The Luna Queen Is Reborn

Rogue

I didn’t go back to the darkness. I went to the washroom, splashing cold water onto the raw skin of my cheek until the numbness felt like a suit of armor. I rummaged through the closet robotically to get the hoodie sitting at the bottom.

A scoff escaped my throat. He wanted me to send the guest off all scarred and wolfless. They would know - they would smell that it that my wolf was there, but, I could tap into her subconsciousness. I would look weak.

Was there any better way to do it?

I slipped the hoodie through my head, and the length fell just short of reaching my knees. I capped the hoodie allowing it to hid my scars behind it.

I walked back into the hall, my boots clicking rhythmically against the wood. Lydia was still fussing over Lucas , her whimpers more annoying than the glass in my throat. I didn't stop. I didn't apologize.

She looked expectantly my way, searching my gaze for something I could not offer her- an apology. I looked away from her, my chin stubborn and my jaw set in a condescending manner.

Disappointment flashed in her eyes before she sighed in helplessness.

Father letter shoes click softly against the stairs as he descended. He had changed into a black suit with no tie and the last of his button left out.

Gently he took Lydia hand and guided her out of the house while the rest of us followed after.

Beta Peter and his family met us at the entrance where the cars are set, ready to depart. Gamma Richard was probably somewhere managing security.

The moment I stepped out of the house I could the gazes like lasers on my skin, and their voices ...their voices dropped to a low, frantic hum. It was the sound of a hive that had sensed a rot in its queen.

I didn't need to see their faces to know what they were smelling. Without Ivy’s presence masking my scent with the heavy, golden musk of a predator, I smelled "flat." To a wolf, a wolfless shifter is a void—a ghost walking in a body that should be a temple.

Beta Peter’s wife, Sarah, was the first to falter. Her gaze snagged on the edge of the hoodie, trying to peer into the shadows I had draped over my face. She looked at my father, then at Lucas—who maintained a blank visage and then back to me. The pity in her scent was thick enough to choke on. It smelled like wilted lilies.

"Cerelia, dear," she started, her voice trembling with that practiced, diplomatic softness. "We were so... concerned. The rumors of your wolflessness and your absenteeism—" she needn't finish the statement. I never knew Sarah was this good at masking bitter words with smiles. I refused to grace her with any reply.

People like her only knew to stump on people when they were down, and suck up when they were at their highest

"Tidy up," my father’s command echoed in my mind, but his version of 'tidy' was a lie. He wanted me to stand there like a broken doll to prove he still had control over his lineage.

I felt the heat of the command in my throat. I couldn't roar, but I could bite. I stepped forward, adjusted the hoodie in fear of it slipping off. I didn't look at Sarah. I looked at Peter, the man who had seen me train since I was a pup- the man who had delivered the message that ruined me. He had stayed outside, refusing to budge while his Alpha ruined me inside out.

"The guests are leaving, Beta," I said. My voice was a rasp, a dry leaves-on-stone sound that made Peter flinch. I didn't hide the roughness; I used it. "Unless they intend to find out why I was not presence. I will be sure to cooperate this time too"

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the wind seemed to stop.

My father’s hand tightened on Lydia’s shoulder. I could feel the Alpha’s pressure beginning to radiate from him—a silent warning to fall in line. But Ivy was gone, and with her went the instinct to submit to his dominance. If I couldn't feel her strength, I also couldn't feel his leash.

"Lia," Lucas called out, his voice strained. He stepped away from the guard, he paused slightly in fear of me losing my mind again. He was still trying to be the hero, still trying to bridge the gap with those green, forgiving eyes. "Don't do this. Not like this."

I turned my head slowly toward him. Under the shadow of the hood, I let a single, jagged sneer pull at my scarred cheek. I knew the movement looked grotesque—a nightmare twitching in the dark.

"You're right, Lucas," I rasped, turning my back on him to face the departing line of cars. "We shouldn't do this 'like this.' We should do it with the truth."

I reached up, my fingers brushing the fabric of the hood.

"Lia", Alpha Logan's warning voice was low yet it didn't affect its effect in the slightest. Instinctively, my hand paused, but what did it mattered. I stopped being his daughter the day he stopped being my father. May be, he never was. He stopped being my Alpha the day he took away my wolf.

"Lia", a cheerful, hopeful voice rang from across. Felicity's face popped out of the passenger window of an Audi. Her sympathy eyes glistened with tears as she took in the hoodie hiding my flaws.

"I'll see you when school resumes, right", her honey brown eyes looked at me hopefully waiting for my assent. Not wanting to disappoint her, I nodded in reply

The engine of the Audi purred, a low-frequency hum that seemed to vibrate in the silence I had created. Felicity’s smile was the only thing in this driveway that didn’t feel like a burial shroud. She blew a kiss, oblivious to the fact that the girl who used to laugh with her in the back of classrooms was currently a hollowed-out shell of rage.

As the car pulled away, I felt the hood shift. The stone in my throat felt sharper now, pressing against my vocal cords.

I didn't lower my hand. My fingers remained hooked into the fabric of the hoodie. My father’s Alpha pressure was a physical weight now, a localized storm intended to bring me to my knees in front of the Beta, the Gamma, and the "saintly" intruders he called family. But the anchor that used to pull me down—the wolf’s instinct to obey the pack leader—was severed.

I turned my head to look at him. Truly look at him. Not as a daughter looking at a father, but as a victim looking at the architect of her ruin.

"School," I rasped, the word tasting like iron. "A lovely thought, isn't it, Alpha? A place where things are graded by their merit, not by how well they can be 'tidied' into a corner."

Lydia made a small, choked sound, her hand flying to her mouth. She looked at the hood, then at Logan, her green eyes pleading for him to end this before the truth spilled out onto the gravel.

"Cerelia. Inside. Now," my father commanded. His voice held the edge of a blade—the kind he had used to cut me.

I smiled. It was a terrible, asymmetrical thing that tugged painfully at the raw skin of my cheek. I felt a drop of something warm—blood or serum—leak from the wound, wetting the inside of the hood.

"I've spent three days inside, Alpha Logan," I said, stepping closer to him, ignoring the way Beta Peter moved instinctively to intercept me. "I think the pack deserves to see what happens to an Heir who doesn't 'cooperate' the way you like. Don't you?"