Ronan turns to Selena, anguish in his tone. “I can’t have a traitor for Luna. I reject you, Selena, daughter of former Gamma Henry, as my mate.”
The words hang in the air, heavy and final. A collective gasp ripples through the crowd. Mate rejections are rare. Painful. Fatal. To do it publicly like this is beyond cruel.
I watch Selena’s face crumble, her hand rising to her chest where the mate bond resides. The color drains from her cheeks, her breathing shallow and quick. She’s in shock.
“Selena,” I call out, trying to reach her through the crowd. “You don’t deserve this. Request a truth trial.”
“Get him out of here,” Ronan roars. The Beta heir and Delta heir step forward. I’m forcibly escorted out of the room. A sharp sting pierces my neck. My limbs grow heavy, each heartbeat pumping weakness through my veins instead of strength. My wolf growls weakly,poison… wolfsbane and… silver. Then I hear on the other side of the door.
“I, Selena, daughter of former Gamma Henry, accept your rejection,” her voice somehow carrying through the silent hall.
Consciousness slips away like water through my fingers. When I finally surface from the drug-induced void, sunlight streams through unfamiliar curtains. My calendar shows two days have vanished. I’m back in my quarters, alone.
Something is wrong. Deeply, terribly wrong.My wolf howls inside me, sensing danger beyond the obvious betrayal playing out before us.
Then I remember… Selena. I rush to the packhouse and hear the pack say Selena is on trial for treason.
I reach the meadow where the trial is being held, with the moonlight high above us. The Silver Moon Pack now bows to Ronan and Candice, her neck bearing fresh claiming marks that should have been Selena’s birthright. In less than forty-eight hours, they’ve seized control completely, Alpha and Luna in title, ceremony, and power. I push through the crowd, ignoring the Alpha’s warning growl.
The scent hits me suddenly, metallic, sharp. Blood. But not just any blood. There’s something else mingled with it, something acrid and foreign.
“Poison,” I whisper, realization dawning as I lunge forward.
Selena sways on her feet, her eyes rolling back. I reach her just as her knees buckle, catching her against my chest. Her body is already cooling, her heartbeat erratic beneath my palm.
“Selena!” I cradle her face. “Stay with me!”
When my skin touches hers, something impossible happens. A spark, literal, visible… arcs between us. Energy crackles along my arms, racing up to my chest where my own mate bond once resided. Heat floods through me, a connection forming where none should exist.
Her eyes flutter open briefly, meeting mine with shocked recognition. “Rylan?” she whispers, confusion in her fading voice.
Then her body goes limp, her last breath escaping in a soft sigh against my cheek.
“No!” The howl tears from my throat, primal and raw. “NO!”
Her lifeless body falls heavy against me, and something inside me shatters. My vision narrows to crimson as my wolf surges forward, bones already shifting beneath my skin.
My voice… no longer human. My beast takes over as I retreat into the darkness of my consciousness.
3
Selena’s POV
Pain. Then nothing.
Darkness swallows me whole, consuming every sense until I cease to exist. Then, silver light. It pierces the void, unfurling across an endless expanse that isn’t quite a place but feels ancient and vast. Cold moonlight bathes my skin, though I no longer have a body in any way I understand.
I float in this silvery eternity, weightless yet anchored by an overwhelming presence.
Selena.
The voice doesn’t come from anywhere. It simply exists, reverberating through my consciousness with calm authority.
Before me, the moonlight coalesces into a silhouette, a woman formed of starlight and shadow, her features both ageless and ever-changing. The Moon Goddess.
“You were betrayed by the one meant to protect you,” she says, her voice like the whisper of celestial bodies moving across the night sky. “The mate bond is sacred… but it was never meant to bind you to cruelty.”
I want to speak, but I have no voice here.
