Rejected Luna of the King Alpha

Chapter 5 – Leashes

Mara opened the door before I knocked.

“You smell like him,” she said, instead of hello.

The porch light threw new lines into her face, silver into the black of her hair. Behind her, the hallway lamp glowed warm, and over it all clung the faint, sour sweetness of children’s shampoo and cooled tomato sauce.

“I washed my hands,” I said, because my brain had chosen now to be an i***t. “Twice.”

“Not enough.” Her gaze swept me up and down, checking for visible damage like I might’ve left an arm behind. “Inside. Shoes off.”

El made a small strangled noise. “Hi, Mara, love you too.”

“You I’ll yell at later.” Mara stepped aside. “Go see if he’s still awake. If he is, you put him down. Lia and I need to talk where little ears don’t hear.”

El squeezed my elbow in passing and disappeared down the hall toward the back bedroom.

I toed off my shoes, suddenly five years younger, tracking mud in after curfew. The narrow hallway swallowed me in familiar shadows: the crooked picture frame of Mara’s old pack, the chipped hook where my coat had hung since I was nineteen, the faint scuff marks halfway up the wall where small hands liked to slide.

Mara marched to the kitchen. I followed.

She didn’t sit. Just stood by the small square table, arms folded, watching me like I was a bomb someone had balanced on her countertops.

“Well?” she said. “How bad is it?”

I sank into a chair, the cheap wood creaking under me. “The bond reacted for him too.”

Her mouth tightened. “I felt it snap, Lia. The night they broke it. It was done.”

“So did I.” I rubbed at my sternum, like I could erase the phantom ache. “Apparently the universe disagrees.”

She swore under her breath.

“And the Council?” she asked. “Did they get a good look at you while their pet king was staring holes through your skull?”

“Not yet. Just his advisor and head of guard. They escorted me to a private room. Kaiden asked questions.”

Mara’s brows shot up. “Kaiden, is it now.”

“‘Your Majesty’ asked questions,” I corrected. “Wanted to know why the bond is back. As if I’ve been out here doing back‑alley rituals in my spare time.”

“And?”

“And I told him to fix his own mess.” I let my head fall back, staring at the peeling patch of ceiling. “He says the Council won’t tolerate a resurrected bond. That they’ll push for… intervention.”

The room went colder. For a heartbeat, I smelled old stone and burning herbs and heard my own wolf’s hysterical howling.

Mara gripped the back of the chair opposite me until her knuckles whitened. “They will not touch you again.”

“That’s the plan,” I said lightly. “I told him I’m leaving.”

“In three days,” she shot back. “You said three.”

“Thirty,” I corrected automatically. “I said thirty to myself.”

“Exactly my problem.” She slammed her palm down, the sound sharp in the small kitchen. “Every time you make a promise to yourself, you add more rope. You think I don’t see it?”

My temper, frayed and thin, flickered. “What do you want me to do, Mara? Jump on the next train tonight with nothing sorted? Leave you to argue estate law with human tribunals and a hungry Council breathing down your neck?”

“I want you to remember,” she said quietly, “what it felt like to crawl out of that ritual circle half‑feral and empty, and who held you together when he went back to his palace.”

I flinched.

That night lived under my skin like shrapnel: the Council’s cold eyes, Kaiden’s expression carved into something I hadn’t recognized, the snap of the bond and the way my wolf had gone from singing to silence in a single breath. Mara’s hands afterward, rough and shaking as she wrapped me in a stolen blanket and smuggled me out under cover of human traffic.

“I remember,” I said.

“Then you don’t step into their house alone again.” She leaned forward. “If they want to question you, they can do it in a courthouse, with human cameras and lawyers and not a single blessed moonstone in sight.”

“I already agreed to see the royal legal office tomorrow,” I admitted. “About your brother’s will. It’s… the fastest way.”

She swore again, more creatively this time.

Footsteps padded in the hallway. A small, sleepy shape appeared in the doorway, hair sticking up in six directions, clutching a mangled stuffed wolf by one ear.

“Mama?”

All the sharp things in me dulled.

“Hey, bug.” I opened my arms.

He crossed the kitchen on unsteady feet and climbed into my lap like he’d been doing it his whole life. Warm weight, apple‑soap smell, heartbeat fast from half‑waking.

“You were gone long,” he announced into my shoulder.

“Big house,” I said. “Too many rooms.”

“Did you see the king?” His voice dropped conspiratorial. “Gamma says he has a silly hat.”

Mara winced. I snorted. “She would.”

“Did he have a sword?” he pressed. “Gamma said he doesn’t need one, ‘cause he has lots of teeth, but—”

“Okay,” Mara cut in briskly. “That’s enough talk about teeth and kings before bed.”

He twisted to look up at me. In his eyes, the gold flecks caught the kitchen light just so.

“And?” he whispered. “Was he scary?”

I thought of Kaiden’s face when he first saw me. The crack in his composure. The fear under the anger when he talked about the Council.

“Yes,” I said. “But not how you think.”

He considered that like it was a riddle, then nodded solemnly, as if I’d confirmed something important.

“You’re staying now?” he asked. “No more big houses?”

I glanced at Mara. Her expression said Say yes. My bones hummed Twenty‑nine days.

“I’m here tonight,” I said instead, kissing his hair. “Tomorrow we’ll see.”

It wasn’t enough. It was all I could give.

Mara’s shoulders sagged a fraction. “Bed, cub. Gamma’s orders.”

He slid off my lap with dramatic sighing and padded away, stuffed wolf trailing.

When he was gone, the kitchen felt too quiet.

Mara rested her hands on the table, eyes on mine. “You can’t afford to be soft about this, Lia. Not with him. Not with them.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” She searched my face. “Because your wolf is pacing like it’s the first thaw of spring. I can smell it from here.”

“I won’t let them have him,” I said, the words roughening. “Not my son. Not my bond. Not again.”

“That,” she said, “you can build a plan around.”

My phone buzzed on the table. Unknown palace number.

Mara’s gaze dropped to it, then back to me. “Don’t answer tonight.”

I let it buzz itself out.

The screen dimmed, reflected my face back at me: tired, painted, carrying the ghost of another wolf’s storm scent like an invisible bruise.

Thirty days, I’d promised myself.

But the king already had his hands on the leash of my time. The Council would want the other end.

And somewhere between those two, my wolf sat down, bared her teeth, and waited.