CLAW MARKS ON LANE NINE

Sixty thousand people watched me lose, and not one of them was surprised.

The gun cracked, and by the time my second foot hit the track, the other seven runners were already pulling away. That was the thing about being the only wolf in the Ironfoot Pack without a wolf. Everyone else ran with something fierce and alive beneath their skin. I ran with stubbornness, and it had never once been enough.

But tonight I had a reason. The Alpha's Cup was the one race where the winner earned a place on the pack's racing team, and the team meant a salary, a house, and a seat at the family table my father had stopped saving for me years ago. If I finished first, even once, he would have to look at me. That was all I wanted. One look.

So I ran.

"And Sienna Marsh takes the lead," the announcer's voice rang through the stadium. "Back in lane nine, Ivy Calder is dead last, as usual."

Laughter rolled down from the stands. I kept my eyes on the white line ahead of me and counted my breaths. In, out. In, out. My lungs burned, my calves cramped, and the gap kept growing no matter how hard I pushed.

On the last bend, my foot caught the edge of the lane line. My ankle folded, and I hit the rubber hard, palms skidding, knees scraping raw. The stadium made one long, delighted sound.

Get up, I told myself. Get up, get up, get up.

I did. I limped the last forty meters with blood running down my shins and the cameras swinging toward me like I was the evening's entertainment. By the time I crossed the finish line, Sienna was already on the podium with a gold medal at her throat, flicking her glossy hair over her shoulder for the crowd.

And beside the podium stood Kael Ashford.

I had seen his picture a thousand times. Alpha of the Ironfoot Pack at twenty-four, tall and broad-shouldered in a black suit, with eyes the color of storm clouds. Every girl in the pack dreamed of being noticed by him. I had stopped dreaming years ago, because dreams cost too much when you have nothing to pay with.

Then his eyes landed on me, and the whole world tilted.

Warmth flooded my chest, sweet and sudden, like sunlight pouring through a window I hadn't known was there. The air between us pulled tight. Every story I'd ever heard about the mate bond came rushing back, and my heart beat so hard I thought the cameras would hear it.

Mate, a voice whispered in my head. Mine.

It wasn't a wolf's voice, because I didn't have one. It was only my own hope, shouting inside my own skull.

Kael went rigid. His hand curled into a fist at his side, and for one second I saw something raw cross his face, something like shock, or fear. Then it was gone, and his expression closed like a locked door.

He stepped off the podium and walked toward me across the track. The cameras followed. The stadium slowly went quiet.

"Kael," I said, my voice cracking. "I think you're..."

"Don't." He stopped an arm's length away. "Don't say it."

"But the bond. You feel it too. I know you do."

"I feel it." He said it flatly, like it disgusted him. "That's the problem."

Someone in the crowd gasped. The big screen above us flickered, and my face appeared thirty feet tall, bloody and dirt-streaked, with Kael's profile beside it. Every second of this was live.

"Please," I whispered. "Not here."

"Here is exactly where it has to be." He lifted his chin and spoke loudly enough for every microphone on the track. "My mate must be a champion, someone who makes this pack proud. Not a girl who can't finish a race on her feet."

My throat closed. "I trained every day of my life."

"And you're still the slowest wolf alive." His voice didn't soften. "Ivy Calder, I reject you as my mate."

The words hit harder than the fall. I felt them physically, a crack straight down the middle of my chest.

"I reject you in front of my pack and the moon goddess," he said, "and I release you from every claim I might have had on you."

The silence that followed was the worst part. Then a single voice called out from the stands, "Finally," and the crowd erupted into laughter and applause.

I looked toward the Ironfoot section. My father sat among the elders with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the ground. He would not look at me. That one look I had run for, the only prize I had ever wanted, and he wouldn't give it to me even now.

I could have begged. A small, shameful part of me wanted to. But I had spent eighteen years begging this pack for scraps of respect, and I knew exactly how that ended.

So I straightened my back, even though my ankle screamed. I met Kael's eyes, and I made my voice as steady as I could.

"I accept your rejection."

The bond tore.

Pain ripped through my body, so sharp that I dropped to my knees on the track. It felt like my ribs were splitting open, like every nerve was being pulled out of me one by one. I clawed at the rubber, gasping, while the cameras zoomed in and the crowd cheered.

Kael turned and walked away. But he paused for a heartbeat, with his back to me and his hand shaking at his side. Then he kept walking.

I don't remember crawling off the track. I remember the tunnel, dark and cold and smelling of concrete, and my own breath sawing in and out. I remember pressing my forehead to the wall, shaking so hard my teeth rattled.

I wasn't crying. That was the strange part. The tears should have come, but instead there was only a thick, unfamiliar heat spreading through my chest, right where the bond had snapped.

Then I heard it. A low, steady thump that was not my heartbeat.

Thump.

My fingers tingled. I looked down, and in the dim light my nails were darker than they should have been, and sharper at the tips.

From somewhere deep inside me, in the place that had been empty my whole life, something opened its eyes.

And it was furious.