The Rejected Luna's Secret Alpha

Chapter 3

The voice echoed inside my head, so unfamiliar that I almost believed someone was standing behind me.

I spun around.

Nothing.

Only the trees, the darkness, and the pale moon hanging above the forest.

My breathing came in short, uneven gasps. I pressed my back against the nearest tree and closed my eyes, trying to convince myself that the voice had been nothing more than a consequence of the pain.

But then it spoke again.

Freya.

This time, I felt it.

The voice wasn’t coming from the forest.

It was coming from inside me.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

For several seconds, there was no answer. Then a strange warmth spread through my chest, settling somewhere beneath my heart.

I am what you have been forced to forget.

I shook my head.

“No. No, this isn’t happening.”

My wolf had always been weak. At least, that was what everyone had told me. While other children learned to communicate with their wolves before their sixteenth birthdays, I had spent years listening to nothing but silence.

Sometimes, I had wondered whether I even possessed a wolf at all.

Yet the presence inside me felt enormous.

It was not frightened by the darkness. It was not disturbed by the rejection that had shattered my soul only minutes earlier. It seemed almost angry, as though Dorian’s words had awakened something that had been sleeping for a very long time.

He hurt you.

The statement was so simple that tears immediately filled my eyes.

“Yes,” I whispered.

He broke what was never his to break.

I swallowed hard.

“Please stop. I can’t think.”

The warmth beneath my skin suddenly intensified.

A sharp pain shot through my spine.

I cried out and dropped to my knees, digging my fingers into the damp earth. My bones felt as though they were shifting beneath my skin, stretching and twisting in ways that made my stomach turn.

I had heard stories about first transformations. Every wolf in the pack knew them. The process was supposed to be painful, but temporary. Your bones changed, your senses sharpened, and your wolf finally emerged.

But this was different.

The pain was too deep.

Too powerful.

Silver light flickered beneath the skin of my hands.

I stared at my fingers in disbelief.

Thin lines of light moved across my knuckles, disappearing beneath the sleeves of my dress. For one terrifying moment, I thought my skin was burning.

Then the light vanished.

I gasped.

“What is happening to me?”

Your blood remembers.

The words sent a chill through me.

Before I could ask what they meant, another wave of pain crashed over my body. My vision blurred, and the forest seemed to tilt sideways. I reached for the tree, but my fingers slipped against its bark.

I had to get away.

Away from the pack.

Away from Dorian.

Away from everyone who might see what was happening to me.

I forced myself to stand and stumbled deeper into the forest.

The farther I walked, the stranger my surroundings became.

I could hear things I had never heard before. The distant flutter of wings. The tiny movements of creatures beneath fallen leaves. Somewhere far beyond the trees, water rushed over stones.

I could even hear my own heartbeat.

Every sound seemed impossibly clear.

And the scents were overwhelming.

Wet earth. Pine needles. Wildflowers. The sharp smell of a fox hiding somewhere nearby.

Beneath them all lingered something else.

A scent that was unmistakably mine.

It smelled like winter air, crushed silver leaves, and something ancient that I couldn’t name.

I had never smelled anything like it before.

Another cramp seized my stomach, forcing me to stop beside a fallen log.

I bent forward, breathing through clenched teeth.

For a moment, I thought I was going to be sick.

Then I heard laughter.

My head snapped up.

It came from behind me, carried faintly through the trees.

The pack.

They were still celebrating.

I imagined Dorian standing beside Seraphina, accepting congratulations from people who had watched him destroy me. Perhaps he was already telling them how relieved he felt.

Perhaps he had forgotten my existence entirely.

A bitter laugh escaped my throat.

I had spent eighteen years believing that finding my mate would change everything.

Instead, it had taught me how little I meant to someone I had never even had the chance to love.

I wiped my face.

“No more,” I whispered.

I wasn’t sure whether I was speaking to Dorian, to the pack, or to the frightened girl I had been only an hour ago.

But I meant it.

No more begging.

No more trying to become someone worthy of being loved.

If they wanted me gone, I would leave.

I would find a place where nobody knew my name, where nobody looked at me with pity, and where I could discover what kind of person I wanted to become.

The thought was terrifying.

I had never been beyond the Bloodmoon territory alone. I had no money, no supplies, and nowhere to go.

But staying would mean allowing Dorian to decide the rest of my life.

I would rather face the unknown.

Even if the unknown killed me.