The Rejected Luna

The loyal beta

The next morning felt like waking into a nightmare I couldn’t shake.

The Shadow Woods were quieter than they had been during the night. Mist still clung to the undergrowth, curling around roots and branches like ghostly fingers, and the faint scent of blood still hung in the air where the rogues had fallen. I didn’t know how long I had slept—or if I had slept at all. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Kaelen’s face as he uttered the words that had ripped me apart.

I reject you.

Even now, the echo of it rattled in my chest like broken glass.

Beside me, Darius was already awake. He leaned against a tree trunk, arms crossed over his bare chest, eyes narrowed as if scanning the woods for threats. He hadn’t left my side since the ceremony. He hadn’t asked permission, hadn’t given me a chance to tell him to go. He just stayed.

I hated that part of me was grateful for it.

“Morning, little wolf,” he said without looking at me.

“Don’t call me that,” I muttered, sitting up. My gown was filthy and torn, the white silk stained with dirt and streaks of dried blood. The girl who had walked into Moonstone Hall last night didn’t exist anymore.

His lips quirked faintly. “You’re awake, so you get to tell me what not to call you. That’s progress.”

I scowled, dragging my fingers through my tangled hair. “You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re alive. You’re welcome.”

My chest tightened. He wasn’t wrong. If not for him, the rogues would have torn me apart before I ever discovered… whatever that power inside me was. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. I wasn’t ready to face it yet, not after the voice, not after the witch.

I stood slowly, brushing dirt from my gown. “I should go back.”

Darius’s head snapped toward me, his eyes sharp. “Back? To what? To Kaelen? To the pack that watched and laughed while he humiliated you?”

His words stung because they were true. I remembered their whispers, their pitying stares, Lyra’s mocking laughter. My cheeks heated with shame all over again.

“I can’t stay out here forever,” I whispered.

He pushed off the tree and closed the distance between us, his presence heavy, commanding. “No. But you don’t walk back into that Keep like nothing’s changed. You walk in with me.”

I blinked, stunned. “With you?”

His smirk was gone, his tone fierce. “Yes. If they want to look at you, let them look at me too. Let them see who stands at your side. You’re not alone, Aria, not unless you choose to be.”

Something in his voice made my wolf stir, conflicted, torn between grief and the strange safety he offered. I wanted to argue, but another sound cut through the forest before I could.

A familiar scent hit me first—pine and steel, steady and sharp. Then a figure appeared through the mist.

“Aria!”

Selene Frost.

Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly gave out. Selene had been my closest friend since childhood, though calling her friend never felt like enough. She was Beta-born, her lineage noble and proud, yet she had never treated me like I was less. She had always defended me, always stood in my corner when the others whispered behind my back.

She reached me in seconds, her pale blonde braid swinging over her shoulder, her green eyes blazing with worry. Without hesitation, she grabbed me and pulled me into a crushing hug.

“Oh, Goddess, you scared me half to death,” she breathed, pulling back to scan me from head to toe. “When you ran out last night, I tried to follow, but the guards held me back. I thought—” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Tears pricked my eyes at her sincerity. Selene wasn’t like the others. She didn’t look at me with pity or scorn. She looked at me like I mattered.

“I’m here,” I whispered, my throat tight. “I’m okay.”

Her gaze flicked to Darius then, narrowing instantly. “And why exactly are you here?”

Darius arched a brow, clearly unbothered by her hostility. “Because your Alpha brother decided to be an i***t. Someone had to protect her.”

Selene bristled. “Protect her? Or stake a claim on her? Because word is already spreading through the pack like wildfire. Everyone’s saying you—”

“I did,” Darius interrupted bluntly, his voice steady. “I claimed her.”

Selene’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes darted between us, disbelief and outrage warring in her expression. “You can’t just—”

“I can,” he said flatly. “And I did.”

I shook my head quickly. “Selene, it’s not what it sounds like—”

She grabbed my hands, her grip tight, desperate. “Aria, you don’t have to accept this. You don’t have to let him use you as a weapon in his feud with Kaelen. You deserve more than being a pawn in their war.”

Her words sliced me because they echoed the fear that had been gnawing at me since last night. Was I just caught between brothers? A prize tossed aside by one and claimed by the other out of spite?

But then I remembered the look in Darius’s eyes when he stood over me, when he told me I wasn’t cursed, when he told me I wasn’t weak. It hadn’t felt like spite. It had felt like truth.

Still, I whispered, “I don’t know what I deserve anymore.”

Selene’s face softened instantly, her eyes filling with sorrow. “You deserve better than rejection in front of the whole pack. Better than whispers and laughter. Better than being torn apart by brothers who can’t see past their pride.”

I swallowed hard, fighting tears. Selene always had a way of cutting through the noise, of speaking to the wound no one else dared touch.

Darius, of course, wasn’t swayed. “She deserves safety,” he said firmly. “She deserves protection. And if Kaelen won’t give it, I will.”

Selene shot him a glare. “You think protecting her means claiming her? You don’t get to decide her fate, Darius.”

The tension between them crackled, heavy and sharp. I stepped back, pressing a hand to my temple. My head ached, my heart ached, my soul ached.

“I can’t…” My voice cracked. “I can’t choose between this right now. I can’t even breathe without feeling like I’m breaking apart.”

Both of them fell silent. For the first time since last night, the weight of their rivalry seemed to ease. Selene reached for me again, her voice gentle now. “Then don’t choose. Just let me take you home.”

The word home made my chest tighten. Stormrider Keep was no home to me anymore. It was a fortress of humiliation, of whispers that would follow me down every corridor. But Selene’s eyes were pleading, and I couldn’t bring myself to refuse her.

“I’ll go with you,” I whispered.

Darius’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t argue. Not this time.

The three of us began the slow walk back toward the Keep. My legs felt heavy, my heart heavier. The world beyond the Shadow Woods loomed ahead—bright daylight, sharp reality, and the pack waiting to devour me with their stares.

But Selene’s hand never left mine. And Darius’s shadow never left my back.

For the first time since the rejection, I felt the faintest sliver of strength returning—not from Kaelen, not from the Goddess, but from those who chose to stand beside me when the world fell apart.

Maybe that was enough.

Maybe it had to be.