Chapter 1 The Night Before The Fall

Aurora:

“I, Alpha Levi Kingston, reject you, Aurora Anderson, as my chosen mate by the Moon Goddess.”

Morning light spilled through the tall windows, gold and clean, catching the edge of the silk sheet tangled around my legs. The air smelled faintly of coffee and the salt that clung to Seattle mornings as I get out of bed in search of my clothes with the sheets wrapped around me.

For half a second I actually laugh.

Levi stood near the balcony doors, still in the tux shirt from last night, collar open, sleeves rolled. His tie hung loose around his neck like a memory he hadn’t decided to keep.

“I, Alpha Levi Kingston, reject you, Aurora Anderson, as my chosen mate by the Moon Goddess.”

He repeated, standing there in sunlight, saying something that sounds like a myth he doesn’t believe in.

“Wait... what?”

Then the air turns heavy. A bolt of fire tears through my chest, bright enough to steal the breath from my lungs. I reach for the bedpost, but my knees give out before I can find it.

Levi catches me. I feel the tremor in them before I even see the gold flaring in his blue eyes. For one wild heartbeat there’s something between us, an invisible thread, humming and then it snaps.

The pain hits like static, running all the way to my heart. The shock of it knocks the air out of me.

“Levi… what did you..”

He pulls back as if my touch burns. His jaw locks; his voice goes cold, measured, rehearsed.

“I reject you,” he says again, softer but sharper. “You are not my mate.”

The words land like shrapnel. The sunlight turns cruel. I can taste metal, blood, maybe heartbreak and somewhere behind my ribs something caves in.

He looks at me once more, gold flickering back to blue, then turns away.

The smell of coffee lingers. The sheets still hold his warmth. The evidence of last night still lingered, And I stand there, trying to remember how to breathe in a world that suddenly doesn’t have him in it.

A white-hot current races down my spine again.

The pain keeps blooming, sharper, louder. He looks at me and the last think I remember before everything goes dark is him rushing to catch me. The gold in his eyes returning.

One day earlier:

“Absolutely not, Warren,” I say, dropping the memo on his desk hard enough to rattle his mug.

My editor leans back in his chair, gray curls glowing under fluorescent lights. “You’re going,” he says, too calm to argue with. “Kingston Foundation Gala. Big donors, bigger egos. Try not to insult anyone until dessert.”

“Warren, I cover corruption and money-laundering, not champagne fountains.”

“Exactly. Corruption wears suits and drinks Dom Pérignon. You’ll blend right in.”

I groan. “You realize the company budget barely covers caffeine?”

He slides an envelope toward me. “Use it. Buy a dress. Or rent one. Pretend to like humanity for a few hours.”

“Why me?”

“Because you ask the questions people are too polite to ask, and because you need to leave this office before your soul turns into a spreadsheet.”

He’s impossible to fight. Warren’s been my mentor since my first internship. The kind of man who lectures you on ethics and then secretly pays your cab fare home. I sigh, pick up the envelope.

“Fine. But when security throws me out for asking about offshore accounts, you’re posting my bail.”

“I’ll expense it,” he says, smiling into his coffee.

By the time I reach my desk, Maggie Bishop is already perched on it like a sparkly crow, swinging a garment bag.

“You’re going to a gala!” she squeals.

“Correction,” I say. “I’m going to a career funeral.”

“Semantics.” She grins, thrusting the bag at me. “Emerald. Backless. Legally required to cause at least three crises of faith.”

“I can’t afford...”

“Relax. Sample closet. My department owes you for editing that influencer feature.”

I rub my temples. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m magical,” she says. “Now sit. Hair, makeup, possibly an exorcism.”

I laugh despite myself. Maggie’s our fashion editor and my best friend. A hurricane of glitter and caffeine who refuses to let me fade into grayscale.

While she pins my hair, I remind her, again, that my “entertainment column” cover is just that... a cover. The real story is a foundation funnelling money into a private security firm.

“So basically, we’re spying on rich wolves in couture,” she says.

“Something like that.”

“Dream job,” she mutters.

By eight p.m., the Seattle Skyline Hotel looks like a glass palace suspended in clouds. Spotlights cut through mist, limousines line the entrance, and every guest smells like old money and good perfume.

Maggie links her arm through mine. “Confidence. Shoulders back. Pretend you own the place.”

I inhale, paste on my press smile, and step into the ballroom. Music swells, waiters glide by with champagne, and the air feels expensive.

For a moment I almost forget why I’m here. Chandeliers scatter light like constellations. The city beyond the windows glows gold. Then I see him.

Levi Kingston.

Tall. Composed. The kind of man who looks like the world bends politely out of his way. The heir to Kingston Industries, clean-cut, controlled, completely untouchable.

Our eyes meet across the crowd.

The noise drops away. My pulse doesn’t. Something inside me stirs, quiet but certain, like recognition without reason.

I break the stare, muttering to Maggie, “Great. The universe gives me heart palpitations over the most expensive man in the room.”

She follows my gaze and whistles low. “Sweetheart, if that’s sin, I’m ready to convert.”

“Focus,” I whisper. “We’re here for work.”

But the problem is, for the first time in years, work isn’t the only thing on my mind.

The night will end with laughter, moonlight, and a mistake I’ll replay for the rest of my life.

Tomorrow, he’ll say the words that shatter me.

But right now, under the glow of glass and gold, Levi Kingston is just a man, and I’m still foolish enough to believe in fate.