The Alpha's Rejected Mate Is Back For Revenge

Chapter 7: The Council Will Hear This

Chapter 7: The Council Will Hear This

And Keal was finally starting to understand what that meant.

He didn’t follow me into the hall. Smart. If he’d tried to stop me in front of the pack, it would’ve looked like he was challenging me. And right now, he couldn’t afford that.

I let the doors close behind me. The noise of the pack fell away, replaced by the low crackle of the hearth and my own heartbeat. Steady. Controlled. Not the heartbeat of a scared girl who’d been thrown out at 18. The heartbeat of a Luna who’d come back with an army.

“Report,” I said to the two warriors guarding the holding cell.

“He hasn’t spoken,” one of them said. “Keeps calling for Keal.”

“Good,” I said. “Keep it that way.”

I pushed the cell door open myself. The rogue was chained to the wall, breathing hard, blood drying in clumps along his jaw. When he saw me, he spat.

“You think this changes anything?” he said. “The Council already declared you dead. There’s no going back.”

I knelt so we were eye level. “The Council didn’t see what I just did out there. They didn’t see a rejected mate stop a rogue with one command. They didn’t see your pack bow to me.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re not Luna. Not anymore.”

“No,” I said. “I’m better.”

I stood and left him with that. Let him think on it.

Back in the main hall, the elders were waiting. Old men who’d sat on the Council for forty years, who’d signed the papers declaring me dead. They looked at me like I was a ghost.

“Luna Lyra,” Elder Marek said. His voice shook. “This is… impossible.”

“Nothing about me is impossible anymore,” I said. “You’ll send a message to the Council. Tell them I’m alive. Tell them I’m calling for a hearing.”

“You can’t—”

“I can,” I said. “And I will. In three days. If Keal wants to keep his title, he’ll be there to explain why he told them I was dead.”

The hall went quiet.

Three days. That was all I needed. Time for the pack to remember who I was. Time for Keal to decide if he was going to fight me, or stand beside me.

I turned to leave, and felt his presence behind me before I heard his footsteps.

“Lyra,” he said. My name, but it sounded different now. Not a curse. Not a regret.

I didn’t turn around.

“Save it for the Council,” I said. “That’s where the truth comes out.”

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