The Luna He Rejected Is The Millennium Wolf

Chapter 020

Sienna's POV

The morning sun felt like a physical weight against my eyelids. I tried to roll away from the heat, but the light followed me, persistent and sharp. I groaned, my head throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache that made every movement feel like I was pushing through deep water.

When I finally forced my eyes open, I had to blink several times to clear the film of sleep. This wasn't the hostel. The air was too clean, filtered and heavy with the scent of sandalwood and a sharp, cedar-like musk that lacked the warmth of Damien’s forest scent.

This was the cold, metallic tang of a different seat of power. I sat up slowly, my skin sliding against silk sheets that felt far too luxurious for someone who had just tasted the dirt of a warehouse floor. This was Alpha territory, but not one I recognized.

"Where am I?" I whispered, my voice sounding thin and stripped of its marrow as I looked around the room. It was massive, stone-walled, and filled with dark wood furniture that looked like it had survived centuries of war.

The sound of my own words acted like a trigger. The fog in my mind cleared, and the memory of the hostel came screaming back to show the flash of the red-haired girl's hair and the sickening thud of the wolf hitting her. She had taken the death meant for the wolfless burden.

I gripped the edge of the mattress until my knuckles turned white. A surge of grief hit me so hard I felt the air leave my lungs, leaving tears to burn paths straight down my face instead of just falling. Why me? Why was I the one who survived when I had nothing left to offer the world?

The thought looped in my head like a cruel mantra, telling me I was a failure who had stood there frozen while a stranger died to keep me breathing. I was just a witness to a s*******r I was too weak to stop, having never even reached for a weapon as I just watched her fall.

I forced my legs to move, swinging them over the side of the bed with muscles that felt like lead, trembling under the task of supporting my weight. I stumbled toward the window, yanking the heavy velvet curtains aside to see what kind of cage I was in.

The roar of the crowd below hit me before I even saw them, revealing a massive stone arena carved directly into the mountain. Hundreds of wolves were gathered in the stands, their collective heartbeat creating a low, distant hum that vibrated right through the glass.

Below, warriors were training in the sand, moving with a lethal, blurring speed I could no longer match. I leaned my forehead against the cool pane until the world began to tilt, allowing the low drone of the crowd's voices to shift, morphing into the rhythmic, frantic chanting of pack laws.

Suddenly, I wasn't at the window anymore—I was back in that damp, suffocating cellar. I could smell the rot and the ozone, and when I saw the doorframe, there he was: Lucas. He didn't look like a monster, appearing exactly like the man I had shared my secrets with, but his eyes ran as flat and cold as a winter lake.

"Lucas, please," I heard my past self sob. "I love you. Don't do this to me."

Lucas didn't flinch. "Sienna, I love you too," he said, leaving the words to sound steady yet utterly hollow. "But this buys my father the time he needs. You're doing this for us."

The betrayal emerged as a physical weight, crushing the ribs around my heart as Ivy stepped forward with her silk dress hissing. She didn't strike me, leaning down instead to lick the mark on my neck—the mark that was supposed to be completely sacred.

"Dear sister," Ivy whispered. "Your mate? He's mine now. Morrigan says your bloodline is going to make my child the strongest Alpha this territory has ever seen, so you're finally being useful."

I had pleaded to vanish or run to the human world, but Morrigan didn't care about deals, stepping forward with the silver needle instead. I remembered the cold bite of metal right before the world had gone black.

I snapped back to the present, my hand flying to my chest as I shook with skin that ran cold despite the sun. This is reality now, I reminded myself. You aren't that girl anymore—you have no wolf, leaving you with nothing but the air in your lungs.

"Feeling better now?"

The voice came from the shadows, but I didn't jump since I lacked the energy for it. I knew that voice—deep, arrogant, and heavy. Duke. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching me with a calculated interest.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, his boots clicking on the stone as he approached.

I tried to turn, but my balance was completely shot. I felt myself falling, but before I could hit the floor, a massive, warm hand clamped around my waist to catch me like I weighed nothing. I pushed against his chest, but he felt like a wall of solid muscle.

"Let go," I rasped.

"Open your eyes, Sienna."

I did, finding his sharp features illuminated by the sun as his eyes searched mine with an intensity that took over the room. He didn't look at me like a person, looking at me like a prize he was deciding whether to keep or sell instead.

"Sit down," he said, guiding me back to the edge of the bed. "I'm here to see if you're going to survive the day."

He leaned in, his voice dropping into a low, seductive tone. "You're trying to fix things you don't understand, aren't you? The Eucharist, the warehouse... you're playing with fire."

I stared at him with a mess of fear and confusion. "None of your business," I snapped, leaving my Alpha-born pride to give my voice a sudden edge. "Where is Damien? Why am I in your quarters?"

Duke didn't look angry, allowing the smirk to vanish as it was replaced by a look of genuine pity I hated even more. He sat on the chair opposite the bed, crossing his legs.

"Damien is awake," he said.

The words dropped like stones into a pond, forcing my heart to give a violent leap. Is he coming for me? Did he realize what they did to me?

"He is," Duke said, watching me as if delivering a death sentence. "But he's mating with Clara tonight. It's official. The elders have sanctioned it, and the pack is already celebrating, and he hasn't asked for you once."

The world went silent, exactly as if someone had sucked all the oxygen right out of the room. As Duke spoke, a sharp, tearing sensation flared in my chest, leaving the Eucharist bond to feel like it was being physically unraveled, thread by agonizing thread.

"I'm guessing he hasn't marked you yet," Duke added, his eyes drifting to my bare neck. "Am I right? If he had, you’d be dead or dying from the rejection by now. Instead, you're just... empty."

I couldn't answer, feeling exactly like I had been punched. Everything I had endured—the basement, the needle, the warehouse—was supposed to be for him. For us.

Duke poured a glass of water and held it out, and when I took it, my hands shook so much the water splashed right over the rim. I drank it down, allowing the cold liquid to shock my system. As I set the glass down, Duke moved again, pinning me back against the pillows with his weight.

"You want to get out of this, don't you?" he whispered. "Damien has moved on, and Clara is the new Luna, leaving you as a ghost in your own home."

"Get off me, Duke. I'm Damien's Luna."

"Damien's Luna?" Duke laughed. "Damien is downstairs with another woman while you're up here in my room, wolfless and alone. Stay with me, Sienna, because I can offer you more than a cold grave."

"I said get off!" I shoved him with a sudden, desperate surge of adrenaline.

He stepped back with dark amusement on his face, not even winded. Before he could speak, a knock rattled the door to reveal a guard whose face was obscured by a steel helm. "Lord Duke, the training rounds are starting. The Purger is on the sand."

Duke sighed, his eyes lingering on mine. "Try not to get yourself killed in the arena, Sienna, because I'd hate to see all that potential go to waste. I have a lot riding on your performance today."

The door clicked shut, leaving me to sit there and count my breaths—one, two, three.

I walked to the mirror to find my face pale and my eyes sunken, looking entirely defeated like the girl they had broken in the basement. I grabbed a brush from the vanity and pulled it through my hair, working out the knots of the journey.

I loosed my hair, shaking it out before pulling it back into a tight, high style that made my features look sharper and deadlier. I found a bit of kohl on the table and lined my eyes until they looked fierce, knowing that even if it was a lie, I needed to wear it like armor.

I stepped into the corridor where a guard was waiting with his spear crossed over the door. "You're to go to the arena floor," he barked. "Alpha’s orders."

"Which Alpha?" I asked, keeping my voice steady.

"The one who hasn't forgotten you're alive," the guard muttered, stepping aside.

I walked down the long, winding hallway, where the dark stone was carved with symbols that seemed to glow in the shadows. They weren't wolf symbols, but were older, jagged things that made the hair on my arms stand up. I walked slowly, tracing the line of the wall as my fingers brushed the ancient grooves.

The second my fingertips touched a symbol at the end of the hall, a bolt of white-hot pain shot through my arm and directly into my skull. My vision went red as I stumbled, clutching the wall for support while tasting something metallic and warm in the back of my throat.

I wiped my mouth to find it smeared with dark, thick blood, but as I looked at it, the blood didn't look normal at all, carrying a faint, golden shimmer under the torchlight. What is this? What did that needle actually do to me?

I didn't wait to find out, turning the corner to run straight toward the light of the arena exit. I could hear the roar of the crowd growing louder, creating a wall of sound that threatened to push me back.

The moment I stepped onto the sand, the roar of thousands of wolves hit me like a physical blow. I felt every eye in the place lock onto me, revealing a sea of predators all waiting for the entertainment to begin. I looked up at the high boxes and saw Duke leaning forward with an expectant smile, though Damien was nowhere to be seen.

In the center of the arena, a massive warrior stood waiting. He was twice my size, his skin a roadmap of scars and old burns as he held a heavy mace that looked like it could crush a boulder. He looked right at me—a small, wolfless girl with blood on her lips—and let out a booming laugh that echoed off the stone walls.

"You really came out here to die?" he shouted, his voice carrying easily to the highest stands. "The Alpha said you were a fighter, but you look like a broken toy. I'll make it quick!"

The crowd cheered in a bloodthirsty sound that made my stomach turn, but I didn't move or tremble. I simply looked at the warrior, and then at the sand beneath my feet.

The silver heat from the warehouse was gone, replaced by something entirely different. I reached for the ghost of the bond in my chest, seeking that connection to Damien, but it remained a void. Instead, I found something else in that darkness—a power that wasn't hot or frantic, but cold and golden like the edge of a sharpened blade. It hummed in my veins, answering the call of the blood on my lips.

I looked the warrior straight in the eye and felt the golden cold take hold.

"Try me," I whispered.