Rejected by My Alpha: Always the Bride, Never the Luna

Chapter 13 – Wolves with Nowhere to Put the Blame

By the time we reached the hall again, the adrenaline had burned off, leaving only raw nerves and the sour taste of old fear on my tongue.

Lanterns still burned low along the walls, casting long, warped shadows over overturned chairs and half‑emptied plates. The feast that was supposed to celebrate our binding now looked like the aftermath of a raid—spilled wine darkening tablecloths, dropped garlands trampled into the floor.

Elders and higher‑ranked wolves clustered near the hearth, heads bent together. Conversations snapped off the second we stepped inside.

Every eye turned.

First to Corren—stripped cloak streaked with dirt and blood, hair a mess, the faint bond‑mark at his throat an ugly, faded bruise. Then to me, just behind his shoulder. My torn ear, drying blood on my jaw, the set of my mouth that dared them to say I told you so.

Nyra slid a half‑step closer, shoulder brushing mine in silent warning: They’re hunting for where to sink their teeth.

Orlyn moved past us toward the elders, voice already brisk, listing casualties, wounds, the enemy’s retreat. Facts, not interpretations. Buying us a few seconds.

The officiant was the first to recover.

“You see?” he said, eyes flashing as he stepped forward. “An unbound alpha, an interrupted ceremony, a severed bond—and within breaths, enemies on our border. The fates themselves reject—”

“Vakran timed this raid,” Corren cut in, voice rough but level. “Not the fates. Our sentries scented his wolves. Ask Rhyd. Ask anyone who bled for it.”

Murmurs rippled.

“Convenient scapegoat,” one elder muttered. Another hissed him silent.

My father stood off to the side, arms crossed so tightly his knuckles were bloodless. My mother’s hands were twisted in the hem of her skirt, eyes tracking me with a wounded, desperate kind of focus.

Corren walked into the center of the hall like it was a battlefield. In some ways, it was.

“Here’s what actually happened,” he said. “We were attacked. We drove them off. One of theirs died. None of ours did.”

He didn’t look at me when he said that last part. He didn’t need to.

“He died by her teeth,” the officiant shot back, jabbing a finger at me. “Less than an hour after she committed sacrilege and broke a sacred bond. You think the Council won’t salivate over that image?”

Nyra bristled. “You’d rather she let him rip Corren’s throat out so the Council could wring their paws over a dead alpha instead?”

A few wolves flinched at her casual use of his name. Old habits. New rules.

Corren lifted a hand, silencing them both.

“I hesitated,” he said.

The room stilled.

He met the elders’ stunned gazes head‑on. “If Lyrix hadn’t moved, that wolf would’ve had my throat. She didn’t kill him because she lost control. She killed him because I faltered.”

The weight of that admission settled heavily over the hall. Alphas didn’t say things like that. Not out loud. Not in front of their own.

My own breath stuttered.

“Corren,” I started.

He shot me a brief look, something unreadable in it. “You’re not taking the blame for that on top of everything else,” he said quietly. Then, to the hall, louder: “The Council will twist this however they want. I’m not feeding them a neat little story about ‘mad rejected mates’ and ‘unstable alphas’ to make their jobs easier.”

One of the elders—a slim, sharp‑eyed woman who’d always been more practical than pious—stepped forward.

“What about the other thing?” she asked. “That…presence Rhyd reported. The one that didn’t feel like wolves.”

A shiver ran up my spine. Even here, with walls and fire and pack all around, I could still taste that cold pressure at the edge of our land. Like fingers resting lightly on the border, testing.

“That,” Orlyn said, “is what we should be losing sleep over. Not the fact that a warrior defended her alpha when he hesitated.”

Her gaze flicked to me, assessing, not unkind. “Though we will talk about how you did it,” she added. “In detail.”

My stomach dipped. “I’m aware,” I muttered.

The officiant’s mouth thinned. “You can dress this however you like. Outside this hall, stories are already taking shape. ‘The she‑wolf who broke her bond and spilled blood in the same breath’—that is what they’ll call her.”

“Then we control as much of that story as we can,” Corren said. “Starting here.”

He turned slowly, letting his eyes meet those of his wolves, one by one.

“Lyrix Venn is no longer my bound mate,” he said. The words twisted something inside me, even though I’d been the one to sever the bond. “That was her choice. I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt or that it won’t change things.”

Murmurs, sharp and soft.

“But she is still,” he went on, “a warrior of this pack. She is still the reason I’m standing here talking to you and not lying dead under a stranger’s teeth on our border.”

He shifted his weight, winced, hid it.

“And until the Council looks us in the eye and passes judgment, she is under my protection,” he finished. “Anyone who tries to take that into their own hands will answer to me.”

There it was again: protection. The word wrapped around me like another set of invisible ropes.

Not a cage, I told myself. A shield. For now.

“And what do you say?” the officiant demanded suddenly, rounding on me. “You’ve given us the ‘why’ for breaking the bond. What is your ‘why’ for staying at his side after what you did to him?”

Every face swung my way.

If I said, Because I still love him, half the hall would choke. If I said, Because I owe it to the pack, the other half would roll their eyes.

The truth cut somewhere in between.

“Because walking away would be the one thing worse than what I already did,” I said, voice steady for once. “I broke the bond because I couldn’t live as everybody’s idea of a Luna. That doesn’t mean I get to wash my hands and let you all choke on the fallout alone.”

Nyra’s mouth quirked. A few of the younger wolves almost smiled, quickly hiding it.

“And,” I added, locking eyes with the officiant, “because whoever was out there with Vakran’s wolves tonight? They’re not going to care whether I said yes or no in your pretty circle. They’ll care whether we can stand together when they come back.”

The cold thing at the edge of our world pulsed again in the back of my mind, as if answering.

For the first time since I tore the bond apart, the fear in the hall shifted.

Some of it was still aimed at me. A lot of it now turned outward, toward the dark beyond our borders.

Good.

If I’d lit a fire under our pack, I’d rather it burn facing the right direction.