The Alpha's Rejected Luna

Chapter 3: Six Months

Six months later

The training yard of the Ashwood remnant camp was quiet except for the rhythmic thud of fists against a wooden post, over and over, until the wood splintered under Mika's knuckles.

"You're going to break your hand again," called a voice from the treeline.

Mika didn't turn around. "Wouldn't be the first time, Sera."

Sera dropped down from the branch she'd been perched on, landing lightly on bare feet. In six months, the girl had gone from a terrified new wolf hiding in Mika's shadow to something closer to a shadow herself — quick, quiet, and unnervingly perceptive.

She was one of the twelve survivors who'd found their way to Mika after word spread through the fractured Ashwood remnants that someone was gathering the abandoned, the rejected, the forgotten.

"Elder Yara wants to see you," Sera said. "She says it's about the markings again."

Mika flexed her fingers, watching the silver patterns shimmer faintly beneath her split knuckles before the skin knit itself back together, faster than it should have. Six months of training under Yara's watchful eye had taught her many things, but the healing still unsettled her more than she let anyone see.

She found Yara in the cabin that had become the heart of their small, hidden camp — twelve former Ashwood wolves and one impossibly old woman who claimed to remember when the Moonborn bloodline had last walked free.

"You wanted to see me," Mika said.

Yara didn't look up from the herbs she was grinding.

"Your control has improved. Six months ago, you couldn't summon the markings without nearly passing out. Now you split fence posts before breakfast."

"Is there a compliment somewhere in that?"

"There's an observation." Yara finally met her eyes, and something in her expression made Mika's stomach tighten. "And a warning. Power like yours doesn't stay hidden forever, Mika. Word travels. Packs talk. Sooner or later, someone is going to come looking for the girl who can heal from wounds that should kill her."

"Let them come." Mika's voice came out harder than she intended, but she didn't take it back. Six months ago, that sentence would have terrified her. Now it just felt true.

Yara studied her for a long moment. "You've changed."

"I had to."

"There's a difference between growing stronger and growing cold." Yara set down her grinding stone. "I've watched you train from dawn until your hands bled for six months straight. I've watched you take in every stray wolf who wanders into this territory looking half-starved and hopeless. But I haven't seen you cry once since the night I found you at the base of that oak tree."

Mika's jaw tightened. "Would you prefer I fell apart instead?"

"I'd prefer you remembered you're allowed to feel something besides anger." Yara's gold eyes softened, just slightly. "Rejection breaks people in different ways, child. Some shatter. Some armor themselves so heavily they forget how to be anything but hard. I worry you're choosing the second path."

Before Mika could respond, the cabin door burst open. Finn — youngest of their small pack, barely seventeen and still learning to control his shift — stumbled in, breathless.

"Riders," he gasped. "At the northern border. Blackmoon colors."

The name landed in the room like a struck match.

Mika's pulse spiked, and beneath her skin, the silver markings flared to life before she could stop them, humming with a heat that mirrored the sudden pounding of her heart.

"How many?" Yara asked, already reaching for the blade she kept by the door.

"Three," Finn said. "They're not attacking. They're asking to speak with..." He hesitated, looking at Mika like he wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. "They're asking for the Ashwood Luna."

The old title landed strangely after six months without it. Mika hadn't been anyone's Luna since the night she walked away from that altar. She'd told herself she never wanted to be again.

"Send them away," she said.

"They said—" Finn swallowed. "They said Alpha Diego sent them. They said it's urgent. Something about an attack on Blackmoon's eastern border."

Mika's hands curled into fists, and this time she didn't try to suppress the markings blooming beneath her skin. Six months of silence, and now, the moment his pack needed something from her, Diego finally remembered her name.

"Let them wait," she said, voice cold enough that even Yara raised an eyebrow. "I'll decide if I feel like listening."

She turned and walked out into the yard, ignoring the way her heart hammered traitorously in her chest at the mention of his name — furious at herself for the small, stubborn part of her that still wanted, after everything, to know what he looked like now.

Whether he'd changed too.

Or whether some part of him regretted what he'd thrown away.