He Rejected The Wrong Wolf

Chapter 15

Brielle's POV

The room never fully settled after the chandelier fell.

Even twenty minutes later, the music was still off, leaving behind an uneven wall of voices that felt sharper without it. Pack guards moved carefully through the wreckage at the center of the ballroom while workers swept shattered crystal into glittering piles across the marble floor. Now and then someone would point toward the collapsed chandelier and lower their voice, only for another round of whispers to spread through the crowd all over again.

And somehow, every conversation still seemed to circle back to her.

Brielle kept her attention on the water bottle in her hands instead of the people staring openly every time they thought she wasn't looking. Unfortunately for them, tonight she noticed everything.

"That's the girl who saw it first."

"No, she moved before the chain even snapped-"

"I heard she pushed someone out of the way-"

"Wasn't she the one he rejected?"

That last one made her grip tighten slightly around the bottle.

Not because it surprised her. Nothing stayed private in a pack for long, especially not something involving Thaddeus and the future Luna position. Enough people had noticed the tension afterward. Enough had seen him standing beside Caelan while Brielle left looking like she'd been hollowed out from the inside.

People filled in the rest themselves.

Wren appeared beside her carrying two more water bottles she had clearly stolen from somewhere near the kitchen. "If one more person stares at you like you're some kind of supernatural mystery, I'm starting a fight."

Despite herself, Brielle let out a quiet laugh. "You'd lose."

"Maybe," Wren admitted, handing her one anyway. "But it would be memorable."

Brielle shook her head, twisting the cap open slowly just to keep her hands occupied. Around them, people continued drifting between conversations while pretending not to watch her at the same time.

It was exhausting.

"I think they're more interested in the chandelier than me," she muttered.

Wren gave her a look. "Brielle. Half this room watched you react before anyone else even realized something was wrong."

"I got lucky."

"You tackled someone out of the way seconds before a giant death trap crashed into the floor."

Brielle shrugged awkwardly. "Instinct"

"That's what concerns me."

A few feet away, another group lowered their voices the second Brielle glanced in their direction. She caught fragments anyway.

"...never seen anything like that..."

"...thought she didn't even have a wolf..."

"...maybe they were wrong..."

The last one settled uneasily in her chest.

Before she could think too hard about it, movement near the edge of the ballroom shifted the atmosphere again.

It happened subtly at first. Conversations slowed. People straightened slightly. Attention drifted in one direction without anyone fully meaning it to.

Toward him.

Thaddeus crossed the ballroom with the same controlled confidence he always carried, but tonight something about him felt sharper, more focused. His gaze found Brielle immediately and stayed there, ignoring almost everyone else in the room as he moved toward her.

Wren noticed too.

"Oh, absolutely not," she muttered under her breath.

"Wren-"

"No." She stepped closer to Brielle, folding her arms as Thaddeus stopped a few feet away. "After everyone found out he rejected you, he does not get to suddenly walk over here as if none of that happened."

The nearby conversations quieted instantly.

Of course they did.

Brielle could practically feel people listening now.

Thaddeus's expression barely changed, though his jaw tightened slightly before his attention shifted back to Brielle.

"I need to talk to her."

Wren let out a short, humourless laugh. "Funny. You should've thought about that before."

"Wren," Brielle said quietly.

Her friend looked like she wanted to argue, but after a second she exhaled sharply through her nose and stepped back half a pace. "Fine," she muttered. "But if he says something stupid, I'm throwing a bottle at him."

"That's reassuring."

"I mean it."

A faint smile almost pulled at Brielle's mouth, but it faded just as quickly.

Because now that he stood in front of her again, the memory of that hallway came back too easily. The calm certainty in his voice. The way he'd looked at her like he'd already decided exactly who she was worth becoming before she'd even had the chance to figure it out herself.

I've already chosen who will stand beside me as Luna.

Not you.

The humiliation of it still sat under her skin like something bruised.

Thaddeus studied her carefully, his expression unreadable beneath the warm ballroom lights. "You should've been hurt."

Brielle blinked once, caught off guard by the statement. "That's a strange thing to say."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

For a second neither of them spoke. Around them, the ballroom buzzed quietly with curiosity while guards continued dragging broken metal and crystal away from the center of the floor.

"You reacted before anyone else," Thaddeus said finally, lowering his voice slightly. "How?"

Brielle looked down briefly at the bottle in her hands before lifting her gaze back to his. "I don't know."

"That's not really an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

His attention sharpened slightly, like he was trying to decide whether she actually believed that herself.

"I saw the chain move," she added after a moment.

"No," he said immediately. "You knew before that."

The certainty in his voice unsettled her more than she wanted it to.

Because he was right.

She had known.

Not consciously. Not logically. But something inside her had recognized the danger before it happened, the same way she'd felt the tension before the fight earlier.

And judging by the look on his face-

He knew that too.

Brielle looked away first, uncomfortable beneath the weight of his attention. "Why does it matter?"

Something shifted briefly across his expression then, too fast to fully read. Confusion maybe. Frustration. Something else is buried underneath both.

"Because none of this makes sense," he admitted quietly.

A humourless laugh escaped her before she could stop it. "Welcome to my life."

That pulled the faintest reaction from him, subtle enough that most people wouldn't have noticed it. The tension around his mouth eased for barely a second before settling again.

Then his gaze drifted briefly toward the wreckage across the ballroom.

"You still saved them," he said.

The words landed harder than she expected.

Not because of what they meant.

Because of who they came from.

Before Brielle could answer, another voice cut sharply through the tension surrounding them.

"Thaddeus."

Caelan.

The single word carried enough irritation beneath it that Brielle already knew exactly what expression she'd find when she turned.

And judging by the way the entire room shifted again-

Everyone else knew it too.