The Discarded Luna

The Man I Don't Recognize

Seraphine's POV

The hallway had gone quiet, but my heart was still racing like it hadn't gotten the message.

I sat on the edge of the bed in Rhydian's room, my hands pressed flat against my knees to stop them from shaking. Every few seconds, the words replayed in my head, Killian's mocking voice, Nadia's sharp glare, the way both of them had looked at me like I was something that had crawled in through the wrong door.

A runt. That was what he called me.

I pressed my lips together and stared at the floor. In Kade's pack, I had grown used to feeling invisible. Kade never looked at me the way a mate should. He never held my hand in front of others, never once stood between me and anyone who dared insult me. But at least there, the insults came quietly, behind closed doors, in whispers I could pretend I hadn't heard.

Here, in this new pack, the insults came loud, straight to my face, from people who had known me for less than an hour.

"What did I walk into?" I whispered to the empty room.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to piece together everything that had happened since Killian showed up. He wanted the throne. That much was obvious. And Nadia, whoever she really was to Rhydian, clearly wanted to be standing where I was standing now.

Then there was that whisper. The one Killian had leaned in and said right before he laughed his way out of the hallway.

She won't be here for long, and you know that.

My arms tightened around myself. What did that mean? Did he know something about me? About my past with Kade? Or was it a threat, plain and simple, one uncle promising a nephew that this new mate wouldn't last long?

I didn't understand it. And not understanding it terrified me more than if he had just come out and said something cruel to my face.

The sound of the door swinging open pulled me straight out of my thoughts.

I turned quickly, my breath catching in my throat, half expecting Nadia or Killian to have followed me up here to finish what they started downstairs.

It was Rhydian.

Relief washed over me for exactly one second before something in his expression stopped it cold. His jaw was tight. His eyes, the same eyes that had looked at me with such warmth back in Kade's pack, now looked flat, distant, almost annoyed.

"Why were you wandering around the pack hall?" he asked, his voice clipped. "I told the maid to keep you in this room."

I opened my mouth, but no words came out right away. My throat felt tight.

"I just wanted to see the pack house," I finally managed to say a word. "I didn't think…."

"You didn't think," he repeated, cutting me off before I could finish.

He walked further into the room, closer to me than I expected, and I found myself instinctively leaning back.

"Rhydian," I said carefully, "who was that man? Why does he hate me so much already?"

He ignored the question completely, like I hadn't even spoken.

"Listen to me," he said instead, his voice lower now, but no warmer. "You need to be careful in this pack. Trust no one. Whatever you hear, whoever tells you something, do not believe it until it comes from me directly."

My eyebrows pulled together. "Trust no one? Rhydian, you're scaring me more than your uncle did."

"Good," he said flatly. "Maybe then you'll actually listen."

I stared at him, waiting for some kind of softness to return to his face, some trace of the man who had knelt in front of an entire pack and asked me if I was still willing to be his mate. That man had looked at me like I was precious. This man in front of me now barely seemed to see me as that right now.

"Where is he?" I asked quietly.

Rhydian blinked. "Where is who?"

"The Rhydian who offered me the mate bond in front of everyone," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "The one who told the whole pack he still wanted me, no matter what they said about my past. Where did he go?"

Something flickered across his face, gone as fast as it appeared. For a moment I thought he might answer me honestly. Instead, his expression hardened even further.

"That Rhydian brought you here to keep you safe," he said. "This Rhydian needs you to survive long enough for that to matter."

"That's not an answer," I whispered.

"It's the only one you're getting right now."

I felt something c***k quietly in my chest, though I couldn't explain exactly why his coldness hurt more than Killian's cruelty had.

Maybe because I had let myself believe, for one small moment back at Kade's pack, that someone finally wanted me. And now, standing in front of him, I wasn't sure that belief had been real at all.

"You're not even going to tell me what your uncle meant?" I pressed. "About me not being here for long?"

His silence stretched long enough that I thought he wouldn't answer at all.

"Forget what he said," Rhydian finally muttered.

"How can I forget it when I don't even understand what that mean?"

"Seraphine." My name came out sharp, almost warning.

I flinched slightly, and something about that small movement seemed to bother him, though he didn't soften because of it. Instead, he took another step closer, and I felt the air around us shift, heavier suddenly, pressing against my skin like an invisible hand.

It took me a second to realize what was happening. His alpha aura. I had felt something like it before, faint traces of it back in Kade's pack whenever an alpha addressed the crowd. But this was stronger, closer, wrapping around me until my back met the wall before I even realized I had been moving.

"Rhydian," I said, my voice barely above a whisper now, "you're hurting me?"

He didn't answer. His eyes stayed locked on mine, unreadable, while the pressure of his presence kept pushing against me, not violent, but impossible to ignore, impossible to step away from.

My hands searched blindly beside me for something to hold onto, anything to steady the sudden dizziness creeping into my head. My fingers found the edge of the bedframe, and I gripped it tightly, my knuckles turning pale.

"Please," I said, though I wasn't even sure what I was asking for anymore. But with my thoughts I kept asking him to please stop looking at me like a stranger. Please be the man who chose me in front of everyone.

The room tilted slightly around me.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but the words never made it out.

Everything went dark, and I felt my body give way, sinking backward

onto the bed beside me, the last thing registering in my mind the sound of Rhydian shouting my name.