Bound By Rejection

Chapter 5: Public Shaming

The next morning, they came for her at dawn.

The heavy cell door shrieked open, and a brutal gust of pine-laced mountain air swept in, sharp and clean after days of wolfsbane and stagnant stone. It stole her breath, but also cleared the last of the haze from her lungs.

Two guards entered. Grim. Silent. Their indifference was as painful as the silver. They yanked her to her feet and unlocked her chains with practiced, harsh efficiency. The silver cuffs hissed as they fell away, and Lyra gasped when bare skin met air. Her arms, raw, bloodied, and trembling, collapsed uselessly at her sides. Her body felt light and dangerously fragile.

No explanation. No kindness.

They dressed her in a roughspun tunic, thin and coarse against her blistered skin. No attempt was made to clean the filth, the dried blood, or the grime from her hair. She was to be paraded as she was: a witch, a criminal, a mad dog. Paraded in filth, hair matted, lips cracked, eyes sunken but burning.

They marched her out of the mountain cells.

The world above was a stunning, agonizing explosion of light and color. The sky beyond the stronghold was streaked with gold and violent pink, the early sun painting unexpected beauty across the horizon. Lyra hadn’t seen the sun in what felt like a lifetime. It should’ve felt like freedom.

It felt like a funeral.

As they dragged her down the winding stone path toward the courtyard, the wolves began to gather.

At first, only a few. Then dozens. Then hundreds.

The entire Emberfang Pack had been summoned to witness her degradation. The courtyard below the highstone platform brimmed with bodies. Soldiers. Elders. Families. Children clung fearfully to their mothers’ skirts. Warriors stood with crossed arms. Enforcers flanked the ritual platform like granite sentinels.

Lyra forced herself to look at them.

She recognized the faces. There was Old Man Tyrus, whose life she had saved from a fever three seasons ago. There was Celia, whose daughter she had mentored in the bow. And there, standing near the front, was young Finn, a pup she used to watch in the den, his small face now contorted with wide-eyed fear and revulsion.

She met Finn’s eyes. Her Luna’s gaze, her fire-blood, it was all there, begging him to see the truth. Finn instantly buried his face into his mother’s side, shaking.

Not one wolf met her eyes for more than a second. Not one showed pity. Only judgment. Only revulsion. Only fear. Her community, her family, had vanished, replaced by a silent, condemning mob.

On the ritual platform, Kael stood beside the Elders, draped in his darkest, most commanding leathers. He looked like the Alpha King he was always destined to be, cold and untouchable.

His eyes found hers as she was forced onto the platform. His expression was a perfect blank slate... he offered her nothing. No apology, no regret, no painful flicker of the man she had loved. He was a stone statue of betrayal.

The female Elder, Maren, stepped forward, holding a branding iron. It was white-hot, humming faintly with low-level spell work.

“Lyra Blackthorn,” Maren’s voice, was amplified by magic, booming across the silent courtyard. “You have been judged. You are a traitor to the Pack, a defiance to the mate bond, and a source of chaos. By the decree of the Alpha and the Council, you must be marked. This mark shall forever denote your status as Unclaimed and Unwanted.”

Lyra stared past Maren to Kael. “You let them do this to me?”

Kael remained silent, but his eyes dropped, confirming the order.

Maren nodded to a powerful guard. The guard grabbed Lyra's forearm, wrenching it taut against the cold marble table. Lyra did not struggle. She reserved her energy for the scream she would not let them hear.

Maren held the hissing iron over her skin. But then, Kael moved.

He took a slow, deliberate step forward, his shadow falling over her face. He reached out and took the branding iron from Maren’s hand.

The Elders murmured protests, but Kael held the iron high.

“She betrayed me,” Kael’s voice cut through the air, low and lethal. “This judgment is mine.”

He did not hesitate.

The white-hot iron slammed into the skin of her right forearm.

Lyra didn’t scream. She couldn’t. The agony was immediate, blinding, soul-searing. The smell of burning flesh, blood, and magic choked her. She arched her back, her muscles screaming in protest.

But in that instant of utter, complete physical annihilation, the world dissolved.

She was no longer on the cold stone. She was floating in a silent, starless expanse of velvet darkness.

A presence materialized beside her. Tall. Ancient. Feminine, yet radiating power that felt older than the mountains. The Goddess.

“They branded you a shame,” the deity said, her voice a soothing balm that quieted the agony of the burn. “They branded you for being a threat to their little kingdom.”

Lyra tried to speak, but only a desperate sob escaped. “Kael… he did this. He allowed it.”

“Because you had to die to rise, Lyra,” the Goddess whispered. “You were trying to wear a crown that didn’t fit, trying to be a Luna who belonged to a man. They have destroyed the woman who loved him. Now, you are free to become the woman who will destroy them.”

“I’m broken,” Lyra whispered, tears finally falling, hot trails on her dirty cheeks. “My wolf… my bond…”

“You are not broken. You are becoming.” The Goddess tilted her head. “You were never meant to follow fate, child. You were meant to lead choice.”

The Goddess rose, her palm open. A glowing white mark swirled there, the polar opposite of the dark, hateful brand Kael had just inflicted. It was a holy sigil of fire, raw power incarnate.

“You are mine now,” the Goddess declared. “Not his. Not theirs. You are claimed.”

The mark floated down to Lyra’s shoulder, opposite the place Kael had burned. It sank into her skin, merging with the pain. Lyra gasped, not from pain, but from a terrifying surge of pure, unadulterated magic.

Her wolf, suppressed for weeks, roared to life within her soul, stronger now. Awake.

“I feel her,” Lyra breathed. “She’s… alive.”

“She was never gone. Just waiting for your surrender to destiny.”

Lyra felt strength surge into her limbs, not physical, but magical.

“What happens now?” she asked, the question laced with ruthless, fresh purpose.

The Goddess smiled.

“Now you survive. Then you rise. And when you do… they will kneel, or they will burn.”

Lyra gasped awake.

The cell returned, cold, real, and cruel. The courtyard was silent. She was back on the stone. Kael was still standing over her, holding the cooling, bloodied iron.

The pain was still there, a throbbing wound on her forearm, but the fever of the wolfsbane was gone. Her shoulder also burned but light glimmered faintly beneath the skin where the Goddess’s mark had sunk in.

It was no longer just a mark of shame. It was a warning.

Lyra slowly lifted her chin, her eyes finding Kael’s. There was no hatred in her gaze now. Only a terrifying, calm certainty.

He had destroyed her past. The Goddess had secured her future.

The silence of the pack was absolute. Lyra knew what they saw: a broken, bloodied animal.

She knew what they would soon see: The Queen of Rejection.