Chapter 7_ Humiliation and Shame
1325 Words
POV:
---
Aderin
The world tilted.
Her knees buckled as gasps rippled through the crowd. The sound meant nothing to her, only the tremors beneath her feet. Faces blurred. Lips moved. She couldn’t hear the cruelty that laced their words, but she could feel it—the sharp sting of mockery vibrating through the ground, the cruel rhythm of laughter.
Her heart beat in silence.
Kael’s words still echoed inside her mind, not through sound, but through the expression that had torn through his lips—the rejection.
Her mate.
Her curse.
The bond that had once burned like sunlight now chilled to ice, and every step she took away from the platform felt like wading through shards of glass.
Someone’s hand brushed her shoulder, perhaps in pity. She shrugged it off. Pity was a weight she couldn’t carry.
She reached the edge of the festival square, her breath trembling. Torches painted the night in orange fire, but she couldn’t stop shaking. Don’t cry, she told herself. Not here. Not in front of them.
But her body betrayed her. Hot tears slipped down her cheeks, unseen, unheard.
When she reached the forest path that led home, she collapsed against a tree and screamed—soundless, voiceless, raw. A scream only the moon could hear.
The pain was deeper than the rejection. It was knowing that no one would ever understand how much it cost her to hope. She had lived all her life in silence, believing that maybe, just maybe, the bond of a mate would let her feel the world again through someone else’s heartbeat.
Now that dream was ashes.
The moon hung low above her, pale and watchful, as if ashamed of what it had witnessed.
She signed weakly into the darkness, fingers trembling:
“Why me?”
But no one answered. Only the rustle of trees replied, carrying the cold truth she didn’t want to face—
She was alone.
---
Kael
He didn’t sleep that night.
He couldn’t.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face—the shock, the pain, the silent devastation when he uttered the words that couldn’t be taken back.
I, Alpha Kael of Bloodmoon, reject you as my mate.
Even now, the air seemed to choke him with those words.
Zion snarled within his mind, furious and wounded.
“You fool,” the wolf growled. “You broke what was sacred.”
Kael gritted his teeth and slammed his fist into the wall. He didn’t need a lecture from his wolf. He needed peace.
Selena had been waiting in his chamber earlier, all smiles and soft touches, pretending nothing had happened. “You did the right thing,” she had whispered. “She’s beneath you, Kael. Look at her. A deaf girl? A Luna can’t even hear her pack.”
The words had made sense—then.
Now, they crawled under his skin like poison.
He walked to the balcony overlooking the Bloodmoon grounds. The air was thick with tension. The pack should have been celebrating, yet unease hung heavy. Even the stars seemed dimmer.
Zion’s growl deepened, echoing through his chest.
“She carries light we’ll never find again.”
Kael’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want to admit it, but the pull he’d tried to suppress still burned, wild and untamed. His entire body ached for her scent, for the calm that radiated from her presence.
And yet—he’d thrown her away. Publicly. Cruelly.
For pride. For fear.
The guilt hit harder than claws.
---
Aderin
When she finally stumbled into the small cottage she shared with her grandmother, she found Ireti waiting by the fire, her wrinkled face filled with worry.
Aderin tried to smile, but her lips trembled too much. She could only shake her head and sign, He rejected me.
The old woman’s face crumpled. She opened her arms, and Aderin collapsed into them like a wounded child. The warmth of that embrace was the only sound she needed.
“I told you, my moon child,” Ireti whispered, brushing her hair back gently. “The path of destiny is cruel before it is kind.”
Aderin felt the words more than heard them—the vibration of her grandmother’s voice against her chest, the rhythm of comfort.
But no comfort could mend what was broken.
Her hands moved in frantic signs: Everyone laughed. I saw their faces. He chose her, Grandmother. He chose Selena.
Tears blurred her vision.
Ireti kissed her forehead and rocked her gently. “Then he chose blindness, my dear. The goddess doesn’t mistake souls. He will see when it’s too late.”
Aderin wanted to believe her. But faith was hard to hold when shame felt heavier than the world.
She went to bed without eating, curling into herself. Sleep didn’t come. Only dreams did—strange, fractured dreams of a moon weeping blood and a wolf crying out her name.
---
Kael
At dawn, Kael stood alone by the training field. The echo of celebration had faded into uneasy silence. Even the warriors avoided his gaze.
He should have felt victorious—he had made his choice, proven his dominance. But something inside him felt… hollow.
Selena arrived later, wrapping her arms around him. “Forget her,” she whispered against his chest. “She’ll fade like all the unworthy ones do.”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
Because when he closed his eyes, he still saw Aderin’s face—those storm-gray eyes that didn’t need sound to speak volumes.
Zion stirred restlessly.
“You will regret this, Kael Bloodmoon.”
Kael clenched his fists. “Enough,” he growled aloud.
But even his own voice sounded foreign now. Empty.
---
Aderin
By the second sunrise, the whispers had begun.
Even without hearing them, she could feel them—the vibrations of gossip, the cruel laughter as people passed her home. The shift in footsteps when she walked by. Pity mixed with mockery.
She no longer attended the marketplace. No longer smiled at the children she used to teach sign words. Shame was a cloak she couldn’t take off.
One afternoon, she walked down to the river, the same place where she used to find peace. But even the water looked different now—cold, distant, refusing to reflect her face.
She traced the moon symbol on her bracelet, a gift from her grandmother. Once it had given her comfort. Now, it only reminded her of what she’d lost.
“Selene,” she whispered, her voice soft and broken, “why give me a gift only to take it away?”
No answer. Only silence. Always silence.
---
Kael
That same evening, Kael stood on the balcony again, watching the moon rise. He told himself he had done the right thing, that the pack would never accept a deaf Luna.
But deep inside, a small part of him—the part still bound to her—knew he’d destroyed something sacred.
He felt it then—a faint pain, sharp and sudden, in the place where the mate bond should have been warm. It pulsed once, twice… then dimmed.
She was hurting.
And somehow, he could feel it.
Zion howled within him, a sound that echoed through his soul.
“Our mate bleeds, and you stand idle.”
Kael closed his eyes, jaw tight. “I made my choice,” he whispered.
But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie.
---
Aderin
That night, as she sat by the dimming fire, her grandmother wrapped a shawl around her shoulders.
“My child,” Ireti said softly, “the world may not hear you—but the heavens do.”
Aderin didn’t answer. She stared into the flames until they blurred into white.
Something inside her shifted then—a quiet, dangerous resolve.
If the world would not hear her, then she would teach it to listen to her silence.
- Writer
