Chapter Six: The Rejection
1155 Words
(Marshal’s POV)
The moon was high, pale and silent, like it was watching.
I crept through the servant quarters, each step a goodbye. Every creaky floorboard, every shadowed hallway—I'd memorized it all. This place had broken me in every way a person could break. But tonight, I wasn’t the same girl they’d tried to bury in chains.
I had Sapphire now. I had my plan. And I was leaving.
I slipped out through the laundry exit like we’d planned a hundred times in whispers. Just as I reached the back fence, a figure stepped out from behind the tree line.
“Nina,” I breathed.
The forest was still.
No guards. No wind. No second chances.
Just silence… and Nina.
She stood by the tree where we’d buried the old scent blockers days ago — the ones we’d smuggled from the omega storage room, laughing like we weren’t terrified. Her arms were crossed, but her face… her face was breaking.
“You packed light?” she asked, her voice low.
I nodded and held up the small pack on my shoulder. “Only what I need.”
Nina didn’t smile. Not like she used to.
We’d spent nights whispering about this moment. Planning it down to the guard rotations and moon cycles. She was the one who found the gap in the eastern patrol. She was the one who’d said, “If you stay, you’ll die here — slowly or all at once.”
But saying goodbye in theory was easier than now.
“Once you hit the river, follow it east,” she whispered. “Don’t stop. Not for anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“And if they catch you—”
“They won’t.”
Her throat worked like she wanted to say more, but instead she stepped forward and tied a black cloth around my wrist — a silent token. A promise. A goodbye.
“You’ll find better, Marshal,” she said, her voice cracking. “I know you will.”
> “We will,” Sapphire added from within me. “And when we do, we’re never looking back.”
“I’ll find a way to contact you,” I said. “Once I’m safe.”
“You better. Or I’ll come hunting.”
We laughed — short, breathless — and then we didn’t say anything for a while.
I stepped closer and hugged her, careful of the still-fresh cuts across my back. Nina gripped me like she was holding together the last piece of something broken.
“You’re not just leaving a pack,” she said quietly, “you’re leaving the ghosts of who they tried to make you be.”
I pulled back, eyes stinging. “I’m ready.”
“Then go.”
I gave her one last look — friend, sister, partner in rebellion — and slipped into the dark trees.
I didn’t cry.
Not until I couldn’t hear her anymore.
~~~~~~
(Marshal’s POV)
“f*****g let go of me, Ryder!” I seethed.
He had me pinned against a tree. My back screamed from the pressure, the lashes still healing — but worse than the pain was the betrayal in his touch. The boy I once considered a friend, the boy I almost loved, holding me like a prisoner.
“You don’t have to run away, Mars,” he pleaded, eyes frantic. “I can fix things. Let’s go back together and fix it—please.”
“You had your chance,” I spat. “I’m not going back to that hell of a pack.”
“Marshal, I know I f****d up, and—”
“No.” I cut him off, steel in my voice. “I, Marshal Jade Dasilva, reject you, Ryder Wayne Blackthorn, future Alpha of Nightfall Pack, as my mate and Alpha. And I reject the title of future Luna of that cursed place.”
I looked him square in the eyes.
His green eyes, once so smug and confident, were now storming — shock, guilt, heartbreak all colliding. Freckles of black swirled in his irises as his wolf, Brody, let out a silent, guttural howl inside him.
Sapphire stirred within me. She didn’t want him, didn’t need him. But rejection still hurt. A tearing, aching rip inside our bond.
> “It’s not weakness, Marshal,” Sapphire said gently. “It’s the price of breaking free.”
“Mars—”
“Accept the rejection, Ryder,” I said coldly.
His hands dropped away from me like they’d burned him. He stumbled back, the weight of reality crashing over him.
We stood in silence, the air thick between us.
Then, voice hollow, he said,
“I, Ryder Wayne Blackthorn, future Alpha of Nightfall Pack, accept your rejection, Marshal Jade Dasilva, as my mate and my future Luna.”
And just like that…
The bond snapped.
The ache remained, faint and pulsing, but the chain was gone. I was free.
> “One bond broken. One new path ahead,” Sapphire murmured.
Without another word, I turned and walked away — never once looking back.
~~~~~~
(Ryder’s POV)
I stood there long after she was gone.
The echo of her voice — calm, cold, final — still rang in my ears like a curse I couldn’t outrun.
> “I, Marshal Jade Dasilva, reject you…”
She meant it. Every damn word.
And I… I let her.
“I, Ryder Wayne Blackthorn, accept…”
The minute the words left my mouth, it felt like something inside me was ripped from the root. The air went cold. My chest caved in like I’d been punched from the inside out.
Brody, my wolf, whimpered. Not out of anger — but grief.
> “You didn’t fight for her.”
“I tried,” I growled back.
> “Not when it mattered.”
My knees hit the forest floor. I don’t even remember falling. My hands clawed the earth like I could dig up time and bury the choices that led us here.
I remembered her laugh when we were kids. The way she used to call me out in front of the other ranked wolves. Unafraid. Unfiltered. Mine.
Except she never really was, was she?
I’d lost her long before tonight. On my 18th birthday, when I felt the bond snap into place and said nothing. When I stood by and watched her be beaten. When I let my mother and father fill my mouth with hate and my heart with silence.
> “You were supposed to protect her.”
“I know.”
My voice cracked on the word. The pain didn’t stop. Neither did the regret.
“I thought if I had time... if I could fix things...”
> “She’s gone, Ryder.”
I slammed my fist into the ground, silver pain radiating up my arm.
She was gone.
And she’d never look back.
- Writer
