The Luna He Rejected Is The Millennium Wolf

Chapter 022

Damien's POV

The gala hall smelled of pine, expensive cologne, and the stifling heat of a hundred shifting bodies, running far too hot as the collective breath of the pack rose toward the crystal chandeliers to blur the light into a hazy, golden fog. To the wolves gathered here, this was stability, but to me, it was a cage.

Clara moved closer, her fingers digging into the fabric of my dress shirt until her knuckles pressed hard against my collarbone. One part of my mind screamed to peel her away while the other was reminded of the debt, knowing she had sacrificed her wolf for me, and in our world, that sacrifice bought her a crown—it bought her me.

“Damien,” she whispered, tilting her head as her eyes ran wide and glassy in the flickering candlelight. “I just want you to be happy. Are you ready? For us?”

I searched for the snap of a mate bond, looking for that magnetic pull that was supposed to make my blood sing, but I found nothing except a leaden, obligated ache.

“If you’re the one who pulled me back from the edge, the mark belongs to you.”

The words felt like stones in my mouth, and though a smile flashed across her face—too quick and too sharp—she quickly smoothed it back into a mask of tearful devotion.

I looked past her, cutting through the sea of silk and tailored suits to find Kael leaning against a stone pillar in the shadows, refusing to howl with the others as he watched me with the steady, unblinking focus of a scavenger. A sudden spasm hit my chest, clawing at the scar where my bond used to be, proving the connection to Sienna was still there—a jagged wire buried deep under my skin that sparked with every breath.

“I, Damien Louis, claim Clara Arizona as my mate.”

I forced her hand into the air to let the hall erupt in howls, the rhythmic thud of fists against wood, and the primal roar of a pack that wanted to believe their Alpha was whole again. Clara beamed, though she didn't look like a woman in love—she looked like a general who had just secured a border.

“Let the ritual begin.”

The elder stepped forward with robes sweeping against the marble, leaving the red candle in his hand to throw long, dancing shadows that reached straight for my throat. I turned to Clara and gripped her shoulders, feeling a fine, high-frequency vibration traveling through my palms as she shivered.

“Ready?” I asked, keeping my voice loud enough to carry to the back of the hall. “If the bond is false, the ritual ends you. You have no wolf left to buffer the shock, so if your soul isn't a match, you become a shell—a vegetable. You know the risk.”

The scent of her changed instantly, leaving the sweet floral perfume to be cut by the sour, sharp tang of ozone as her fingers tightened around the elder’s sleeve until the fabric bunched in her fist.

“Anything wrong?”

She swallowed hard, her throat working as she forced a breath. “No. No, Damien. I’m your Luna. Do it.”

She bared her neck to offer her pale skin as a clear target in the dim light, and as I leaned in, the heat of her skin hit my face, smelling of fear and anticipation. My canines lengthened while a dull ache throbbed in my gums as the Alpha instinct to claim rose in my gut, leaving my teeth to brush the sensitive skin right over her pulse point.

“Damien, NO!”

The voice shattered my focus like a hammer hitting glass, revealing it was my mother who had called out, leaving her name to hang as a jagged fragment in the silence that plunged the hall completely dead. A hundred pairs of glowing eyes fixed directly on me, waiting for an explanation I didn't have as Kael moved, walking toward the center of the room with boots that clicked against the marble in a slow, predatory rhythm while a cold, suffocating pressure bled out from him, running heavy enough to make the air feel thick.

“Brother,” he said, stopping a few feet away and snapping his fingers. “Performance issues? Or is the beast finally realizing it’s been fed a lie?”

“Shut up, Kael,” I growled, turning back to Clara, who was trembling with her hands hovering near the spot on her neck I had nearly marked. “What did you do to Sienna? Why is the bond screaming for her?”

“Damien, what are you saying?” Clara’s voice broke as tears tracked down her cheeks. “I gave up my wolf for you. I gave up everything. Don't you care?”

“Then why can’t I feel you?” I demanded, stepping into her space to let my shadow loom over her as I ordered her to tell me the truth right now.

“She’s telling you she loves you,” Kael interjected, sounding thoroughly bored. “But you don’t value the sacrifice. You’re an empty Alpha with a starving wolf, leaving you with exactly thirty days, Damien.”

He held up his hand, ticking his fingers down one by one. “Thirty days before the pack realizes their leader is a hollow shell—thirty days before the succession moves to the next in line.”

I turned on him with my claws sliding out in a metallic snick. “Don't push me, Kael, because I am still the Alpha of this pack.”

“The law doesn't matter when the mind is gone,” Kael countered.

Clara stepped forward, her hand reaching for my arm. “Sienna ran away. Your mother tried to stop her, but Sienna… she was angry. She pushed her, so she’s the reason your mother is dead. Ask him.”

She pointed a trembling finger toward the oak doors to single out Clement, my Beta, my right hand, and the man who had bled with me in three different border wars. He walked forward with a face that remained a mask of professional grief, keeping his shoulders squared under the heavy weight of the lie.

“Clement,” I said, focusing on the events of three days ago. “What happened?”

“The girl ran, Alpha,” he replied, refusing to meet my eyes. “Sienna saw you petrified and panicked, and though your mother tried to keep her inside the wards, Sienna broke through. She’s gone.”

The words hit like a physical blow, because Clement didn't lie, but if she was a murderer, why did my soul feel like it was being dragged toward the horizon by an iron chain?

“It’s alright, Clara,” I muttered, though the words tasted like ash as I looked back at Kael. “The marking is cancelled, so we do it another day. Clement, clear the hall and tell me where my mother is kept.”

“Damien, I knew you’d stay,” Clara whispered, pressing herself against my chest with a tight grip as if she were afraid I would dissolve into smoke.

“Yes, Alpha,” Clement replied.

Kael lingered for a second, allowing a sharp, knowing smile to play on his lips—the look of a man who had already won the game before the first piece was moved—before he vanished into the shadows of the hallway without a word.

I stood in the center of the emptying hall with Clara’s weight hanging off me as a physical anchor. As I looked toward the heavy oak doors, the light shifted for a fraction of a second to reveal Sienna's silhouette standing there with wild hair, defiant eyes, and a sword in her hand dripping with something dark.

I reached out as my heart hammered against my ribs, but the image dissolved into dust and moonlight, leaving me to stammer against the phantom weight of the vision pressing against my chest while the ring on my finger hummed its silent, golden warning.