Rejected By My Alpha , Claimed By His Father

Chapter Four: The Confrontation

For a long moment, nobody moved.

Luna felt the pack bond spike with tension Kane’s fury pouring through the connection like heat off a fire, and beneath it, something she hadn’t expected: fear.

“You rejected her,” Magnus said, before Luna could speak. His voice was terrifyingly calm. “In front of the whole pack. You don’t get a say in what happens next.”

“She’s still” Kane stopped himself, jaw working. “This is insane. She’s practically my age. You’re my father.”

“And you’re the boy who stood in the Great Hall and called a mate bond inconvenient.” Magnus’s voice sharpened into something with teeth. “You don’t get to play wounded now.”

Kane’s eyes shot to Luna, and for a moment, the fury cracked into something rawer. “Is this what you want? Him?”

Luna’s throat tightened. Three days ago, this man’s rejection had nearly broken her in half. Now she felt strangely, dangerously steady looking at him.

“What I want,” she said, “is to not be spoken about like I’m not standing right here. Both of you.”

Kane blinked, like he hadn’t expected that. Magnus, beside her, said nothing but she caught the faint, satisfied curve of his mouth.

“Luna.” Kane took a step toward her, voice dropping into something pleading. “I panicked. Victor Cole came to my father with the alliance offer, and I thought I thought I had to choose the pack over I made a mistake. I know I made a mistake. Give me a chance to fix it.”

And there it was. The apology she’d waited three days to hear, finally spoken except it didn’t feel like relief. It felt like static, like words aimed at a version of her that didn’t exist anymore.

“You didn’t panic for four weeks, Kane,” she said quietly. “You panicked in front of three hundred witnesses because it was convenient timing to save face with the Coles. I felt the bond die. I know exactly what that felt like. Don’t call it a mistake like it’s something you tripped into.”

Kane’s expression cracked open, raw and stunned, like he hadn’t expected her to fight back instead of fall apart.

“She’s staying,” Magnus said, stepping slightly, deliberately, between them. “As pack. Under my protection. What happens after that is not your concern, Kane.”

“Not my concern?” Kane’s voice rose, wolf bleeding into his eyes, gold going molten. “She was going to be your daughter-in-law. Now you want her as”

“Careful,” Magnus said, low and lethal, “how you finish that sentence.”

The air between father and son went thick with the particular danger of two alphas standing too close to a line neither wanted to be the first to cross. Luna felt the pack bond ripple around them, other wolves in the territory stirring, sensing the tension even from a distance.

“This isn’t over,” Kane said finally, stepping back, eyes still locked on Luna. “You’re making a mistake you don’t even understand yet.”

He disappeared into the trees, and Luna let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“He’s not wrong to be angry,” she said quietly.

“No,” Magnus agreed. “He’s wrong about what he’s angry at.”

Luna turned to look at him, and found him already watching her, something unreadable and heavy in his amber eyes.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Magnus’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes, deliberate and unhurried. “Now,” he said, “I show you what it looks like to be wanted properly.”

Before she could respond, a horn sounded from deep in the territory three sharp blasts, the pack’s emergency signal.

Magnus’s entire body went rigid.

“That’s the border watch.” His voice had shifted instantly, alpha authority snapping into place like armor. “Someone’s crossed onto our land.”

Through the trees, faint but unmistakable, Luna heard it the snarling clash of wolves in combat, and underneath it, a voice she recognized screaming Kane’s name.