver, beautiful in the careless way of things too distant to touch.
As she carried the ruined tray toward the servants’ wing, she let herself imagine freedom. She pictured deep green woods where no bell summoned her, rivers that carried no whispered insults, and mornings when she woke with no list of orders waiting outside her door. Most of all, she imagined a life untouched by Tiffany’s cruelty or Alpha Jackson’s contempt.
The fantasy faded the moment she entered the kitchen. Greasy platters crowded the counters, spilled wine stained the flagstones, and the cook pointed at the mess without looking up from her ledger. Selene worked until the packhouse quieted, washing dishes in water gone gray and cold, then swept the great hall while the last revelers climbed the stairs.
By the time she finished, her cheek had stopped burning, but the humiliation remained lodged beneath her ribs. She returned the broom, wrapped a worn cloak around her shoulders, and slipped through the rear door. No one guarded a servant’s movements closely after midnight. No one imagined she had anywhere worth going.
The forest had always been the one place that asked nothing of her. Selene followed a narrow path between towering pines, breathing in damp earth and crushed needles while the packhouse lights dwindled behind her. With every step, the knot in her chest loosened, until even the faint music from the courtyard disappeared beneath the sigh of the branches.
She walked farther than usual that night. Moonlight spilled through gaps in the canopy and silvered the moss beneath her boots. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called once, and the stream answered with its soft, endless rush over stones. Those ordinary sounds soothed her more than any kindness she had received inside Blood Moon’s walls.
At the water’s edge, Selene lowered herself onto a flat rock and drew her knees to her chest. Her reflection wavered below her: tangled hair, exhausted eyes, and a red mark along one cheek. She touched the swelling carefully, then let her hand fall. Tiffany would forget the slap by morning. Selene suspected she would remember it forever.
“My eighteenth birthday is only three days away,” she murmured to the rippling water. There would be no cake, no gifts, and no family gathered to tell stories of the night she was born. Still, the date had lived inside her like a secret doorway, because eighteen was when a werewolf’s true nature could no longer remain hidden.
Three days until she might hear another consciousness stir within her. Three days until bones and blood could reshape beneath the moon, proving she was not the defective creature everyone believed her to be. Or three days until nothing happened at all—and the final fragile excuse for their cruelty vanished with her hope.
Most children sensed their wolves long before their first shift. They dreamed through another pair of eyes or woke with animal instincts humming beneath their skin. Selene had experienced none of it. Whenever the others spoke of their wolves, she smiled as though their excitement did not cut her open.
Broken. Defective. Worthless. The words had followed her from childhood, changing voices but never meaning. She pressed her forehead against her knees and tried to breathe past them. If Blood Moon was right about her, the life she imagined beyond its borders would remain nothing more than a dream.
Yet some stubborn piece of her refused to surrender. Selene raised her face toward the moon, pale and luminous beyond the branches. “Moon Goddess,” she prayed, her voice rough with a hope she hated exposing, “I don’t need to be powerful. I only need a chance. Please… hear me.”
The forest went silent—not gradually, as it did when a predator passed nearby, but all at once. The owl’s call ceased. The branches stopped moving despite the wind Selene still felt against her skin, and even the stream seemed to soften to a hush. She unfolded her arms and stared into the darkness, every nerve suddenly alert.
Warmth gathered in the center of her chest. It did not burn like fever or ache like fear; it pulsed gently, almost tenderly, in time with a rhythm that was not quite her own. Selene pressed a palm over her heart. Beneath its frantic beating, she felt something answer.
She rose too quickly, nearly slipping on the damp bank. “Hello?” Her question vanished among the trees. No footsteps approached, and no familiar scent reached her, yet the unmistakable awareness of being watched tightened across her shoulders.
