Chapter 16: The Rejection
1310 Words
Dahlia’s POV
The day passed by quickly with my mind mostly wondering what Asher had meant by tomorrow would be interesting.
Sleep claimed me slowly, my mind still spinning. When I woke up again, the moon had risen high, and a knock sounded at my door.
They summoned me at moonrise.
No explanation. No warning. Just a guard at my door and a single order spoken without feeling. “The Alpha wants you in the courtyard.”
My stomach twisted the moment I stepped outside.
The pack was already gathered.
Too many eyes. Too much space. Too much silence.
The central courtyard glowed silver beneath the full moon, its light harsh and unforgiving. Wolves stood shoulder to shoulder, their murmurs low, curious, expectant. I felt them looking at me as I crossed the stone floor. I felt their judgment sink into my skin like cold rain.
I tried to breathe.
‘It’s nothing,’ I told myself. It has to be nothing.
But my chest burned. The bond, thin, fragile, cursed, thrummed uneasily, like it sensed what I refused to name.
At the center of the courtyard stood Asher.
Tall.
Imposing.
Untouchable.
Alpha.
Mate.
Executioner.
My steps slowed when I reached him. Every instinct screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go. He didn’t look at me at first. His gaze was fixed on the crowd, his posture relaxed, as if this were just another duty to be handled before the night ended.
I was suddenly very aware of how small I was. How alone I was.
“Asher,” one of the elders prompted quietly.
That was when he turned to me.
His eyes met mine, and whatever fragile hope I had been clinging to shattered instantly.
There was no hesitation in his gaze.
No conflict.
No warmth.
Just resolve.
My heart began to pound so hard that it hurt.
“Dahlia,” he said, his voice carrying easily across the courtyard. It was calm, controlled, and final.
The sound of my name from his mouth felt like a blade pressing against my throat.
“You were summoned here,” he continued, “because the full moon demands truth.”
The crowd stirred.
I swallowed hard while my hands trembled at my sides.
“As Alpha of this pack,” Asher started, “it is my duty to acknowledge bonds formed under the moon.”
The words hit me like ice water.
No.
No, please.
I shook my head before I realized it. My breath came fast and shallow, panic clawing its way up my chest.
Asher didn’t stop.
“A bond exists,” he said evenly, “between myself and this woman.”
The courtyard erupted.
Gasps. Whispers. Shock. Whatever it was just you name it.
My ears rang. My vision blurred.
He said it.
He said it out loud.
My legs weakened, but I forced myself to stand. To face it.
To face him.
Hope, stupid, reckless hope flickered painfully in my chest.
Maybe this was his way of fixing it.
Maybe this was…
“I reject her.”
I looked at him with wide eyes.
My world ended.
The words were sharp. Clean. Absolute.
For a single heartbeat, there was silence.
Then the pain hit.
It wasn’t gradual.
It wasn’t something I could brace for.
It tore through me like fire.
I screamed as the bond ignited inside my chest, white-hot agony ripping through my veins. My knees buckled as the pain exploded outward, searing every nerve, every breath, every fragile piece of me that had ever dared to want.
It felt like something was being ripped out of me.
Like claws were shredding my soul from the inside.
I clutched at my chest, gasping, sobbing, the sound tearing itself from my throat before I could stop it. The ground rushed up to meet me as I collapsed, my scream echoing through the courtyard.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
All I could feel was pain.
The bond screamed as it broke, an invisible thread snapping violently, leaving behind a hollow, burning wound that consumed everything.
I heard someone cry out. Someone else laugh nervously. Someone whisper my name like it was a curse.
I curled into myself, my body shaking uncontrollably as wave after wave of agony tore through me.
Please, my mind begged. Please make it stop.
But it didn’t.
It felt like I was going to die. It would be a huge miracle if I survived this.
The pain was relentless. Cruel. Personal.
It felt like rejection carved into flesh.
Like the moon itself had turned its back on me.
I screamed again, my voice breaking as something inside me gave way.
Through the haze of pain, I heard Asher’s voice again.
Steady.
Unmoved.
“I, Asher Blackwood, Alpha of the…”
“STOP!”
The word ripped from me, raw and broken.
I lifted my head just enough to see him.
He stood exactly where he had been before.
Unshaken.
Just watching.
My vision swam with tears as rage and grief tangled together inside me, fueling my pain into something unbearable.
“You don’t get to say it like that,” I sobbed. “You don’t get to stand there and pretend this doesn’t matter.”
He looked down at me then.
Really looked.
For a moment. Just a moment, I thought I saw something crack.
Then it was gone.
“This bond was a mistake,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “And I will not allow weakness to stain this pack.”
Weakness.
The word hit harder than the pain.
Laughter rippled through the crowd.
Not everyone. But enough.
I shook, humiliation burning through me hotter than the bond ever had.
“I didn’t ask for you,” I cried. “I didn’t ask for this!”
“You existed,” he replied coolly. “That was enough.”
Something inside me shattered completely.
The pain shifted then, not just physical anymore. It became grief. Loss. A deep, suffocating emptiness where something precious had been torn away and discarded.
I felt… severed.
Alone in a way I had never been before.
The bond snapped fully.
I felt it.
A violent, final break.
The scream that tore from me was pure agony, raw, animal, unrestrained. My body arched as the last remnants of the bond burned away, leaving behind nothing but silence.
Cold silence.
My voice cracked. My strength vanished.
I collapsed again, my body giving out as the pain finally began to fade, leaving behind a hollow ache so deep it scared me.
I lay there, shaking, gasping, my chest rising and falling unevenly.
The moon above felt distant now.
Like it was… unreachable.
Asher stepped forward.
The crowd went quiet.
For one terrifying moment, I thought he might say something else. Something worse.
But he only looked down at me.
“This is done,” he said. “Remove her.”
Remove.
Not help.
Not heal.
Just remove.
Hands grabbed my arms.
I flinched, crying out weakly as the guards lifted me from the stone. My body felt fragile, like it might shatter if handled too roughly.
As they dragged me away, my head lolled back, my vision blurring as exhaustion and shock settled over me.
I caught one last glimpse of Asher.
He wasn’t watching me anymore.
He had already turned away.
That hurt more than anything else.
The screams had stopped.
The bond was gone.
And in its place was a silence so loud it felt like it might swallow me whole.
As the darkness closed in, one thought echoed through my broken mind…
If this didn’t kill me…
Then nothing ever would.
And somewhere deep beneath the pain, beneath the loss, beneath the ashes of everything I had just lost…
Something stirred.
Not a wolf.
Not yet.
But something that refused to die.
- Writer
