THE ALPHA WHO REJECTED ME BEGGED FOR MY RETURN

CHAPTER EIGHT: LIAR

I didn't even get to take off my snowy boots.

I had just made it to my room, my hands still shaking from slapping Kael, my cheek wet from tears I didn't want anyone to see, when Mara burst in without knocking.

"They're back," she said, her face tight. "And this time that b***h brought backup."

I knew who she meant before she said the name.

Selene.

I looked out my stone window. At the main gate of the Northern fortress, there were not three wolves now. There were ten. Kael was still there, being held back by two Northern warriors, his face red from my slap. And next to him stood Selene Jones in a white fur coat that probably cost more than my mother's house, her red hair perfect despite the snow. Behind her were three Silvermoon Elders, including Elder Thomas who banished me, and a human man with a medical bag.

A doctor.

My stomach dropped straight to my feet. My hand went automatically to my stomach.

"What does she want?" I whispered.

"She's shouting that you are a lying, manipulative rogue who faked a white wolf transformation and faked a pregnancy to trap her fiance," Mara said, disgusted. "She brought her own pack doctor to 'prove' you are not pregnant. And Elder Thomas is demanding we hand you over because you are still technically Silvermoon property as a banished omega."

Property. Like a chair.

Lucian appeared in my doorway, already wearing his Alpha King coat. His face was thunder.

"Are you okay to come down? You don't have to. I can send them away right now. I can have Kael's tongue cut out for calling your pup a bastard, and I can have Selene thrown into the river."

His offer was so violent and so protective that for a second I almost laughed.

"No," I said. "If I hide now, they will say I was lying. I have to face her. Especially her."

Lucian studied me. "Your pup - the stress -"

"My pup is an Alpha's pup," I said, repeating his own words. "It is strong. And I want my pup to see that its mother does not hide from liars."

He nodded slowly. "Then stay behind me. You speak only when I tell you to. Understand, little wolf? This is politics now, not just heartbreak."

We walked down to the yard together. The snow had started again, heavier. The entire Northern pack had come out to watch. Warriors lined the walls. Old women peeked from windows. Children stared.

Selene saw me first. Her perfect face twisted.

"Aria Cross!" she shouted, her voice high and fake. "You disgusting, wolfless liar! You follow us here? After Kael rejected you? Have you no shame?"

I felt Kael flinch next to her. He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time.

Elder Thomas stepped forward, leaning on his staff. "Aria Cross, you were banished from Silvermoon. You are not allowed to step within three hundred miles of pack land. Yet here you are, on Northern land, spreading lies that you carry the Silvermoon Alpha's heir. This is a crime against our alliance. Alpha King Lucian, we demand you return this girl to us for punishment."

Lucian didn't even look at him. He looked at Selene.

"And you are?" he asked, his voice bored.

Selene puffed up. "I am Selene Jones, daughter of Alpha Marcus of the East, and chosen Luna of Silvermoon. Kael's fiancee."

"Chosen," Lucian repeated, tasting the word. "Not fated. Chosen. Interesting."

Selene's cheeks went red. "Fated or chosen, it is more than she will ever be. She is wolfless! Everyone knows it! She never shifted! And now she claims she is a white wolf? And pregnant? Please! She was always jealous of me! She wants Kael back because he is an Alpha and she is nothing!"

Kael finally spoke. "Selene, stop-"

"Don't tell me to stop, Kael! You were crying over her! You knelt for her! You are my fiance!" Selene screamed, losing her perfect act. Then she turned back to me, pointing her manicured finger. "You! You were always after him! You let him touch you by the lake, didn't you? You seduced him! And now you come up with this fake pregnancy to trap him!"

The human doctor with the bag stepped forward nervously. "Miss, if I could just examine-"

"No one will examine her," Lucian said, his aura flaring so hard the doctor stumbled back. "No one touches her without her permission."

I took a deep breath. The cold air burned my lungs. Lyra was roaring inside me. Let me out! Let me rip her throat! She called our pup fake!

Not yet, I told her. We will do it better.

I stepped out from behind Lucian, despite his warning look. I walked into the middle of the yard, into the snow, so everyone could see me. My white hair was loose now, blowing. My gold eyes were glowing faintly. I was still in my wet training clothes, my boots covered in vomit and snow. I must have looked like a mess. But I felt powerful.

"Selene," I said, my voice carrying in the quiet yard. "You said I am wolfless. You said I never shifted. You said I am lying."

"Yes! You are!" she shouted.

"Then explain this."

And I let Lyra come.

I didn't fully shift - Dr. Evans said not to - but I let Lyra push halfway. My nails turned to claws, my teeth to fangs, my eyes went full, blazing gold, and a wave of pure, ancient Alpha power exploded out of me. The snow around me melted in a perfect circle. My hair lifted as if by wind. And behind me, in the air, formed a giant, ghostly shape of a white wolf, ten feet tall, made of snow and light and spirit, howling silently.

The white wolf spirit. The mark of a true white Alpha. The thing from the old books.

Every single wolf in the yard, Northern and Silvermoon, including Kael and his warriors, fell to their knees. Not because they wanted to. Because their wolves forced them to bow to a higher Alpha.

Every wolf except one. Selene. She stayed standing because her wolf was too weak to even recognize what I was. She stared, her face white as paper.

"What... what are you..." she whispered.

"I am what you said I could never be," I said, my voice now layered with Lyra's, echoing. "I am a white wolf. The last one. And I am not lying about my pup."

I placed both hands on my stomach. "You brought a doctor to prove I am not pregnant? Fine. I will let your doctor examine me. But only if you agree to the old law. The Law of False Accusation. Do you remember it, Elder Thomas?"

Elder Thomas, kneeling in the snow, his face terrified, nodded shakily. "If... if a she-wolf is accused of faking a pregnancy to trap an Alpha, and the accusation is proven false... the accuser... the accuser is publicly whipped and banished..."

Selene's eyes widened. She didn't know that law. She was an Eastern pack girl, not Silvermoon.

"You want to prove I am lying?" I looked at Selene. "Then risk your own place. Let your doctor check me. In front of everyone. If I am not pregnant, I will leave the North forever and never show my face to Kael again. But if I AM pregnant..."

I let the ghostly white wolf behind me growl, its silent howl shaking snow from the roofs.

"...if I am pregnant, you will be whipped ten times in this yard, stripped of your chosen Luna title, and banished from both Silvermoon and the North. Do you accept?"

Silence. Absolute silence. The snow fell on Selene's white fur coat.

Kael looked up from his knees, his amber eyes locked on me, and for the first time, he looked proud. Proud of me. He whispered, "That's my Luna."

Selene looked at Kael kneeling, at the Northern warriors kneeling to me, at the ghostly white wolf behind me, and realized she had walked into a trap she set for herself.

She had two choices. Back down and admit she was lying, or accept and risk being whipped and banished.

Her mouth opened, closed, opened again.

And then she said, with shaking lips, "I... I accept."

The yard erupted. Mara actually cheered.

Lucian looked at me, his ice blue eyes full of something like awe and worry. "Aria, you don't have to do this-"

"I do," I said quietly, my gold eyes fading back to normal. The ghost wolf disappeared. "For my pup. So no one ever calls it fake again."

I lay down in the snow, pulled up my shirt just enough to expose my still flat stomach, and looked at Selene's doctor.

"Check," I said. "And let the Moon Goddess decide who the liar is."

The doctor, shaking, knelt in the snow with his portable ultrasound machine, while Kael watched, holding his breath, while Selene watched, praying I was lying, while the entire Northern pack watched their new white wolf prove she was carrying the future.

The doctor squeezed cold gel on my stomach. The machine beeped.

And everyone leaned in.