Chapter 1: The Helix Repopulation Mandate

On paper, the Helix Repopulation Mandate is a sacred mate identification ceremony that removes rank and ensures genetic diversity.

Complete horseshit.

Think breeding pageant meets fantasy league with a side of human trafficking.

The mandate was signed after the Great War nearly ended wolf-kind. Every five years, women get drafted in a ceremony called the Moonfire Rite. It decides who gets a mate, who gets sold, and who goes straight to the Lottery.

This is the story about how one slave kicked that sacred mandate in the balls.

It started on elimination day.

Ten thousand wolves were in the arena. Pack banners hung off every column.

"BOOO!"

"WALK FASTER, FREAK!"

Nothing screamed more sacred than a shitfaced crowd heckling a little girl. Nova Grey’s legs kept moving because stopping wasn’t an option. Right up until her boot snagged on her cloak and she fell face-first in the sand.

The crowd lost it, like it was exactly what they wanted. Nova lost it too.

Hot tears she’d been fighting since the tunnel finally won, hitting the sand beneath her. Wiping them meant lifting a hand and lifting a hand meant the crowd would see it shake.

Every single person in the stands had someone who loved them. Someone who would care if they cried. Someone who knew their name and said it with warmth. They had no idea that underneath the cloak was just a girl who was already nervous about today because being judged wasn’t easy. A girl whose name no one used, whose face no one saw, whose absence no one would feel. Just a girl doing her best who had never felt more alone than she did right now.

Not a single soul in this arena cared about the girl in the cloak. Except one.

By the end of the hour, the most eligible Alpha in Helix would be on his knees in the sand for that girl.

To get there, we need to go back. Before Nova entered the arena, a princess entered first.

Rewind five minutes.

"Celeste Starborne, Firstborn Daughter of Alpha Lucian Starborne."

The Starborne section erupted before the name was finished. Their princess was the number one seed everywhere and rumored to be Alpha Thunderfang’s fated mate.

Celeste entered waving at the crowd like it was prom night and the Gods had personally tapped her on the ass and said ’you’re it.’

Alpha Starborne sat front row with his arms crossed and a face full of uncut fatherly pride. Luna on his right. Son on his left cheering for big sis.

One big happy family. Cute.

Celeste’s hologram portrait appeared above her name. Beautiful. Dark hair. Airbrushed by a team who understood the goddamn assignment.

PACK: STARBORNE

RANK: ALPHA

NAME: CELESTE STARBORNE

In the slave tunnel, Nova Grey was sitting with silver bands on her wrists and ankles. Celeste was one of the cruelest people she had ever met and the crowd had no idea.

She crossed her fingers because the absolute worst thing that could happen would be—

"Registration #7709."

Nova’s stomach dropped.

Slave versus Alpha princess. The oldest lighting trick in the book. Silver cuffs guaranteed last place and all slaves wore them. But Nova couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that. Her problem was much dumber in comparison: Alpha Starborne ordered her to wear a cloak if she was paired with Celeste specifically.

Cloaks were the official uniform of "long-term silver ate her face." So the crowd was going to assume she was deformed and boo her. Every single cloaked girl had come back crying.

Worse existed. She’d met it. That didn’t make her immune.

Hood up. Face hidden. The moment she stepped into the arena, the crowd said hello.

"BOOOOOO!"

Right on schedule. The sound of a thousand people hating you at the same time. Her ribs tightened like someone had grabbed them from the inside. She swallowed the lump in the back of her throat and forced herself to breathe.

Nova’s picture didn’t appear on the hologram. Just a blank square where a face should have been.

PACK: STARBORNE

RANK: SLAVE

NAME: REGISTRATION #7709

Across the stadium, Celeste shot Nova a dirty look that, if Nova had seen it, would’ve translated to: Remember what Father promised. Forty lashes. And no lottery for you. Straight to sterilization.𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Nova didn’t see because her cloak was too goddamn big. But the jumbotron caught it and Celeste had no idea.

That should have been the warning. A red flag. Because why would a princess feel the need to glare at a slave?

The crowd did not care. They had come to boo fabric.

"Pull the hood back! Let’s see the damage!"

"No, don’t! That’s gross!"

In the Thunderfang section, Alpha Landon stopped breathing. His brother Derek had named this entire day a blessed dumpster fire and he had to agree.

"Someone lost a circus." Derek pointed at the tent moving very slowly to the center of the stadium.

"Let her be, Derek."

"I’m just saying. That thing has more wrinkles than Elder Thoren."

"Twenty tokens says she’s bald under there," the Thunderfang Beta offered.

"Forty she’s missing a limb and possibly a future," Derek countered. "Nobody gets wrapped like a condemned building because they have split ends. She lost options. Sit the fuck down and think of a bet that doesn’t make the entire section want to change packs, Tavian."

"Sixty says you both shut the hell up," Landon snapped.

"Bold wager from a man sitting between us voluntarily, Brother. You could’ve sat literally anywhere else."

Landon turned his head slowly and shot Derek a look that would have made a normal wolf flinch.

Derek absorbed it like sunlight. "Your future wife seems to be handling the spotlight with real grace. Very humble."

Celeste was waving to her pack again, nice and big for the jumbotron.

Landon rolled his eyes. "She’s not going to be my future wife."

"Her or tent girl. Two choices. Go."

"I choose the drink."

Finally, Nova reached the center of the arena. Ten thousand people were screaming at her, but she stood still like the sound had been turned off. That was the thing that Landon couldn’t shake.

Derek followed Landon’s sightline and something shifted behind his eyes. "Three options: she is a robot, she is deaf, or she doesn’t understand the meaning of boo."

Landon didn’t hear his brother. The longer he watched, the hotter his blood ran. Then his wolf surged and his vision flickered molten gold at the edges.