THE LUNA'S GAMBIT: Heads and Tails

Chapter 5

Lacy’s POV

Alpha Rafael’s words hit me like a hammer to the face.

I felt the strength seep out of my legs; I was lucky to still be kneeling. If not, I would have collapsed.

I just knelt there, a confused look on my face… I was unable to process the words that the man I loved just uttered to me.

How did we even get here?

Could I not catch a break?

I had not even processed the fact that he was putting an end to our relationship, had not even dealt with the heart break from that, then came that white witch from nowhere and now there she was again, standing by his side…

That was who he was choosing as his Luna? How? What was going on?

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” he thundered at me.

I felt the ground beneath me shake. The crowd was hurling insults at me, spitting and booing with all their might.

My eyes searched the crowd for some sort of support, I spotted my family, and they were staring at me with disbelief, unable to even support me.

No one I knew knew about the affair I was having with the alpha. Right now, I just looked like a lunatic who attacked the future Luna without cause.

I tried to look to the man I loved for support. There was nothing but murderous hate in his eyes as he glared at me.

It felt like another knife was slowly inserted into my already chopped up heart, and I died within once more.

If only the ground could open and swallow me, I opened my mouth, but my throat burned and constricted so badly that I could not even speak.

Would it not be better if he killed me? Banishment was a fate worse than death.

“She has nothing to say for herself,” he continued, “Her guilt is certain and undoubtable.”

I gasped, was alpha Rafael so dense that he could not see that I was hurting? Could he not see… The pain choked up my thoughts, and my vision blurred.

It was as if I was having an out of body experience, I felt completely numb as the guards grabbed me from either side and dragged me away from the booing crowd.

I took one last look at the podium and that was when I saw the white witch, her arm was interlocked with that of alpha Rafael and she was staring at me… that same infuriating smirk was on her face.

That was the last thing I recalled before passing out from exhaustion.

****

When I came to, I was in the woods wet and alone.

I sat up hurriedly and looked around me. Tall trees ran back and forth with broad and encapsulating canopy.

It was raining lightly.

I sat there for what felt like an eternity, I had nothing, no one, nowhere.

I had never stepped foot outside the pack since the day I was born. We were taught that beyond lay other packs, the dreary human world and the other kingdoms as well as unspeakable evil and filth.

How was I going to survive in a place like this? I had no idea what to do or where to go?

“Why did you not just kill me!” I yelled, and a clap of thunder drowned out my voice. “You should have just killed me, curse you, Rafael, curse you!” I yelled once more at the top of my lungs as the tears poured down freely, I clasped my chest as I forced myself to get up.

I had disgraced my family and gotten banished. I didn’t deserve to live. There was no point, my pack… All I had known since birth despised me, rejected me… I was nothing without them.

What was the point of living? As the picture of her arm interlocked with his flashed in my mind again, my heart tore open afresh.

I had loved that man for a year, and never for once had he flaunted me publicly with such pride.

My feet carried me forward, I didn’t know where I was going, I didn’t even know why I was even bothering to move.

I kept stumbling through the forest until I reached an abrupt cliff, and then I stiffened as I almost lost my footing and plunged towards the dark depths below.

“The cliff of a thousand souls,” a deep voice boomed from my left.

I turned to look so wearily. There was a man sitting at the far edge of the cliff, dangling his legs freely. He turned to look at me.

His eyes were abnormally blonde, something I had never seen before.

But I was too grief-stricken and heartbroken to be amazed by it or by him.

“They say that this is where banished wolves or wolves who have lost the will to live come to die. If you listen carefully, you can hear the howl of the grievous souls at the bottom.”

“Is that so, maybe I should join them,” I inched forward, kicking small rubble into the abyss below.

There was no point to me living again, I could not survive without my pack, it would be better to just end everything now than to try living with the badge of shame and disgrace that I wore.

I inched further again, my toes were over the edge now, only the heels of my feet kept me grounded as I looked down into the dark abyss.

A streak of lightning cracked open the dark skies and threw a little light into the darkness below – I could have sworn I saw hands reaching out to me, beckoning me to take the fall.

I inched forward again.

“I get that you want to die, but do you plan to take all three of them with you?”

His voice was as clear as a clap of thunder, and it touched something so deep and primal, I paused and looked at him, “What?”

His blonde eyes fixed themselves on me, sending a vicious chill down my spine, “Did you not know? You are pregnant with triplets.”