The Reborn Scorned Luna

Chapter 3

Elena’s POV

I hadn’t walked too far from the door when I stopped, frozen, as Kattie’s voice filled the air.

I had expected Ryker to run after me. It was only right. It was natural. He cheated on me and yet I had been willing to forgive. The least he could do was chase after me, to plead for forgiveness and show a little remorse even if it was fake.

But neither he nor Kattie did.

Instead, their voices carried across the hallway, carelessly as if I didn’t exist, as if they didn’t care whether I was still close enough to hear every word.

“When will you tell her, Ryker? Are you going to keep deceiving her until when? I'm tired of being kept a secret” Kattie snapped, her voice sharp and angry, echoing off the stone walls of the hallway.

“Come on, Kat,” Ryker sighed, far too calmly. “You know our plans already. Once the guard completes the mission to seduce and drug her, I’ll accuse her of infidelity and colluding with rogues and have her punished by the council. I’ll reject her and have her banished. You just have to wait until everything falls into place.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

No… No… I whispered to myself.

This couldn’t be Ryker.

He couldn’t have said that. He couldn’t be plotting that.

I turned back, hoping and praying that I had heard wrong. That maybe the voices belonged to the guards stationed by his chamber’s door but when I looked, the entrance was empty. Ryker must have dismissed them through the pack’s mind-link, not wanting anyone witnessing the confrontation when I caught him cheating.

I wouldn’t have known. I was never connected to the mind-link. I had no wolf yet and the ritual couldn’t be done for me. Everyone told me my wolf would awaken once I mated with Ryker. That everything would fall into place. But nothing ever did.

And now I stood here learning that all this time he had been plotting with my own cousin to steal my pack.

My fingers curled into fists as rage threatened to swallow me whole. I wanted to throw his door open, to scream and demand answers. Demand the truth. Demand every shred of respect he had denied me these past years.

But as I hovered there again on the threshold, the words I thought I would say tangled with the tears burning my eyes. My vision blurred and my throat tightened. Reality pressed in on me like a crushing weight.

It was true.

Everything I heard was real.

Ryker had never loved me.

“I told you from the start not to get mated to her, Ryker,” Kattie spat, each word dripping venom. “I told you to make her feel loved so she would give you all her inheritance willingly. Elena is lonely and lonely mutts like her always hand over everything to the man who pretends to care. I even betrayed my own father for this, but no, you had other plans. And look—five years later, you still haven’t stolen SilverFang Pack from her!”

My breath caught. Five years. Five years of lies. Five years of humiliation I hadn’t even known I was suffering.

“I tried, Kattie,” Ryker said, frustration bleeding into his tone. “But she’s not as foolish as you think she is. I’m working on it. Just give me more time. Soon I’ll humiliate her before the pack and have her banished. Once that happens, I’ll mark you as my Luna.”

“You know I didn’t mark her properly because of you,” he continued, voice lowering to something tender, something he had never once used for me. “And you know it’s because of you I haven’t touched her. If she can’t provide an heir for the throne, I won’t mark her fully. And she can’t, since I stopped touching her.”

Then came the sound that finished breaking me.

Of him kissing her.

I stood there, tears streaming silently down my face, listening to the man I had loved promise my cousin the life that was supposed to be mine while plotting to destroy me from the inside out.

Years ago, when my uncle Darius had wanted to steal the throne for himself using rogue wolves, Kattie had been the one who informed me of his plans. She had been the one who warned me. The one who whispered the truth into my ears when everyone else turned blind. The one whose words had convinced me to act before her father robbed me of my birthright.

And all this while she had done that because she had her own plans?

The realization hit like a violent slap.

I remembered clearly the night Uncle Darius her father, had tried to barter her like a possession, offering her as a mate to the rogue leader. Kattie had refused with such fiery vehemence I had admired her for it. I had thought it was because she was upright. Because she was different. Because she did not share in her father’s thirst for power.

But all this time?

All this time she had simply been weaving her own schemes quietly and cleverly using a different route?

A hollow feeling tore through my chest.

“I’m not even sure anymore, Ryker… You’ve been ignoring my advice for so long now. Are you sure you still love me?” Kattie’s voice drifted into the air — fragile and trembling, sounding like a wounded animal begging not to be left behind.

“You know I love you, Kat. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. You know that.”

Ryker’s response came intimately and… sincere.

Hearing the warmth in his tone made it impossible for me to believe what was unfolding. From the moment I crossed paths with Ryker, he had always claimed he loved me. Always said I was the only woman his heart had ever chosen. I remembered the late-night kisses when we were still dating, the promises he whispered against my skin, the vows during our mating ceremony, the gentle affection he gave even when he slowly began to withdraw, even when the distance crept in, he still professed his love. He still insisted he couldn’t live without me. That he couldn’t do life without me.

Had it all been a lie?

Had everything been nothing but a carefully calculated plot?

Standing here, listening to them speak, I no longer knew what to think, what to feel, what to believe.

“I stopped touching Elena like you asked me to,” Ryker continued, each word cutting into me. “I stopped showing her affection exactly how you wanted. Did you really think I would fall in love with a wolfless mutt like her? I’ve always told you, pathetic orphaned she-wolves like her are not meant for the throne or to be Luna. But you, my beloved Kattie… you are made for it. And soon, I will make sure you stand beside me as the Luna of SilverFang Pack.”

A mutt.

A Pathetic orphan.

The room spun.

I couldn’t believe my ears, worse, I couldn’t believe the words were coming from Ryker. The man I had loved and sacrificed for, for five years. The man I defended, protected and trusted. The man who told me over and over that even though I hadn’t awakened my wolf yet, it did not diminish my worth. The man who swore loyalty. The man who kissed my forehead at night and promised he would never abandon me.

Had every touch, smile and every whispered vow been a deception?

The door suddenly creaked open.

Both their faces snapped toward it, smiles still plastered on until they saw me.

Their expressions twisted instantly into shock.

They hadn’t expected me to be there. And truthfully, I hadn’t expected to catch them this way either.

“Elena?” Kattie breathed, the color draining from her face as she took in my tear-streaked cheeks, my trembling stance, the betrayal carved into my features.

“How long have you been standing here?” Ryker demanded, stepping forward, but I couldn’t speak. I stood frozen, staring at them both as more tears slipped quietly down my face, uncontrolled in their fall.

I could not stop the trembling in my hands.

I could not stop the shattering in my chest.

I could not stop the truth from burning itself into me.

They had broken me.

And they didn’t even know it yet.