Chapter Three: The Broken Girl
673 Words
Elara
Consciousness came in fragments.
First, the pain. A deep, hollow ache behind her ribs, as if something vital had been scooped out with a rusty spoon. Second, the voices. Muffled, urgent, layered with fear.
"She's not waking up."
"Her pulse is thready. I've never seen a rejection reaction this severe."
"Liam, you need to wait outside."
Liam. Her cousin. The only family she had left.
Elara tried to open her eyes. Her lids were made of lead. But she forced them, one millimeter at a time, until the world swam into focus: a white ceiling, pale grey walls, the sharp smell of antiseptic. Pack hospital. She was in the pack hospital.
The memories crashed over her. The plane. The tarmac. The alpha with eyes like a winter storm and a voice like a blade.
I reject you as my mate and my wife.
Her breath hitched. Her wolf—her poor, confused, hopeful wolf—let out a whimper so weak that Elara almost didn't hear it. The bond was gone. Severed. Rejection wasn't just a word. It was a spiritual amputation.
"She's awake." A healer's face appeared above her. Kind eyes, grey-streaked hair. "Elara, can you hear me? My name is Healer Mira. You're in the Crescent Shadow Pack hospital. You've been unconscious for two days."
Two days. She had lost two days.
"Liam," Elara croaked. "Where—"
"Here." Her cousin pushed past the healer, dropping to his knees beside the bed. His face was ravaged—dark circles under his eyes, his jaw tight with unshed tears. "I'm here, little bird. I'm not going anywhere."
Liam had called her that since she was six years old, the night her parents died in the rogue attack. He was fifteen then, barely more than a boy himself, but he had held her while she sobbed and promised that she would never be alone.
He had kept that promise for fifteen years.
"The alpha," Elara whispered. "He said… mate. I didn't know. I didn't even know he was my mate."
Liam's face darkened. "He didn't give you a chance to know. He saw me touch you, and he lost his mind. I tried to explain—I told his warriors I was your cousin—but he was already gone. Already rejecting you."
Elara closed her eyes. The tears came then, hot and silent, sliding down her temples into her hair. She wasn't crying for the alpha. She was crying for the bond she never got to feel. The mate she never got to meet. The dream of belonging somewhere, to someone, that had been ripped away before it even began.
"I can't stay here," she said.
"Elara—"
"I can't, Liam." She opened her eyes. "He rejected me in front of everyone. His pack, his warriors, the airport staff. I have no mate. No bond. No place here. I'm not his Luna. I'm not even his wife yet. The contract marriage hasn't been performed."
Healer Mira stepped forward. "Elara, your body is dangerously weak. The rejection has triggered a physical collapse. If you leave now, you could—"
"Die?" Elara finished quietly. "Maybe that would be easier."
Liam made a wounded sound and grabbed her hand. "Don't. Don't you dare say that. Sarah is waiting for us back home. She's been calling every hour. We will get through this. We always do."
Sarah. Liam's wife. The only woman besides her mother who had ever shown Elara unconditional love.
"One week," Elara said finally. "I'll stay for one week. Long enough to stabilize. Then I'm leaving. The contract can go to hell. I won't marry a man who looked at me like I was garbage."
Liam pressed her hand to his forehead and nodded. "One week. And then we go home."
He didn't say that home wasn't much. A tiny apartment above their struggling bakery. Late payments. Empty cupboards. But it was theirs.
And it was better than a mate who had rejected her before she could even say hello.
- Writer
