Chapter 2: The shattered Bond
767 Words
The forest tore past in wild streaks of shadow and broken branches, grabbing at my skin like the desperate hands of ghosts. I kept running. Stopping just wasn't an option. Somewhere behind me, the drums of the Blood Moon Pack hammered out their hollow celebration, a rhythmic, primitive beat that echoed everything I'd just lost. To them, it was the birth of a new era under Alpha Kaden. To me, it was the funeral march of my life.
I, Kaden Miller, hereby reject you, Elara, as my Mate and Luna.
Those words wouldn't stop. They circled my mind like vultures, biting down harder every time. People always say when a fated mate bond breaks, it's like dying. They're wrong. Dying would have been easier. Dying is a release. This? This was getting ripped apart but having to keep going anyway, forced to feel every jagged tear, again and again. It was a serious trauma that no omega was ever expected to survive.
I crashed down by a frozen creek, my knees slamming into the jagged stones. My chest was on fire with every ragged breath, the contemporary winter air burning my throat. I didn't care about the bruises or the blood seeping through my jeans. My hands clamped onto my stomach as a sharp, terrifying sensation radiated through my core. This pain was different from rejection, it was tighter, hotter and deep.
"Please, no," I gasped, the awful truth settling on me. "Not now. Not like this."
Kaden had spat at me, called me a "weak Omega," a "useless toy" fit only for chores and silence. He believed there was nothing left inside me, no strength, and no value. And yet, curled up there on the cold, hard ground, I felt it, a flicker of gold, faint but alive. Not mine. Not Maya's. Two tiny heartbeats, somehow pulsing inside me.
I was a pregnant fugitive.
In the back of my mind, Maya, my wolf, whimpered. She was mourning the Alpha we were supposed to stand with, but even that heartbreak got shoved aside by something sharper. Nothing else mattered now except protecting what was left.
We have to leave, Elara, Maya breathed, her voice fraying. If he finds out... if the pack finds out... they'll take them. They'll do to our pups what they did to us. They will see them as tools, not children .
The thought of Kaden or my father laying a single hand on these babies sent a chill through me that was colder than the creek water. My father used his belt to teach me my "place" as an Omega; Kaden had used his words to destroy my future. I would not let my children grow up in a cage of "Tribe" expectations and cruelty.
I forced myself up, legs shaking so badly I almost collapsed again. I glanced back the way I'd come. Kaden was probably raising a glass right now, basking in his new beginning with my sister. His crown. His precious, chosen Luna. He's probably laughing, relieved to be rid of the "weak" girl who had dared to be his fated match.
He didn't know he'd just flung the only hope for his bloodline into the night unprotected, unwanted, marked for the hunt. He didn't know that the Secret i carried was the only thing that could ever truly secure his legacy.
"You'll regret this, Kaden," I told the empty darkness, my voice stripped raw and hardened into something unbreakable. I was done being the girl who took the hits. I was done being brave for other people. What was left of heart was only cold. "You'll never even know their names. Not ever."
I turned from the Blood Moon Pack for the last time and ran. I wouldn't go to another pack. I wouldn't seek shelter with another Alpha. I would head for the Urban sprawl of the human cities, where the scent of concrete and exhaust would hide me from werewolf trackers. I would disappear into the neutral lands where no Alpha's hand could reach me.
I was Elara Vance, the rejected Luna. And from this moment on, I belong to no one but myself and the two lives growing inside me.
As I vanished into the thicket, the moon seemed to hide behind a cloud, as if even the Goddess couldn't bear to watch the tragedy she had set in motion. But I didn't need the moon. I had the fire of Revenge beginning to simmer in my veins, a slow burn promise that one day, I would be the one looking down on him.
- Writer
