Cast Out by My Mate, Crowned by the Moon

The night they stripped me of my name, the moon was too bright. Wolves circled the clearing in a tight ring of fur and teeth, their bodies a dark, breathing wall around the stone at my back. Every eye, every ear, every bared fang was turned toward the center—toward me. And toward him. Alpha Varyn Blackclaw stood just beyond arm’s reach, a black silhouette against the silver sky. His shoulders were straight, his jaw locked, his eyes an unreadable iron-grey that refused to meet mine for more than a heartbeat. “Liora Fenriss,” the lead elder intoned, voice rolling over the gathered wolves like distant thunder, “you stand here as blood of a traitor and stain upon this pack.” My wrists burned where the rope bit into them. “I am not a traitor,” I said, or tried to. My voice came out raw. Too small for the open night. “You know that. You all know that.” No one moved. On my left, my mother stood between two guards, her shoulders rigid, her gaze pinned to the ground. On my right, my father knelt in chains, head bowed, dried blood at his temple. The Beta of Blackclaw Pack, accused of selling patrol routes and border wards to an enemy we hadn’t even fought yet. He didn’t look at me either. That hurt worse than the rope. “You sheltered your father,” the elder went on. “You lied to your Alpha. You concealed meetings beyond the borders.” “I was trying to prove he was innocent,” I snapped, the words scraping my throat. “I told you that. I told him that.” I jerked my chin toward Varyn, because my bound hands couldn’t point. “You said you trusted me.” He finally looked at me. Varyn’s gaze ran over my face like a blade, slow and precise. For a dizzy second, my wolf rose, reaching for his, the old instinctive bond stretching toward the one it called home. Nothing answered. “Trust,” he said quietly, and the entire clearing strained to catch the word, “is not blind. I cannot ignore evidence because once, I shared a bed and a bond with you.” Once. Past tense. My ribs squeezed so tight I could barely breathe. “Varyn,” I whispered, because I couldn’t make myself say Alpha, not to him, not like this. “You know me. Look at me. Tell me you believe I would never sell out our pack.” His jaw flexed. Behind him, Galen shifted his weight, eyes flickering with something like pity. Seris, the healer’s daughter who used to share my blankets on cold patrol nights, stared fixedly at the dirt. No one spoke my defense. No one stepped forward. The elder lifted a carved stone, moonlight gleaming on the runes etched into its surface. “By law of the Blackclaw, blood of a traitor is traitor. Her bond to the Alpha is a liability to the safety of the pack. It must be severed.” My heart lurched. “No.” The word tore out of me, harsh and panicked. “You can exile me. Chain me. Question me again. But don’t—” “Enough.” Varyn’s voice cracked across the circle, cool and absolute. “Bring her here.” Hands closed on my arms, dragging me forward until I stood directly in front of him. I could see every hard line of his face now, the faint scar at his left temple from when we were sixteen and I’d shoved him too hard during training. I’d kissed that scar once. “You don’t have to do this,” I said, low and shaking. “You are the Alpha. You can choose another way.” “And risk the entire pack on the word of a Beta’s daughter too blinded by love to see her father’s guilt?” His eyes hardened. “I cannot.” “Then you never trusted me at all,” I whispered. Something flickered in his gaze. For half a heartbeat, I saw my mate—the boy who had once pressed a moonflower into my palm and promised, we stand together, always. Then it was gone. He lifted his hand to my chest, fingers spreading over the spot where our bond pulsed faint and frantic beneath my skin. His palm was warm. Mine were ice. “By the right of Alpha,” Varyn said, voice ringing clear, “I sever the bond that ties us. I cast you out from my side and from my pack. You are no longer Luna of Blackclaw. You are no longer of us at all.” The elder pressed the stone to the back of Varyn’s other hand. Runes flared cold white. Power surged. Pain exploded through my body, white-hot. It felt like claws ripping through my heart, like teeth tearing out a piece of my soul. I screamed—couldn’t help it—as something deep and sacred tore free. The world blurred. The scent of pine and smoke vanished. For one wild moment, there was nothing but emptiness where the warm weight of the bond had always been. Then even that was gone. I fell to my knees in the dirt. Silence crashed over the clearing. The pack’s presence pulled back from me like a tide, leaving me stranded and alone on dry, cracked ground. Varyn stepped away from my reach. “Take her to the border,” he said. “At first light, she leaves our lands. She steps beyond the stone, or she is thrown.” My mother made a strangled sound. My father finally lifted his head, eyes wet and fierce, but the guards were already hauling me up, dragging my limp body toward the trees. I didn’t fight them. I just looked back once, over my shoulder, at the male who had been my mate. Varyn Blackclaw did not look back. Above him, the moon watched, bright and distant and utterly indifferent, as my world ended.