“Look who decided to crawl out of the basement,” a voice snickered near the lockers.

I kept my chin tucked down, clutching my backpack straps so hard the nylon bit into my palms. First day of senior year. Same concrete hallway. Same pack hierarchy that treated me like dirt beneath their shoes. As an unshifted wolf with barely enough scent to register on the radar, my survival strategy had always been simple: disappear into the background.

“Hey. Nora.”

The crowd went dead silent.

I paused, thinking someone else shared my name. But then the heavy footsteps stopped three paces in front of me.

Jax Mercer.

He was the varsity captain, the future Beta of the Northcrest Pack, and the only boy I had loved in secret every single day of the past three years. He stood tall under the bright fluorescent lights, holding a massive bouquet of crimson roses.

“Jax?” My voice shook.

“Don’t look so terrified,” he said softly.

He stepped closer. The murmur around us spiked, dozens of phones suddenly lifting into the air, camera lenses gleaming like predatory eyes.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

Jax didn’t answer with words. Instead, he dropped smoothly onto one knee right on the grimy tile floor.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

“Three years, Nora,” Jax said, his blue eyes staring directly into mine, shining with an intensity that knocked the wind clean out of me. “Three years of watching you hide in the corners. I’m done waiting. Be my girl. Say you’ll be mine.”

A girl nearby squealed into her screen. “Is this live? Tell me someone is streaming this!”

“Shut up, let her answer!” another voice yelled.

Tears sprang to my eyes, hot and sudden. My hands trembled as they hovered over the crimson petals. It felt like an impossible dream, the kind I had scribbled onto lined notebook paper at two in the morning, praying to the Moon Goddess for a miracle.

“You... you mean it?” I choked out, tears spilling down my cheeks.

“Every word,” Jax murmured, offering the bouquet higher. “Take them.”

I reached out, burying my shaking fingers into the stems, smelling the sweet, heavy perfume of the flowers.

“Yes,” I sobbed out, smiling through the wet blur of my vision. “Yes, Jax. I will.”

For one golden second, I thought the universe had finally looked down and chosen me.

Then the laughter started.

It didn’t start as a chuckle. It exploded—a deafening, vicious roar of mock applause and shrieking howls that bounced off the metal lockers.

Jax didn’t stand up to hug me. He rose to his feet, but his warm expression vanished, peeled away like cheap paint. His mouth twisted into an ugly, triumphant sneer.

“Hear that, boys?” Jax yelled to the hall, playing straight to the cameras. “She actually bought it!”

My blood turned to slush in my veins. “Jax...?”

“Fifty bucks a head!” a boy in a varsity jacket barked, slapping the lockers. “I told you she’d cry! Pay up, Miller!”

“Look at her face!” someone else wheezed. “She thought the future Beta wanted a runt!”

Jax stepped into my personal space, his eyes cold as flint.

“Did you really think I’d look twice at a pathetic stray like you?” His voice dropped low, meant just for me to hear. “You’re cheap, Nora. Easiest bet I ever won.”

The floor seemed to drop out from beneath my feet. A bet. A sick, twisted game to kick off their senior year. Three years of silent devotion, shredded into a joke for social media clout.

Shame scorched through me so violently I couldn’t breathe. I spun around, desperate to break through the circle of bodies and run until my legs gave out.

A hand clamped around my wrist like an iron shackle.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jax snapped, yanking me backward with enough force to pop my shoulder.

“Let go of me!” I cried out, clawing at his fingers. “Jax, please!”

“We’re not done putting on the show,” he snarled.

With his free hand, he ripped the roses out of my grip and slammed them onto the floor. He raised his boot and ground his heel into the petals, crushing the bright red blooms into bruised, shredded pulp.

Someone grabbed the loop of my backpack from behind.

“Hey, check what the pet brought to school!” a guy yelled, tearing the bag off my shoulders.

“Give that back!” I screamed, twisting frantically in Jax’s iron grip. “Stop it!”

The zipper gave way with a violent rip. Textbooks and pens clattered across the tile. And then, a thick, spiral-bound notebook with worn cardboard covers bounced out, landing near Jax’s boots.

My stomach plummeted.

My journal. Every midnight thought. Every stolen glance at his locker. Every foolish, desperate confession I had ever penned over thirty-six agonizing months.

“Don’t touch that!” I shrieked, panic pitching my voice high. “Jax, please, I’m begging you!”

Jax kicked my hand away as I reached for it. He scooped the notebook off the ground, flipping it open to a marked page. A grin spread across his face, wide and cruel.

“Look at this goldmine,” Jax announced to the corridor, raising his voice over the hollering students. He angled the pages directly toward three different phone cameras. “Listen up, Northcrest!”

“Jax, stop!” I sobbed, struggling against the tight hold he maintained on my arm. My fingernails dragged across his skin, leaving white scratches, but he barely flinched.

“‘September twelfth,’” Jax read aloud, pitching his voice in a ridiculous, breathy falsetto. “‘Jax wore his navy hoodie today. When he brushed past my desk, his cedarwood scent stayed in my hair all afternoon. I wish he knew how much my heart beats just hearing his name.’”

The hallway erupted in deafening hoots.

“‘I wonder if he’ll ever see me as a real wolf,’” Jax continued, laughing so hard he nearly tripped over his words. “‘I wonder if the Moon Goddess made him for me, because living without him feels like slowly dying.’”

“Pathetic!” a girl shouted from the back. “Read more, Jax!”

“She’s obsessed with you, bro!” another guy yelled.

“Please,” I choked out, my voice cracking, tears streaming in hot torrents down my flaming cheeks. “Please, just stop. Take the money and stop.”

“Why would I?” Jax sneered, tossing the notebook to his buddies. “You wanted my attention, didn’t you? Now you have it. The whole pack is watching.”

I stood there, stripped down to my bare soul, completely defenseless before a pack of wolves who viewed my dignity as sport. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting nothing more than the earth to crack open and swallow me whole.

A sudden, freezing splash slammed over my forehead.

Ice-cold soda drenched my hair, pooling over my eyes and cascading down my cheeks, soaking the collar of my shirt. The sugary liquid stung my eyes, clinging to my eyelashes, running sticky paths down my neck and chest.

Someone dropped an empty plastic cup near my sneakers.

Laughter swelled until it shook the lockers. Flashbulbs strobed against my closed eyelids. I stood soaking, shivering violently from the cold liquid and the sheer, suffocating agony of public humiliation.

“Look at the drowned rat,” a voice jeered.

Jax smirked down at me, wiping a stray drop of soda from his knuckles onto my soaked sleeve. “Welcome to senior year, runt.”

I opened my eyes, stinging and blurry, looking at the boy I had loved for a thousand days. There was nothing behind his face but hollow cruelty.

“I hate you,” I whispered, my voice barely audible through my chattering teeth.

Jax leaned down, his smirk widening. “Who cares what you—”

A blur of motion ripped through the crowd like a cannonball.

*CRACK.*

A heavy combat boot connected square with Jax’s jaw.

The sound echoed like a gunshot. The impact lifted Jax entirely off his feet, his body slamming violently against the metal lockers before he crashed facedown onto the hard floor, skidding across the crushed roses.

The corridor went dead silent.

The mocking roars, the cruel cheers, the hum of recording phones—everything cut out like someone pulled the master breaker.

Jax lay sprawled across the floor, groaning in the puddle of crushed rose petals. Crimson blood welled from his split lip, staining the linoleum.

I pulled my arms tight against my ribs, soda dripping from my bangs down my collar. I blinked through the stinging wetness.

A black leather jacket. Broad shoulders that blocked out the overhead glare.

Rowen.

The entire pack avoided him for a reason. He held no rank in the student council, carried no titles, and never joined the varsity pack runs. Yet even Jax’s father, the pack Beta, kept his distance from Rowen’s bloodline. He was lethal, untouchable, and completely detached from the social food chain.

He never stepped in. He never cared.

Until now.

“You’re dead, man!” Miller snarled from behind him, lunging forward with his claws partially extended. “You don’t touch Jax!”

Rowen didn’t turn his head. He merely side-stepped the clumsy strike, gripped Miller by the throat, and drove him backward into the row of lockers.

The metal boomed under the impact.

“Stay down,” Rowen said. His tone lacked fury. It was flat, carrying the calm authority of an executioner.

Miller gasped for air, his eyes rolling back before Rowen released him. Miller slumped to the floor, coughing violently.

Two other seniors backed up immediately, raising their palms.

“We’re good! We’re out!” one stammered, dragging Miller by his arm.

“Pick him up,” Rowen told them, pointing toward Jax.

Jax dragged himself up on one elbow, glaring murder through swollen eyes. “You’re dead, Rowen. My dad will strip your family of every—”

Rowen took one step forward.

Jax shut his mouth instantly, stumbling backward as two teammates grabbed his shoulders and hauled him down the hall.

The crowd dissolved in seconds. Phones disappeared into pockets. Footsteps scrambled away, leaving only spilled soda, torn petals, and my scattered belongings.

I stood frozen against the lockers, my hands trembling violently.

Rowen didn’t chase them. He didn’t check if I was injured. He crouched down amidst the wreckage and reached for the torn, soaked spiral notebook.

The cardboard cover was bent. Several pages had ripped away, smeared with muddy footprints and red syrup.

He picked it up by the spine.

My throat tightened. “Don’t... please don’t read it.”

Rowen stood up straight. He didn’t open the cover. He walked over to where I stood shivering, his expression closed and unreadable.

“Hold out your hands,” he ordered quietly.

“Why did you do that?” I whispered, my voice raw.

“Take your property, Nora.”

I lifted my trembling hands. My fingers reached toward the wet cardboard.

Then my bare skin brushed against his knuckles.

A shockwave ripped through my chest.

It hit like a strike of raw lightning, tearing through my blood and setting every nerve on fire. A deafening roar echoed behind my temples. My spine arched involuntarily as an ancient, unbreakable pull snapped shut between us, dragging every fiber of my being straight toward his presence.

Fated mate.

The sacred connection. The one thing an unshifted runt like me was never supposed to possess, especially not with an elite like him.

My jaw dropped. The breath rushed out of my lungs in a sharp gasp. “You...”

Rowen froze.

His pupils dilated into obsidian pools before shrinking into pinpricks. The veins along his neck flared, and his jaw hardened into solid stone. The notebook stayed suspended between our hands, the bond humming so violently the air around us seemed to crackle.

He felt it. He knew exactly what had just locked into place.

“Rowen,” I choked out, tears burning my eyes for an entirely different reason. “You’re... we’re—”

Before the word could leave my mouth, Rowen raised his free index finger to his lips.

He pressed it firmly against his mouth.

*Silence.*

His gaze held no warmth. No wonder. No relief. Only absolute, freezing hostility.

“Do not say it,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh rasp.

“But the bond—”

“Shut up,” he commanded, stepping into my space, his aura pressing down with suffocating weight. “Listen to me carefully.”

I shrank back against the dented locker, my shoulder blades hitting cold steel. “Rowen, please...”

“There is no bond,” he whispered, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. “You saw nothing. You felt nothing. You keep your mouth shut, and you never look at me again.”

The words cut deeper than Jax’s public humiliation.

“Why?” My voice cracked, tears spilling over the dried soda on my cheeks. “You felt the snap. The Goddess chose us.”

“The Goddess made an error,” he spat coldly. “Look at yourself, Nora. You’re soaked in cheap soda, crying over Jax Mercer’s table scraps, and you haven’t even found your wolf.”

Every single word landed like a whip across my raw skin.

“I didn’t ask for this!” I cried out.

“Then don’t claim it,” he countered without hesitation. “If a single word about this leaves your mouth, the entire pack will hunt you down just to mock you twice as hard. Jax wanted to break you. My family will erase you.”

“You saved me,” I whispered, staring up at him in agony. “You stepped in.”

“I stopped a pack of cowards from acting like feral dogs in public,” Rowen said, his knuckles turning white as he shoved the ruined notebook hard against my chest. “It had nothing to do with you.”

I caught the notebook against my ribs, the soggy cardboard chilling my skin through my soaked shirt.

He pulled his hand away as if touching me burned him. He wiped his fingers against the seam of his dark jeans, an overt gesture of disgust.

“Bury it, Nora,” Rowen said, stepping backward toward the empty corridor. “We are strangers. That doesn't change.”

“Rowen, wait!”

He didn't pause. He turned his back on me and walked away, his heavy strides echoing off the lockers until the double doors swung shut behind him.

I slid down the locker until my knees hit the tile, clutching my ruined notebook against my chest.

First Jax. Now Rowen.

The mate bond thrummed inside my veins, a persistent, aching beat that tied my soul to a male who looked at me like garbage.

A soft scrape sounded at the far end of the hall.

I snapped my head up, wiping my eyes with the back of my sticky sleeve.

Standing by the corner, half-hidden in the shadow of the trophy case, Jax stood leaning against the wall, his phone raised, the red recording light blinking steadily.

The final bell had rung twenty minutes ago.

The lockers stood cold and silent in the dim afternoon shadows. I pressed the ruined notebook against my ribs, shivering in my damp, soda-stained clothes. Every breath felt like dragging broken glass through my chest.

A heavy shadow detached from the wall near the exit.

Rowen stepped directly into my path, his tall frame blocking the doorway. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his dark jacket.

“Stop walking,” he said.

I froze, clutching the soggy cardboard tighter. “I’m going home, Rowen. Let me pass.”

“Look at me.”

I forced my chin up. The cold numbness in his gray eyes made my stomach twist.

“Whatever you felt when you touched my hand,” Rowen said, his voice flat and cutting, “let it rot in your gut.”

My throat tightened until speaking hurt. “You know what it was.”

“I told you to forget it.”

“How can I forget the Goddess?” A tear slipped down my cheek, hot against the sticky mess on my skin. “You felt the snap just like I did. You know what we are.”

“We are nothing,” Rowen snapped, stepping closer, his presence pressing down like a suffocating blanket. “Don’t think you can latch onto me. Don’t start dreaming about destiny or second chances. I don’t need a mate, Nora. I don’t need you.”

The words struck deeper than any fist Jax had ever thrown.

I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes fixed on his combat boots. My fingers dug into the pulped pages of my journal, but I refused to let another sob escape.

“Understood,” I whispered.

Rowen stared at me for another second, his jaw clenched tight, before stepping aside to clear the hall.

“Well, isn't this a touching little reunion.”

The mocking voice cut through the silence from behind us.

I spun around.

Jax leaned against the glass frame of the athletic trophy case, clapping his hands together in a slow, sharp rhythm. His lower lip was split and swollen where Rowen had cracked it open, dried blood caking his chin. But the careless, laughing frat boy from this morning was gone.

His eyes burned with an unhinged, venomous fury.

“Jax,” I breathed, shrinking back.

“Shut your mouth, Nora,” Jax growled, pushing off the glass. He took three long strides toward us, his chest heaving, veins bulging along his neck. “You were down on your knees sobbing for me an hour ago. You looked me in the eyes and said yes to my roses. And the second my back is turned, you’re in the shadows rubbing up against him?”

“She didn't do anything,” Rowen said, his voice deadly calm. “Walk away, Mercer.”

“I’m not talking to you, stray!” Jax roared, pointing a trembling finger at my face. “Serafina, what gives you the right?”

I gasped at the name. He hadn’t used my full birth name since we were children.

“You tricked me,” I cried, fury flaring through my misery. “You threw soda on me! You read my journal to the entire school for a fifty-dollar bet!”

“And you took it!” Jax snarled, crossing the distance until he was inches from me. He reached out, his fingers catching my wrist in a vice grip that made my bones grind. “You loved me! You’ve loved me for three years, writing your pathetic little notes every night! That means you’re mine!”

“Let go of me!” I yanked against his arm with all my strength.

“You belong to me!” Jax yelled, his grip tightening until my fingers went numb. Spittle flew from his lips, his pupils narrowing into wild slits. “Do you hear me? Even if I throw you in the garbage, even if I break you into pieces and feed you to the dirt, he doesn't get a turn! Nobody touches what's mine!”

“She isn't an object, Mercer,” Rowen said.

Before Jax could blink, Rowen’s hand clamped onto Jax’s wrist.

A sickening crunch echoed down the hallway.

Jax howled in pain, his fingers involuntarily releasing my arm. He stumbled back, clutching his crushed wrist, his eyes flashing brilliant gold as his wolf clawed to the surface.

“You’re dead!” Jax shrieked.

His bones popped with grotesque cracks as fur sprouted along his forearms, his jaw elongating into a snarling muzzle. He lunged forward with a deafening roar, his claws slashing toward Rowen’s throat.

Rowen didn’t back down.

A terrifying gust of wind whipped down the enclosed hall, tearing loose papers off the bulletin boards. Rowen’s frame expanded, his shoulders broadening as his own wolf surged forward, gray fur exploding over his skin.

*BOOM.*

The two wolves collided in midair.

The shockwave rattled the metal lockers, denting the doors inward. Dust rained down from the ceiling tiles. Jax tore his claws across Rowen’s ribs, drawing thick, dark blood, but Rowen didn't even flinch. He grabbed Jax by the scruff of his neck, driving his knee straight into Jax’s midsection.

Jax choked on a mouthful of blood and slammed into the concrete floor.

“Get up,” Rowen growled, his voice half-human, vibrating with terrifying power. “Get up and try again.”

Jax scrambled backward, coughing crimson onto the tiles, but the madness in his eyes hadn't faded. He glared past Rowen, his bloodshot gaze locking onto me.

“You think he’s going to save you, Nora?” Jax wheezed, his mouth dripping red. “You think you found a hero?”

I stood frozen in the middle of the hallway, my chest aching so violently I could hardly draw air.

I looked at Jax. The boy who had taken my devotion, dragged it through the dirt, and laughed while I drowned in soda. Yet now, seeing another male stand between us, he was foaming at the mouth with sick, jealous ownership. He didn't want my love. He just wanted to make sure nobody ever pulled me out of the grave he dug for me.

Then I looked at Rowen.

He had defended me with bone-breaking violence, bleeding for my sake. Yet his words from moments ago still echoed in my ears like poison: *I don’t need you. Let it rot in your gut.*

One wanted to possess my destruction. The other despised the bond that tied our souls together.

“Jax, stop,” I choked out, tears finally breaking free. “Just stop!”

Jax bared his bloody teeth in a twisted grin. He ignored the blood pooling on his chin and dug his fingers into his jacket pocket.

“You think this is over?” Jax hissed, his hand emerging with a silver pack whistle between his bloody knuckles. “You think your little rogue pet can fight the entire council?”

He raised the whistle to his lips.

“Don't,” Rowen warned, his wolf flashing in his eyes.

Jax blew.

A high-pitched, piercing screech ripped through the empty school, vibrating straight through my teeth—a full pack distress alarm that signaled an attack on the Beta heir.

Within seconds, the distant howls of full-grown pack enforcers answered from the edge of the campus woods, closing in fast.