The graduation party in the underground training hall fell apart during a game of Put a Finger Down. Serena grinned and said, "Put a finger down if you've already had sex." I watched Asher, the boy who was supposed to become mine, lower one finger. Which meant he had slept with someone. Just not with me. I had loved him for ten whole years. After a few rounds and too much cheap alcohol, only two players were still in the game: Serena and me. Everyone else had run out of fingers. Serena smiled like a queen at the Moon Crown ceremony and said sweetly, "I'm seeing someone." The underground training hall went silent. Then the room erupted. I looked toward Asher in the corner. He had told me countless times, "Elena, after the Moon Crown Ball, I'll swear myself to you." But right then, he was sprawled across a worn black leather couch, and he did not even look at me. Someone whistled. "Prove it, then." Serena rose with a smile and walked straight to Asher. She cupped his face, leaned down, and kissed him in front of every young wolf heir in the room. He did not push her away. He did not even look at me. I was technically still in the game, but I folded my last finger into my palm anyway. The game was over. So were my ten years. Whistles, screams, and applause crashed together. The training hall felt as if it had caught fire. Someone shouted, "Oh my god! I knew it!" Someone else asked, "When did this happen?" Serena straightened, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. "Graduation night. We officially got together." Everyone's eyes fell on the newly announced couple. One was Mooncrest Academy's most dazzling Alpha heir. The other was the school's most popular highborn she-wolf. Together, they looked inevitable, as if the Moon Goddess herself had arranged them. No one noticed me in the corner. No one noticed that I suddenly could not breathe. I watched Asher lift a hand and casually wipe the corner of his mouth. The crowd rushed in around them, and someone called, "Come on, tell us. Who made the first move? Details." Serena gave Asher a shy glance and said, "It was nothing, really. On graduation night, I sent him a message..." She told them everything. She said she had asked him to meet her by Moon Lake. She had taken his hand under the full moon and asked, "Do you want to try being together for real?" With every detail, the laughter grew louder. With every detail, someone glanced my way. "Wait, wasn't there something between Asher and Elena? Didn't they grow up in the same pack?" "Says who? When has Asher ever really looked at her?" "Elena? That little shadow? Nobody even sees her as a she-wolf." "Exactly. Who would like her? Asher is the future Alpha. His standards have always been high." "Do you remember her silverleaf allergy? That emergency in the healing room. Asher made her pasta and somehow forgot she was allergic to silverleaf. Sent her straight to the healing tower." "Serena wanted the full scholarship to Lunar Academy in Eastshore. Elena was her only real competition. Do we need to spell out the rest?" "That's brutal. Elena was just a backup from beginning to end." Serena put on an innocent, wounded expression, but her eyes shone with a winner's smug delight. "Elena, I'm sorry. I might have mentioned the academy scholarship to Asher once. He wanted to help me so badly back then, so he used silverleaf to trigger your allergy. Don't blame him. If you have to blame someone, blame me." So everyone knew Asher had done it on purpose. Everyone except me. Or maybe I had known all along. I had just refused to admit it. In our first year at Mooncrest Academy, Asher had slowly pulled away from me. Whenever we passed each other, he would lower his head and walk by as if he did not know me. Once, I chased after him and asked what was wrong. He said, "Don't let people get the wrong idea." I told myself he was about to become an Alpha. One day, an entire pack would rest on his shoulders. He needed dignity. He could not let people tease him. It would weaken his authority. I explained everything away for him. I just never expected that, afterward, I would always see him laughing and talking with Serena.
I could never stop myself from wanting to join them, but whenever Asher saw me smile, his own expression would shut down. He would ask coldly, "Need something?" Only that day was different. He handed me the plate of pasta, his voice gentle like it used to be. He said, "Eat." So, like an idiot, I ate it without a second thought. And I missed the most important scholarship interview of my life. My eyes burned. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, then looked at Asher and forced myself to ask, "Is it true?" He sat beside Serena, his face blank. "Does it matter? It's not like it can be changed now." His tone was as casual as if we were talking about the weather for tomorrow's forest patrol. My words sank into him like stones into still water, leaving no ripple. He did not care. He did not care about the eighteen years we had grown up together on the same pack territory. He did not care about the future we had once believed we would have. My throat closed. Bitterness rose in my chest again and again. I bit the inside of my cheek and let the taste of blood hold back the breakdown pressing at my ribs. Then I stood up and ran out. Even after I had run far away, their laughter still followed me. Someone shouted, "Elena! Don't go! Have a drink for your good buddy!" Someone else sneered, "Is she actually crying? Let her go back to her dorm and cry, then. Asher never formed a mate bond with her. What's she so hurt about?" I stood for a long time on the black stone road outside the academy while the northern night wind swept through the pines and dried the tears on my face. My phone lit up. It was a message from Asher. Where are you? Come back. Don't make this ugly. I stared at those words, and suddenly I was seven again. During a pup-training game, I missed the training ball, and all the other children laughed. Asher grabbed a wooden stick and charged over, furious. "She missed the ball. What does that have to do with any of you?" Back then, he was my shield against the whole world. And now, he was telling me not to make things ugly. Another message came in. I just lost a bet. It was truth or dare, that's all. Come back. I'll explain. Truth or dare. My hand shook so badly I almost could not hold my phone. When I was ten, I had a fever that would not break, and I could barely hold my wolf form. Asher climbed over the ironwood fence in my backyard to bring me moon-dew medicine, then got chased three blocks by the neighbor's guard dog. When I was twelve, I lost the territory-wide rune-spelling competition. He threw his own first-place blue ribbon into the trash and said, "This stupid thing doesn't matter. Next time I'll help you win it back." When I was fifteen, at the Moon Crown Ball, someone made a vulgar joke about my late first shift. Asher swung a fist. The skin above his brow split open, and the healer gave him three stitches. He still smiled at me and said, "Doesn't hurt at all." Had he changed? Or had he always been like this, and I had just refused to see it? Had I been lying to myself from the very beginning? I clenched my teeth and turned back. I pushed open the door to the underground training hall, still clinging to one ridiculous shred of hope. The next second, a bucket of ice water poured down from above the doorframe. The freezing water soaked my hair, blurred my vision, and drenched my clothes. I stood there, shaking all over. Wild laughter burst through the underground training hall. "Holy shit! She really came back!" "Serena, you called it perfectly. How did you know she'd definitely come back?" "Asher, a bet is a bet! The necklace. Now!" Serena leaned against Asher, laughing so hard she almost folded over. "I told you she'd come back." She held out her hand. Her silver-white nails flashed coldly under the lights. "Your number one backup mate, obviously. On call whenever you need her."
Asher's mouth moved, but no sound came out. Then he lifted a hand and took the chain from his neck. It was a vintage compass pendant, only half of one. The other half was with me. When we were seven, we had won it at a stall at the Northern Moon Fair. One half for each of us. Neither of us had taken it off since, not even during our first wolf-shifting training. I wore my half beside the moonstone pendant my mother had left me. He called it our lucky charm. He also said that when we finally formed our mate bond, we would put the two halves together. But now, he handed his half to Serena. Serena lifted the pendant under the light, her smile bright and vicious. "So cute. Now it's mine." She tilted her head slightly toward Asher and added, "So are you." I wiped the water from my eyes and stared at Asher. He looked at me. The smile on his face vanished instantly. "What? Do I need your permission to give away my own things?" No explanation. No apology. Only a bucket of ice water and a room full of malice. He was no longer the boy who would stand against the whole world for me. Someone shouted from the door, "Let's go! I booked rooms in Moon Lake Town. Graduation party continues!" The crowd surged toward the door. When Serena passed me, she deliberately stuck out a foot and tripped me. I pitched forward. My knee slammed into the wooden stairs, and pain flashed white behind my eyes. She looked back with a sweet, innocent smile. "Oops. Didn't see you." Then she linked her arm through Asher's and walked out in white canvas shoes. Asher let her pull him along, passing right beside me. He lowered his head and glanced at me. The look was so brief I could not read it. Then he looked away and followed her into the summer night. I knelt on the cold floor. The blood on my knee mixed with the ice water dripping from my hair, falling drop by drop onto the wooden boards. Drip. Drip. Like all the one-sided love I had poured into him over the years. Pathetic and pointless. I could not go home. If Dad saw me like this, his heart would break. I walked the black stone road outside the academy for a long time. In the end, I found a cheap motel in Moon Lake Town and got a room. I stood under the hot water for a very long time, until my body finally felt like mine again. When I came out, my phone was lit up with messages from Asher. Your dad called and asked when you're coming home. I said you were with me. Go home soon. Where are you? Are you safe? Then came a video call. I hesitated, then answered. Asher's face appeared on the screen, still handsome. Behind him was a dim motel hallway. He frowned. "You're at a motel?" "Yeah." "Which one?" "None of your business." After a moment of silence, his tone hardened. "Stay where you are. I don't want to deal with your dad." "Asher." I looked straight into his eyes through the screen. "That compass pendant. Are you really giving it to her?" He opened his mouth, but no words came out. "You said it was ours. You said that on the day we formed our mate bond, we would put them together." He stayed silent. I asked, "You gave it to Serena. Then what am I?" He swallowed. "It's just a cheap piece of metal." I let out a small laugh. "Right. Worthless. Just like me." "Elena..." I hung up. Half an hour later, someone knocked on the door. It was a delivery driver. He brought a tube of ointment for scrapes and a box of hot mac and cheese. I sat on the motel bed while my phone kept vibrating. The Mooncrest Academy graduation group chat was full of videos. Serena and Asher were singing at the party. She leaned on his shoulder with a cup in her hand while a sickly sweet love song played in the background. Comments popped up one after another. "Oh my god, the way Asher looks at her. I'm dead." "Kiss! Hurry up and kiss!"
"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" In the video, Asher was smiling. The way he looked at Serena was open, undisguised affection. He had never looked at me that way. Not once in all three years at Mooncrest Academy. The video froze on Serena leaning closer to him, her lips slightly parted. Then Serena updated the school social feed. She posted a photo of her full-scholarship award letter from Lunar Academy in Eastshore, followed by a photo of her and Asher at the party. The caption read: The perfect ending to my years at wolf academy. A full scholarship to Lunar Academy, and someone who loves me. The comments from mutual friends stung my eyes. "So jealous. Future Alpha boyfriend and genius she-wolf?" "This must be what it looks like to be the Moon Goddess's favorite girl!" Serena replied with a heart. Under that, someone else wrote, "Certain people must be dying of rage right now." "That little shadow? Yeah. We're talking about you, Elena." I locked my phone and fell back onto the cheap mattress. There were water stains on the ceiling, and the fluorescent light hurt my eyes. I thought of all the years I had worked myself to the bone for that Lunar Academy scholarship in Eastshore. Giving up the Moon Crown dance team tryouts. Studying Alpha succession courses until three in the morning. No weekends. More than a dozen folders packed with rune notes. I had been only one step away from that dream. Only one step away from going to the same city as him. His city. He did not know that when I filled out my college applications, every school I chose was in Eastshore. Because he was going there. Because he said he loved the East Coast and Eastshore's snow. So I sent every application there. And now? I sat up, picked up my phone, and logged into the college admissions portal. Then I rejected Lunar Academy's Eastshore offer and accepted another school. Westcliff Academy. A werewolf college on the California coast. He hated summer. He had always said he could not stand the West Coast sun. But in that moment, Westcliff's palm trees, ocean breeze, and sunlight sounded perfect. The West Coast. The farther from him, the better. I tapped confirm, and a green enrollment confirmation page popped up. I turned off my phone and picked up the box of mac and cheese. It had already gone cold. I dumped it into the trash. Cheddar. He knew perfectly well that I hated cheddar, that even the smell made me nauseous. But he did not remember. Just like he knew perfectly well I had always been waiting for him, yet he had never truly walked toward me. The next day, I went back to Mooncrest Academy to clear out my locker and pick up my final paperwork. The moment I stepped into the hallway, every eye landed on me. Contempt, mockery, malice. It nearly drowned me. "Going to a motel on graduation night? That's disgusting." "Who?" "Who else? That little shadow. Someone got video." I stopped. Serena stood by a row of lockers, surrounded by girls from the Moon Crown dance team. She held up her phone and was playing a video. In it, I was in last night's motel hallway, soaked from head to toe, holding my motel key card. Serena covered her mouth and laughed, every word poisoned. "Does this count as leaving in disgrace?" Whispers spread around us. Their stares cut like knives. I walked over and stood in front of her. "Delete it." "Why should I?" She tilted her head, all innocence. "You went to that sketchy motel alone. That's not my fault." "You're spreading lies." "Am I?" She turned to Asher. "Asher, tell us. Wasn't she fooling around with someone last night?" Asher stood nearby with a graduation yearbook in his hand. He looked at the video on her phone, then at me. "Asher." My voice shook. "Tell her. Tell her why I was there last night." He knew. He knew everything. Even if he no longer cared about me, even if eighteen years of growing up in the same pack meant nothing to him, he could at least tell the truth. Right? He looked into my eyes. His tone was casual, almost cruel. "People who hate you will always hate you." I froze. "What?" He said, "If you didn't do anything wrong, what are you afraid of?"
Watch? https://cps-front.novelix.live/app-api/ext/new/20260721DlFQ6aDsAE ? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "Novelix" app ? search for "ni328533", and watch the full series ✨! #Novelix