REALM OF THE LUNA

CHAPTER 3

I felt the exact moment that the mate bond started to break between me and Alpha Devon.

It was more painful than anything the soldiers had put me through in the dungeon as my heart wrenched and I lost air in my lungs.

“No!” I screamed and writhed on the ground, clutching my chest in pain as I tried to get the pain to stop. “Please! Please, stop! I didn’t do any of this. Please, don’t let this happen.”

Alpha Devon wasn’t as affected as I was because he was the one who had rejected me. The bond broke extremely slowly, and each second felt like hell for me.

I started to wheeze for air, grabbing on to my throat as my entire body started to heat up. Everyone stared at me with hate, and nobody made any attempt to help me.

In the blink of an eye, the respect they all had for me as the Luna of the pack had vanished, and all that remained was pure disdain over something I didn’t do.

“Why?” I asked, but I had lost my voice.

I watched as they all turned around and started to hurry to their houses after Alpha Devon dismissed them and left. The rain started to come down hard and fast, and soon enough, I was the only person left out on the field.

I didn’t move until the pain in my heart was gone and the mate bond was completely gone. The rain had soaked through my clothes by then, and I finally managed to stand up.

“I didn’t do it,” I muttered as I walked in the direction of my house, where my family was. Everyone might have turned against me, but I knew that I could turn to my family at any time. They had to know I didn’t do it.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said to nobody, my tears joining the rain drops as I went home.

I knocked on the door when I realized that it was locked, waiting for one of my parents to open the door. The door opened, and both of them stood there and stared at me. My mother’s eyes were slightly wide, as if she hadn’t expected me. My father had a stoic look on his face.

“Mom, Dad,” I cried as I fell into my mother’s arms. “I know you’ve heard what happened. Were you there when Alpha Devon rejected me and stripped me of my title as the Luna? Did you see?”

There was silence at first, and I expected my mother to pull me into the house and find me a place to rest. What I didn’t expect was her pushing me away from herself with a look of disgust on her face.

“Why did you think it was a good idea to come here after what happened?!” She yelled at me.

My brows creased as I looked between her and my father to figure out if this was some sort of sick joke that they had planned to tell together.

“Mom? What are you…” I shook my head. “No. You don’t believe it. Tell me you don’t believe that I did any of this. You know I didn’t do it! I was eighteen years old when they died. I lived in this same house. You know I never planned anything—”

“And how are we supposed to know that you didn’t plan anything behind our backs? Of course you wouldn’t have wanted us to find out about it as well,” Dad accused.

“You have brought nothing but shame to this family. You smeared dirt on our family’s name, and you think we’re going take you in with open arms? You’re a traitor. Treason against the crown is treason to us as well, Anaya. We didn’t raise you like this,” Mom added.

“I didn’t do it.” I didn’t know how many times I would have to say those words, and I was starting to get exhausted of it. “You have to believe me. Mom, Dad, you know me. You know I could never do anything…”

I stopped speaking as my father pulled my mother aside and stood in front of me with a resolved look on his face.

“I think it would be best for everyone if you left right now. We wouldn’t want anyone thinking we entertain traitors here. Leave before I do something a father wouldn’t want to do to his daughter,” he threatened.

“It’s storming out here, Dad,” I said as I went on my knees and clasped my hands together to beg. “Even if you don’t want me here, you can’t send me away in the rain. This is the only place I have. I can just stay until the rain stops.”

“And then what? So that when the rain stops, you can beg to stay for a day? Two days? A week? Get out.” He gestured, stepping forward to let me know that he would not hesitate to use force.

“Don’t let us do something we’ll all regret later, Anaya,” my mother said.

I stood there helplessly as I wondered what I could possibly say to change their minds. Everyone had made up their minds about me, my parents included.

I had no home.

I turned around and walked out of the porch, hugging myself and shivering in the rain as I heard the door slam behind me to signal that they had entered the house and didn’t care what happened to me.

“Oh,” I moaned as I found myself under a tree that barely did anything to shield me from the rain, but it was better than nothing.

I decided that this was it. I didn’t have a mate here, and my family had practically disowned me. It was better for me to be out of that pack than remain there where everyone thought of me as a traitor and would only treat me badly.

As soon as the storm subsided, I found my way out of the pack and into the woods. I didn’t know where I was going, but anywhere had to be better than the pack at the moment.

“I’ll find a home for myself,” I said as I looked up at the sky and wondered if the Moon Goddess was looking down at me. If she was, I wondered what her excuse was for me to go through what I was going through.

The aftermath of the rain was nothing but cold and wet ground. I shivered every minute, but it didn’t stop me. I figured that walking was going to make me warm, so I continued as I tried to find the perfect place to rest.

But the further I walked, the more I started to feel as if I was being watched and followed.

“Hello?” I called out as I stood in the middle of the path I was taking. “Is anyone out there?”

I didn’t know how far I had gotten, but the forest had gotten thicker since I started walking, which meant I was pretty far into my walk from the pack.

When I got no response, I decided to walk on but with more caution this time. Just then, a twig snapped, and I knew I wasn’t alone.

“Whoever is out there…”

The rest of my words were drained out of me when a wolf with red eyes approached me, drill dripping down the sides of its mouth as it opened its mouth and growled at me. From how red its eyes were, I knew what it was. A rogue wolf. And it was hungry.

I didn’t say a thing, and I didn’t need anyone to tell me that I needed to run before I turned around and ran with all my might, but the pain in my body and my weakness slowed me down.

“No!” I screamed as the wolf pounced on me from behind. “Get off!”

I turned around and made an attempt to fight back, but the wolf was ahead of me as it dug its teeth right into the flesh of my thigh and tore through my leg.