The Luna He Rejected Is The Millennium Wolf

CHAPTER NINE: THE REJECTION ACCEPTED

Damien's POV

Nobody moved. Nobody made a sound, not even when a tray went over somewhere by the doors.

I'd crossed two territories to get here. What I was holding told me what that took.

This wasn't a suppressed shift. I'd seen those. This was something taken out of her. Her skin had gone gray. One leg was furred, clawed, twitching at the wrong times. The other one was just a leg, pale, bent wrong at the knee.

I took a step toward the high table. My boot hit stone and the sound went the length of the hall.

I let my aura go tight. Didn't think about it much. A glass on the nearest table cracked apart across the linen. The woman next to it flinched and knocked her chair over. Lucas jerked. Ivy grabbed his arm hard enough her knuckles went white. Both of them looked between me and the girl I was holding.

"Is this what you call a mate?" I kept it low. "This how you treat someone who loved you?"

Lucas's eyes went around the room before they landed on me. "W_, what did you..."

"That a real question?" Sweat had started on him already. "You look weak, Lucas."

Ivy opened her mouth. Shut it again.

"I rejected her!" His voice cracked halfway through. "She just won't accept it!"

I didn't say anything back. I watched the vein going in his neck and let the quiet sit there.

Somebody near the back said, quiet, "Hold your breath."

I let my aura drop, all of it, nothing held back. Weaker wolves went down first, blood at the nose before they hit their knees. Stronger ones bent at the waist trying to stay up and mostly failing.

Two stayed on their feet. A noblewoman near the head table with one hand locked white on the table edge. And Morrigan, off to one side, watching the room the way you'd count a stack of bills.

Lucas's heels were sliding on the edge of the dais. His hands grabbed at nothing. I crossed over and got in whatever space he had left.

"You rejected her." Quieter now. "You a fool, or just a coward?"

His mouth opened. My hand got there first.

I had him by the throat and into the wall before he could get a word out, Sienna still against my other side. His feet scraped the floor looking for something to push off. Didn't find it.

"You broke her into pieces." I tightened my hand, a little at a time. "That wasn't enough for you? You took something else off her too. What."

He clawed at my wrist. His breath came out short, his face going dark. He didn't answer. I gave it one more turn and waited him out.

"You came a long way from your own pack just to make a mess, Alpha Damien."

Heels on marble, not rushed. Morrigan stopped a few feet back, her face somewhere between worried and warning me.

I let up enough that Lucas's feet found the floor again on their own.

"You know the rules." Her voice was flat. "Alphas don't cross them. You know what it costs."

"I know." I looked down at Sienna. "Now look what your pack did to her. And still calls itself wolves."

I let go of the pressure. Air went back into Lucas fast. He didn't come up straight like a leader's supposed to. What came out instead was a laugh, rough, wrong-sounding, and Ivy stepped up clapping slow, like she was at a show.

"Wow." Her eyes went to Sienna. Her voice was pitched loud enough for the room. "The Moon Goddess really pulled one tonight. Sienna. My darling sister. And her second chance mate. What the hell just happened here?"

She grabbed Lucas's face with both hands and kissed him, slow, eyes open the whole time, watching me over his shoulder while she did it.

Morrigan's face didn't move at all. She lifted one finger toward the guards by the wall.

"You know the rules, Damien." Lucas had found something steadier under his feet. "Aren't you worried about your own position back home?"

"Drop her. Leave."

"Or what."

Blood showed at the corner of his mouth, thin. He touched it, looked at his finger, laughed again, short.

"Or we execute you," he said.

Blood came for real after that.

His guards got to him before his knees hit stone, holding him under both arms while his hands went to his own chest. Something moved under his skin, in, out, and whatever sound came out of his lungs shut the whole room up. One of the guards looked at Morrigan for something. Got nothing back.

"Goddess, he's—" Somebody's fear got loose before they could finish the sentence.

Ivy went down next to him. Whatever she saw took the act right off her face.

Her eyes went somewhere else for a second, blank, like she was listening to something only she could hear. Then they came back, and whatever had been said, it wasn't for me.

I looked down at the girl in my arms and pushed the hair off her forehead. Her pulse hit my hand once, hard.

Sienna's eyes came open.

Both her hands landed flat on my chest, her eyes working their way back from somewhere far off. I got her down slow, kept my hands on her till her feet found the floor and held.

Her knees went once. Second time they held. She started walking toward the middle of the hall, not looking back at me, spine straight, and whatever each step was costing her, she didn't let it show.

Ivy was still on her knees over Lucas, both hands shaking on his chest.

Sienna got to the middle of the floor and stopped. One breath in. Her eyes went around the room, no hurry to it, and whatever came onto her face after that, it looked already decided before she got there.

Her arm moved.

Slap cracked off the stone.

"Y, you slapped me!" Blood at Ivy's lip now.

"I'd do it again." Sienna's voice came out flat. Her fingers hadn't stopped shaking, not once. "Satisfied? Or you want more?"

"You'll regret that." Ivy had a hand up on her own cheek.

Morrigan came at her fast, hand already going up.

"Raise a hand to me again," Sienna said, "and I won't stop this time."

Floor moved under my boots. Morrigan's arm was still coming up when Sienna crossed the space between them, fast enough I only got the after, not the actual motion. Morrigan skidded the length of the marble and stopped in a pile of red silk.

Sienna went down on both knees by Lucas. Sweat had come up across her forehead. Her hands came together and something low started building between her palms, her arms shaking with just holding still.

Light came out of her hands. I turned my face into my shoulder and it still burned through my eyelids.

When it stopped, Lucas was sitting up, coughing, his eyes right on her across the room. His hand came up, fingers not steady.

"Sienna." His voice cracked. "Wait."

She got up. Stepped back once. Then again.

Hall went dead quiet.

"I accept the rejection, Lucas."

Every weak wolf in the room hit their knees at the same time. Sienna's body went sideways, her eyes rolling back, and she was on the stone before anybody got there to catch her.