He Took Her Side, I Rejected My Alpha

Chapter 4

"What the f**k do you want from me," he snarled.

I answered without raising my voice.

"To clear the Luna's seat. For your darling."

Then I looked down at Elara.still on the floor, fingers wet with her own blood.and I smiled.

"Actually. No. I don't need to anymore."

I took the heavy iron mallet one of my movers had been carrying. It had been meant for dismantling the heavier furniture.

I turned. I walked across the room to the enormous portrait that had been mounted there since our Bonding Ceremony.

I swung.

The rune-sealed glass cracked apart in slow motion. Then it shattered.down to the slate.in a cascade of brilliant fragments.

Just like the bond between our souls. Now in pieces on the floor.

"Captain."

I tossed the mallet aside and dropped a bag of crystal coin in front of the head of the moving crew.

"Your fee. Paid in full. Apologies for the wasted trip."

"There's nothing in this house worth taking. It's all soaked in betrayal."

The captain stared at me with wide, terrified eyes. He stammered, "Luna Leah.do you need us to notify the Council."

Elara, even with her face slowly turning into a road map of blood, found her voice. "Notify what Council? She attacked me! The only one being notified should be the Alpha! She should be the one on trial!"

Kaya finally let her eyes drift down to the wreck of Elara's face. She let out a slow, mocking laugh that could have peeled paint.

"Well, well. If it isn't our Pack's most professional damsel. What's the matter, sweetheart? Drama mask slipping? Hard to act helpless once your face starts looking like exactly what's underneath?"

Elara's eyes glittered with hatred through the blood. Her voice came out small and venomous.

"Luna Leah. I have never tried to compete with you for the Mate position. Why are you doing this to me?"

"Don't you understand how much a pure reputation matters to a woman?"

"Of course you understand," she said, voice rising to a near-shriek. "Alpha Kael told me. He told me everything."

"He told me you were taken by a Rogue pack once. That your soul has been unclean ever since. That's why you see filth everywhere. Because you are filth."

"Elara!"

Kael's voice came down like a hammer of thunder. The window glass behind him rattled.

"You have crossed a line."

I had never had the honor of hearing him speak to her like that. Not in ten years. Whenever Elara was in the room, she was the wronged party. The fragile party. Even her breathing was treated as evidence that I was being too harsh.

Once upon a time, I had tried very hard to believe.

Believe that Kael was only momentarily turned around by some rut-fever or stray pheromone.

That he would come back to himself. That he would see the perversion of what he was doing to our Mate Bond and beg me to stitch our souls back together.

That I should wait for him to kneel before the Moon Goddess and beg forgiveness.

That I should be merciful. Because severing a Mate Bond brings catastrophic pain.

But I had never imagined.never.that the bloodied, private trauma I had once carried into our marriage would come out of his Healer's mouth in this room, on this night.

I had never imagined that the only memory I had ever shared with him under a full moon.the one thing he had sworn would be ours alone.would have been served up to her as casual conversation. As a weapon she would one day plunge into my chest.

"Right."

I started to laugh. I laughed harder than I had cried.

"I am filthy."

That night, when Kael had been bait in a trap meant to take down our entire Pack, I had traded myself for him.

The Shadowfang Pack had locked me in a silver-dusted cell for one full Blood Moon.

No one knew what those hours had been like for me. No one would ever know exactly how I'd burned through silver poisoning on my own.

But of course there had always been the whispers. That I must have given myself to them. That I must have traded myself to walk out alive.

I was not made of iron.

I had told myself, all these years, that whatever the rest of the world believed.my own Alpha, my Mate, the wolf the Moon Goddess herself had picked for me.would never doubt me.

It turned out the bond hurts even more when it finally kills you.

I couldn't breathe. The taste of iron filled my mouth.

I looked at Kael.at his panicked, flickering eyes.and I let my voice go flat.

"So save yourself some dignity. Don't look at me like that. You don't deserve to call yourself an Alpha anymore."

I grabbed Kaya's wrist and walked toward the door.

Kaya was still cursing him as we went.

"Moon-damned animal."

"You vow-breaking piece of Rogue trash."

"You're going to die alone in some filth-filled chasm and never claw your way out."

Kael ran after us.

He caught me at the threshold. His voice was different. Stripped down. Almost begging.

"Leah. I didn't."

"Leah, I didn't."

"You have to believe me."