No Love for the Outdated Alpha

For five years, Ila has waited for Kyle, the Alpha of the Howling Wind Pack, to keep his promise: to have his mother place the Moonstone around her neck and name her his one and only Luna. At the victory banquet celebrating his consolidated territories, the former Luna walks past her and clasps the sacred relic around the neck of Layla instead, the childhood friend whose parents died protecting the pack. Kyle tells Ila it is only sentiment, and that next month he will conquer the Black Rock tribe and bring her their chieftain's skull as a wine cup. Be good, he says, and wait a little longer.

But Ila has stopped waiting. A hidden communication crystal carries a question from the Land of the Elders, and a bark scroll bearing her name in wolf's blood sits half-packed among her things. When Kyle rushes off to comfort Layla over a cracked stone, leaving their promised southern valley behind, Ila tends her herb garden and says nothing. The fang bracelet he once wove for her still circles her wrist, warm as jade, while her senior Silas waits for her answer.