His Rejected Luna: The Bond That Wouldn’t Die

Chapter 5 – The Proposal

They send Claire away before the sun comes up.

Not literally. She leaves on her own heels, tablet tucked under one arm, another polite smile stamped onto her face. But I can feel the moment Corin decides she’s heard enough. The temperature in the room drops. The meeting is over. She’s sharp enough to sense it and go.

When the door clicks shut behind her, the silence she leaves behind feels heavier than when she walked in.

I’m still in the leather chair. My fingers ache where they’ve dug into the armrests. The imprint of her words clings to the air like smoke.

Three months. Model luna. Dead bond.

Corin stands with his back to me, staring out the window. The city glows below, distant and indifferent. His reflection is a pale ghost in the glass—broad shoulders, tense jaw, white bandage on his hand stark against the dim.

“You should sleep,” I say, because it’s easier than saying anything that matters.

“So should you,” he answers without turning.

“I have work in the morning. Kids who’ll notice if I fall on my face at circle time.”

“The shelter is closed until the inspectors sign off.” His voice is too smooth. Practice, not ease. “They’ll use the fire code as an excuse to keep you shut down as long as they can.”

Of course they will.

I swallow. “Mara needs me.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His reflection shifts, finally turning. The room feels smaller when he faces me. “You think I didn’t notice exactly how many levers Severin just wrapped his fingers around?”

Mara. The kids. My mother. The pack. Me.

“Don’t say his name,” I murmur. “It feels like calling something.”

His mouth quirks humorlessly. “Superstition was never your thing.”

“It is when he’s involved.”

He moves around the desk, comes to lean against its edge, a few feet in front of me. Too close. Not close enough. The scent of him—rain and stone and tired coffee—wraps around my throat.

“For once,” he says quietly, “we agree.”

I look down at my hands. At the faint smudge of blood on my knuckles from catching the bat. It’s already drying to brown.

“So.” My voice comes out rough. “What’s the story, then?”

He doesn’t pretend not to know what I mean.

“Severin wants a picture.” Corin’s gaze is level. “Stable alpha. Acceptable luna. A bond that once existed, now safely inert.”

“A corpse on display,” I say.

“That’s one word for it.”

“And if you give him that?” My laugh is small and humorless. “You get to keep your fence and your permits a little longer?”

“And my pack,” he says. “Don’t forget them.”

I flinch. “I’m not.”

“That’s the problem.” He scrubs a hand over his face, suddenly looking older than thirty-two. “You have too many homes for him to burn down.”

“Mara will rebuild,” I say, more fiercely than I feel. “The kids will be okay. I can find another job.”

“Until the Department decides that anyone hiring you must be complicit.” His voice sharpens, then smooths again. “You know how they work, Sylvi. They don’t kill you with one blow. They cut everything that feeds you and wait.”

I hate that he’s right. I hate that my heart still responds to his use of my name like it’s a touch.

He lets the silence stretch, then says, very evenly, “I’m going to make you an offer you’re going to hate.”

My stomach drops. “You do have a type.”

Something flickers in his eyes—pain, memory, I can’t tell. He pushes off the desk, takes one step closer. Not enough to loom, but enough that I can see the silver flecks in his irises.

“Three months,” he says. “You stay here. Publicly, you are my fiancée. Locke Pack’s luna-to-be.”

Every word is a stone dropped into my chest.

“You’re insane,” I whisper. “Absolutely—”

“In exchange,” he continues, over me, “I put the shelter under pack protection. No raids, no surprise inspections without my people there. We cover the rebuild. We cover Mara’s hospital bills.” His jaw flexes. “Rowan gets formal status as pack-adjacent. Any old debts from my father’s time die on my word.”

My lungs forget how to work.

“My mother is not coming back here,” I manage.

“She doesn’t have to set foot on our land.” He doesn’t flinch at the anger in my voice. “But if the Department or any of their pet fanatics touch her, they answer to me.”

The room tilts.

I hear the rest through a rushing in my ears.

“You get protection,” he says. “Your people get protection. In return, I get three months of you at my side, in public. A luna Severin can point to and say, ‘See? Look how tame they are.’”

“Tame,” I choke. “Is that what you want me to be?”

His gaze finally cracks, something raw bleeding through. “No.”

The word hangs there, stark and naked.

“No,” he says again, quieter. “I want you alive. I want my pack alive. This is the leverage we have.”

“And the bond?” I force out. “He wants it ‘resolved.’ How are you planning to spin that, exactly? Stand me under bright lights and tell them, ‘Look, see, she doesn’t react when I breathe?’”

“As if that were remotely true,” he mutters.

Heat crawls up my neck. “We can’t fake it. The… whatever this is. It hurts.”

“It hurts less now than it did last week,” he says. “Maera thinks that matters.”

I latch onto the other name. “Lysa. She’s been groomed for this since we were teenagers. You think she’s going to be thrilled watching you trot out the broken ex as your luna?”

“We’re not talking about Lysa,” he says, too quickly. “We’re talking about you.”

“Exactly,” I snap. “The girl you cut loose so neatly she almost bled out.”

Silence. Just our breathing and the hum of the city.

He doesn’t defend himself. Doesn’t say the things I know he could: that he did it to save me, that he was twenty-three and trapped between a father who would’ve killed us both and a Department that would’ve locked us in a lab.

Instead, he steps back, as if putting a fraction more space between us will make this conversation less dangerous.

“I won’t lie and say this is just politics,” he says. “It isn’t. Having you here will hurt. Having you gone, again, will hurt.” He exhales, slow and controlled. “But if we don’t give Severin what he thinks he wants, he’ll take everything. If we do, we buy time to change the rules.”

Three months.

Three months of pretending to be his. Of living in the house that spat me out, while the city pokes at our scars and calls it research.

“And if I say no?” I ask.

His eyes darken, pupils swallowing the silver. “Then I do everything I can from this side of the fence. I pull my people in. I pray they’re enough.”

“And me?”

He hesitates. Just a heartbeat. It’s enough.

“He’ll come for you sooner,” Corin says quietly. “Through your work. Through your mother. Through your friends.”

My chest tightens until it aches.

I think of Mara, oxygen cannula under her nose. Theo, waving printouts full of redacted lines. Kids with hand-me-down backpacks and wolf-bright eyes who’ve started asking if they’re safe.

Damn him.

Damn me, for already knowing my answer.

“I won’t be your puppet,” I say. “I won’t smile for cameras while you and Severin argue over how broken my bond is.”

“Good,” he says, something fierce flashing there. “I don’t need a puppet. I need you.”

It shouldn’t hit like that. It does.

“You’ll have boundaries,” he adds, voice steadying. “Your own room. A say in every public appearance. If at any point you decide the cost is too high, you walk. I won’t stop you.”

I search his face for a lie. Find only exhaustion and terrifying sincerity.

“Three months,” I whisper.

“Three months,” he echoes.

“And then?”

“Then,” Corin says, “either we’ve changed enough that they can’t cage us… or we burn the cages down.”

My wolf pushes forward, pressing hard against my ribs, aching toward his.

I close my eyes.

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll be your luna. For three months. On my terms.”

His exhale is almost a shudder. When I open my eyes again, the alpha mask is slipping back into place.

“Then we start in the morning,” he says. “Pack needs to meet their new luna.”

The word slices down my spine, equal parts fear and something I’m not ready to name.

“Fake,” I say, because I have to. “They need to meet their fake luna.”

His gaze drops, just for a second, to the scar around my throat. When he looks back up, the storm in his eyes is barely leashed.

“We’ll let them decide,” he says softly, “how fake it feels.”