The Rejected Luna's Secret Alpha

Chapter 2

Dorian exhaled, visibly relieved.

That hurt more than the rejection itself.

He looked relieved to be free of me.

“Now,” he said, adjusting his jacket, “we can put this embarrassing situation behind us.”

I stared at him through my tears.

I wanted to hate him.

I wanted to scream that he would regret this, that one day he would look back at this moment and understand exactly what he had thrown away.

But the words remained trapped in my throat.

Because some part of me, the foolish part that had dreamed about him for years, still wanted him to take it all back.

To tell me he hadn’t meant it.

To reach for me and say my name with tenderness instead of contempt.

He did none of those things.

Instead, he turned away and offered Seraphina his arm.

“Come,” he said. “We have a celebration to finish.”

She smiled and followed him toward the platform.

The crowd parted for them.

Nobody moved for me.

I stood beneath the full moon, surrounded by people who had watched me being rejected as though it were entertainment. My hands shook at my sides, and every breath scraped against my throat.

I could stay.

I could lower my head, endure the whispers, and spend the rest of my life trying to prove that I was worth something.

Or I could leave.

The thought came quietly, almost gently.

Leave.

For the first time in my life, I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to earn a place among people who had never wanted me.

I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand.

Then I turned toward the edge of the clearing.

“Freya!”

I froze.

For one terrible second, hope rose inside me.

I turned around.

Dorian stood beside the ceremonial platform, his expression impatient.

“Don’t make this more dramatic than it needs to be,” he called. “You should be grateful I’m allowing you to remain in the pack after this.”

Grateful.

I looked at him, and something inside me finally went quiet.

Not my wolf.

Not my heart.

Something else.

The part of me that had spent years begging the world to be kinder.

I faced him one last time.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Dorian.”

He looked almost amused.

“I wasn’t.”

The honesty of his answer should have destroyed me.

Instead, it settled something inside my chest.

I drew a shaky breath and raised my voice so that every wolf in the clearing could hear me.

“I, Freya, accept your rejection.”

The moment the words left my mouth, a strange sensation rippled through my body.

For a fraction of a second, the silver moonlight above us seemed to brighten.

A glass goblet slipped from someone’s hand and shattered against the stone.

Nobody spoke.

I barely noticed.

All I could think about was getting away.

I gathered the skirt of my dress and ran.

Past the ceremonial stones.

Past the guards at the edge of the clearing.

Past the familiar trees that marked the territory where I had spent my entire life feeling unwanted.

Branches caught in my hair as I plunged into the forest. My borrowed shoes slipped against the damp earth, but I kept running, even when my lungs began to burn and the pain in my chest threatened to bring me to my knees.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I only knew that I couldn’t bear to hear another person laugh at me.

Behind me, the music began again.

The Bloodmoon Pack was celebrating its future Alpha.

And I was running into the darkness with nothing but a broken bond and a heart that no longer knew what to believe.

I stumbled over a root, caught myself against a tree, and pressed my forehead to its rough bark.

“Please,” I whispered to the empty forest. “Just let me disappear.”

The wind moved through the branches.

For a moment, everything was silent.

Then a strange warmth spread beneath my skin.

I lifted my head.

Something was happening to my body.

My fingers began to tremble. A sharp, unfamiliar sensation travelled down my spine, and deep inside me, something ancient stirred for the first time in eighteen years.

My wolf, who had been silent for as long as I could remember, suddenly raised her head.

And when a voice finally echoed through my mind, it wasn’t the frightened whisper I had expected.

It was a growl.

Run, Freya.

I stared into the darkness between the trees.

Run before they discover what you are.