Moonlight Melodies

Chapter 1- The Shattered Bond

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Alpha Blake’s voice boomed, vibrating the glass trophies on his mahogany desk.

Luna Valerie didn't flinch. She had just marched into the Alpha’s office—the inner sanctum of the Silver Moon Pack—and ordered the high-ranking warriors to clear out. What was most surprising wasn't that they had obeyed a Luna over their Alpha, but the terrifying aura of cold, lethal fury radiating from her.

Valerie stood before Blake, her posture rigid. If looks could kill, he would already be six feet under, the earth packed hard over his grave.

“I have had enough of you, Blake. We are done,” Valerie growled. The sound wasn't just human; it was the low, vibrating warning of a wolf ready to tear out a throat.

Blake scoffed, leaning back in his leather chair, though his eyes betrayed his nervousness. “What are you talking about? You’re my mate. You don’t just decide we’re 'done.' Check your disrespect, Valerie. I am still your Alpha.”

“You are nothing to me,” she spat, her voice trembling with the weight of her secret. “While you were having a fun time with another woman last night, my son died.”

The air in the room seemed to vanish. Blake’s smug expression froze.

“I mind-linked you,” Valerie continued, her voice cracking as the first tear escaped. “I screamed through the bond until my mental walls bled. I begged you to come and help me, but you blocked me out. You severed the link so you could focus on your mistress. Was she worth it, Blake? Was that kitty worth the life of your son?”

Blake stood up slowly, the color draining from his face until he looked like a ghost. “Tae... Tae is dead?”

“Yes.” The word was a sharp, jagged stone.

“How? What happened?” He stepped toward her, his hands shaking.

“Why would I tell you?” Valerie lunged forward, her grief exploding into violence. She pounded her fists against his chest—the chest that was supposed to be her shield. “You left us! You were supposed to be the Alpha, the protector, the father! But you turned your back on your own blood!”

Blake didn't fight back. He felt a hollow pit opening in his stomach. If the pack elders found out he had ignored a distress call from his heir to commit a******y, he wouldn't just lose his title; he’d lose his life. But more than that, the realization of his son's face—the small boy who practiced his 'alpha growl' in the mirror—hit him like a physical blow.

“I, Luna Valerie Ruth,” she said, her voice suddenly hauntingly calm, “hereby reject you as my mate. I hope you get mated to the one who cost you your son. I hope she is all you have left when the world turns its back on you.”

The air crackled with silver sparks as the Moon Goddess witnessed the vow. Blake gasped, clutching his chest as the invisible thread connecting their souls snapped.

“What?! No!” Blake gasped, falling back into his chair. “Valerie, wait—”

The door didn't just open; it was thrown off its hinges. Beta Pete stumbled in, his clothes disheveled, and his face masked in pure agony. He didn't even look at the Alpha. He collapsed to his knees, clutching his throat.

“Alpha... Luna... help me,” Pete wheezed. “My bond... Anna... it’s gone. It’s just... blackness.”

Valerie looked down at the broken Beta with a flicker of pity. “You have Alpha Blake to thank for that, Pete.”

Pete’s head whipped up, his eyes bloodshot. “What? What does he have to do with my mate?”

“While you were out patrolling the borders, your mate was in the arms of your Alpha,” Valerie said, her voice devoid of emotion. “And because they were so busy betraying us, nobody answered when Tae needed help. Your mate chose a bed over her pack, Pete. And the Moon Goddess has answered.”

“YOU PIECE OF s**t!” Pete roared. He didn't care about rank. He didn't care about the laws of the pack. He lunged across the desk, his fist connecting with Blake’s jaw with the force of a runaway truck.

Blake went flying, his body slamming into the bookshelf behind him. Heavy tomes of pack law rained down on him as he slumped to the floor.

“It shouldn’t have broken your bond,” Blake coughed, spitting blood onto the carpet. “Rejection doesn't kill the other person's bond... unless...”

“Unless the Goddess herself stepped in,” Valerie finished. “Neither of you deserves the gift of a mate. You deserve to be alone in the dark.”

Pete stood over Blake, his chest heaving. The pain of the broken bond was still screaming through his nerves, but his loyalty had shifted irrevocably. “I, Beta Pete Ellen, reject you as my Alpha. I relinquish all ties to the Silver Moon Pack. I am rogue to you, Blake. But I am a brother to Valerie.”

The sound of the pack bond snapping was like a whip-c***k in the room. Pete groaned, his skin pale, but he didn't fall. He stepped to Valerie’s side, offering her his arm.

“How dare you?” Blake growled, trying to find his Alpha authority through the haze of pain. “I am your Alpha! You have no right to walk away!”

“You lost your rights when you let your son die!” Valerie screamed, one final explosion of grief. “You were shagging a w***e while your heir lay cold! I hope every time you close your eyes, you see his face. I hope the guilt rots you from the inside out.”

She stepped forward and delivered a stinging slap across his face—not as a Luna, but as a grieving mother.

“Keep Anna,” Pete added, his voice low and dangerous. “Two snakes deserve the same pit. We're leaving.”

As they turned and walked out of the office, the heavy silence of the packhouse fell over Blake. He sat on the floor, surrounded by fallen books and his own blood, the silence of his mind-link deafening.

He believed he was a man who had lost everything. He believed he was mourning a dead son. He had no idea that miles away, in a hidden sanctuary, a young boy with golden eyes was waking up—far away from the father who had failed him.