Rejected By The Alpha, Desired By The King

AYLA – POV

The token glowed in my hand.

Three sigils now: mine, Neris's… and something new.

Shifting.

Undefined.

It shimmered like a secret not yet born.

Rylan tried to trace the shape. It blurred under his hand.

Daya said nothing, but her blade never left her side. Kael stood beside me, not touching, not asking—waiting.

But the weight in the air told us all the same thing: This wasn't a sign of alliance.

It was a warning.

We returned to the Grove that night.

The ash tree's leaves had begun to curl at the edges. Not from disease. From overuse. Too many threads had passed through here. Too many Luna rites cast in its shade.

It wanted rest. But rest was a luxury we couldn't afford.

The wolves of the lowlands had begun to move. Packs were dividing—some calling for a bondless age, others clinging to the bond with cult-like fervor. Rumors spread of a fourth faction. One with no name.

Rylan was the first to say it aloud.

"They're calling themselves the Unnamed."

They didn't worship bond or Luna or King. They followed whispers. From where, no one knew.

But every time they arrived in a new territory, they left behind two things:

Empty dens and a single black stone.

Cracked.

Veined in silver.

Marked with that same shifting crest, mine.

I spent nights with the token. Meditating. Trying to hear it. To feel the thread behind the glow. It didn't speak but I dreamed.

Wolves with no scent. Eyes like moonless skies. A girl with my face, younger, untouched by power, walking through a forest of silence.

And always the same voice:

"Give us a name."

The Seers summoned me.

Not to counsel.

To confront.

"You have begun a second bond," the eldest said.

"No," I said. "I severed the first. This is something else."

"It grows from you," she said. "And it spreads."

They showed me maps. Runes blooming in spiral patterns across the realm. Not from magic.

From belief.

"They're not choosing you," she said.

"They're becoming you."

Kael found me in the garden after.

"You don't look surprised," he said.

"I'm not."

"Why?"

"Because I never wanted to be worshipped. But I always knew I'd be repeated."

He stared at me. "You think this new mark is a movement?"

I shook my head.

"I think it's a warning."

"Of what?"

"What happens when wolves stop asking who they are—and start asking who they should follow?"

That night, the Unnamed left a message at our borders.

No stone.

No scent.

Just a voice, carried on wind. Not one voice. Thousands.

Saying the same thing:

"Name us, or we name you."

Kael stepped behind me.

"What does that mean?"

I closed my eyes.

"It means we've run out of time."

THE WOLVES WITHOUT FACES 

I should have known silence would be the Unnamed's weapon.

But I didn't expect it to feel like drowning.

The first encounter came at dawn. A sentry post outside the eastern ridge went dark. When we reached it, there was no blood, nobody.

Just wolves, collapsed in a perfect circle, breathing.

Eyes open.

No marks.

No scent.

And when we tried to rouse them—

They whispered:

"She is not one. She is all."

Then they went still again. Not dead, held.

Kael paced the edge of the Grove like a storm kept behind teeth.

"They've erased their own bonds," he said. "Without death."

Rylan lit a rune circle. "Not erased. Redirected."

Daya scowled. "To what?"

All three turned to me.

I didn't answer.

Because I felt it too—The pulse.

Not from the Seers.

Not from the bond. From the mark. The third sigil. Changing shape again.

I took the token to the Mirror Grove. Placed it in the old altar where I first spoke the Luna oath.

No runes rose.

No magic flared.

But the ground began to hum. And from the stone beneath, a face formed—mine. No mouth. No eyes. Just the outline.

And a voice:

"We were never given. We were always taken. And now, we take back."

I stepped back. But the token stayed lit.

That night, the Grove was breached.

No sounds.

No blades.

Just wolves—walking in. Fifty. Maybe more.

None of them spoke.

None of them growled.

They moved in perfect silence. Formed a half-circle around the ash tree and sat, waiting.

Kael arrived, sword drawn. Daya beside him, feral.

But I said, "Stop."

Because they weren't here to kill. They were here to listen.

I stood on the altar.

Looked down at their masked faces.

Each one covered in ash paint.

Eyes hidden.

Marks gone.

And I said:

"Why me?"

They spoke as one:

"Because you gave up the bond."

"What do you want from me?"

"A name."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then we choose another."

I looked to Kael.

Then to Rylan.

Then back to them.

And I whispered:

"Then tell me yours first."

The wolves stood. Removed their masks, and I gasped because I knew their faces.

Every one.

They were wolves I'd failed.

Healers. Guards. Rogues. Alphas.

All once bonded.

All once mine.

Now returned.

Unclaimed.

Unnamed.

And one stepped forward.

Cassia.

She smiled.

And said:

"Give us a name, Luna."

Cassia's eyes held no hate.

No regret.

Only clarity.

"Give us a name, Luna," she said.

And the wolves behind her bowed—not in submission, but in unity.

Each face a memory. A consequence. A choice I didn't know I'd made.

I stepped from the altar.

Approached the first row.

Not as Luna.

Not as sovereign.

As Ayla.

"Why come now?" I asked.

Cassia answered.

"Because no one else will name us without chaining us."

Rylan's magic hummed in warning behind me.

Kael was silent, but I felt him tensing.

Daya stood still as stone, scanning the treeline.

But I raised a hand.

"I understand."

Cassia waited.

"But I cannot give you what you want," I said. "I cannot name what has already named itself."

She frowned. "We are the Unnamed."

"No," I said. "You're the Unmade."

The air shuddered, not from magic. From the bondless threads pulsing through them all—threads that wanted form, structure.

I felt the old crest stir. The third sigil brightened and then cracked, split. Not in defiance but in creation.

A new mark formed across my palm. Threaded. Layered. A braid of origins. The wolves saw it and howled.

Cassia dropped to her knees, in peace.

"We are the Unmade," she whispered.

I nodded.

"And I am your echo," I said.

Their threads pulsed once.

Then fell silent.

Later, Kael cornered me beneath the ash tree.

"You created something new."

"No," I said. "They did. I just spoke it."

"And now?"

"I don't know."

He touched the new mark on my hand.

"Looks like a storm."

I smiled.

"Maybe it is."

We didn't know it yet—But the moment I named the Unmade, a breach opened.

In memory and something stepped through it.

Not wolf.

Not god.

Something that had waited since the bond first broke. 

And now, it had a name to hunt.