Rejected by My Mate, So I Became the Enemy Alpha’s Luna

Chapter 9 – Broken Wards

By the time I reached the front steps, the night had teeth.

Wolves were pouring across the yard toward the far end of the compound where the Council had set up their warded bubble—a shimmering dome over the guest lodge and adjoining field. Except the dome wasn’t shimmering anymore.

It was cracking.

Thin lines of pale light spiderwebbed across the invisible barrier, flashing every time something slammed against it from the inside. The air reeked of ozone and burning magic, hair on my arms standing upright.

“Stay back!” Marcus’s roar cut through the chaos. He stood at the edge of the circle, power flaring, warriors flanking him in a half ring. “No one steps over until we know what’s breached!”

“Alpha—” a guard started.

“Did I stutter?”

I pushed through a knot of bodies, ignoring the way people jerked when they realized it was me. Jace appeared at my side like he’d been summoned, breath steaming white.

“What happened?” I demanded.

“Wards blew from the inside,” he said, eyes silvered. “Council’s screaming something about sabotage. I was in the training yard when it hit—felt like someone drove a spike through the bond.”

I had felt that too. Not just through Moonridge. Through Blackpine.

“Kael,” I said, before I could stop myself.

Jace’s head snapped toward me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

My wolf paced, frantic. That brief brush of his presence replayed in my mind—warning, anger, then the clean, terrifying absence.

Inside the failing dome, shadows moved. Figures flickered—wolves mid-shift, Council robes, someone on their knees. A flare of red light exploded against the ward, making it shudder.

Helena’s voice cut through the noise, amplified by power. “Hold your line! Do not break the perimeter!”

She stood dead center of the chaos, coat thrown off, eyes glowing an eerie, pale blue. Her hands were raised, palms out, as if she were physically bracing the cracking shield.

“What’s in there?” I asked Jace.

“Councilors, a few of our people, the visiting alphas…” He swallowed. “Liam.”

My stomach flipped.

A jagged fissure raced down the barrier with a sound like shattering ice. Power slammed into my skin, making my teeth ache.

“We should help,” I said. “Our wolves are in there.”

“And so are theirs,” Marcus snarled. “If I send more of you into a collapsing ward, I give whoever did this double the hostages.”

He wasn’t wrong. It still tasted like ash.

The crack widened. For one heartbeat, through the gap, I saw him.

Not Kael. Another male—dark hair longer than regulation, eyes like polished coal, a jagged brand scorched over one forearm. Surrounded by half-shifted rogues, hand splayed on the inside of the ward, pushing.

Draven.

I didn’t know how, but I knew. Recognition snapped down my spine like a whip. The symbol on his arm matched the marks we’d found on trees near Blackpine. Near here.

He smiled through the fissure. Not at Marcus. Not at Helena.

At me.

“Found you,” his lips shaped, sound eaten by the roaring magic.

Then the ward shattered.

Light and force tore outward in a shockwave. Wolves screamed. The world went white.

My last clear thought before it swallowed me was not of Liam, or Helena, or even my parents.

It was of a cold, severed thread leading toward Blackpine.

If Draven was here, at Moonridge…

Where the hell was Kael Blackthorn?