Chapter 2 Shattered Under Moonlight

The world never was so silent, and never so packed.

I didn't remember leaving the party, only the burning of held-back tears and the pounding of my heart beating in my ears like a drum summoning people to war. The whispers. The laughter. The screams. They meant nothing to me.

He rejected me.

In public.

As if I were an illness.

The mate bond had fractured within me like a tense glass wire. I could feel it fracturing through me, demolishing my wolf, destroying something sacred and ageless that even the Goddess of the Moon herself had gifted to me.

They looked at me - their pathetic eyes tracking me as I pushed through the pack crowd on numb legs. I couldn't feel the grass beneath my toes or the arms that brushed against mine as I stumbled into the forest. All I felt was the rejection ringing in my head.

"I reject Liana Rivers as my mate."

His voice haunted me. So cold. So absolute.

I knelt on the ground under the giant pines, the stars above whirling madly. The air was thinner here, as if the forest itself were holding its breath with me. My hands scraped at the ground, grasping for something. Anything. But I was adrift-floating in shock and sorrow.

Why?

I wasn't as physically strong as the warriors. I wasn't as magically powerful as the ranked wolves. I was simply. me. Quiet, unseen, an orphaned omega with a troubled past and no name to remember. Perhaps he did see that. Perhaps that was all he ever saw.

But the Goddess. she decided on him for me. What did it mean, if he could so easily refuse her decision?

The leaves rustled gently. My wolf whined deep within, her wails full of betrayal. She had reached out to him - and he had pushed her aside like dust. We both felt empty now. Shattered.

"You don't deserve this," Mira whispered, kneeling beside me, her arm wrapping around my shoulders. She must have followed me. "Lia... he humiliated you."

"I know," I croaked, my throat sore.

I swear on the moon, I'll scar his perfect face," she snarled through clenched teeth.

It didn't matter. Revenge would not make him stop looking at me like I was a mistake. Like I was a blot on his honor.

I wiped the tears from my face and sat up. "Why do I feel like I can't breathe?

"Because rejection tears at your soul," Mira whispered. "It is like losing half yourself all at once."

I closed my eyes. "Then I don't want that half back, perhaps."

A cold wind blew past us, carrying the scent of pine and moonlight. I pulled myself closer.

"I can't stay here, Mira," I whispered.

She stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I can't walk back into that pack house and see him every day. I can't serve the Luna position while watching him with someone else. They'll mock me. They'll pity me. I can't-" My voice broke. "I can't live that."

She was silent for a long time. Then she nodded. "Then run."

My eyes snapped to hers. "What?"

"Flee, Liana. Tonight. Before they lock you in the Omega quarters again. Before Darius sends someone to 'take care' of your shame. Escape from here. Escape from him.

"And where would I go?" I breathed, trembling. "I have no one. No friends. No home."

"Then go where the wind blows. Anywhere but here," she whispered fiercely. "There's a world beyond this forest. Beyond this pack. Somewhere out there, your true fate awaits."

Her words clung to the air, burning like embers in the dark. I recalled the stories Old Nara told me - of wolves born to unlucky moons that became great things, of Omegas exiled who became legends.

Could I be more than this?

I didn't know. But I knew I couldn't stay.

I stood up, my legs trembling but my heart awakening.

Mira pushed off her cloak and handed it to me. "Here. It's warmer. And not pack-scented. It'll last longer on you."

"Mira, I-"

She hugged me tight, squishing the breath from my body. "Promise me you'll come back someday. Stronger. Deadlier. So they'll know what they lost."

I nodded, clenching my lip shut to keep tears from falling. "I will."

And I meant it.

With one last glance at the moonlit glade, I turned my back on the only world I had ever known - and ran.

I ran past the pheromone markers of the Darkpine border. I ran until the wind was in my hair and my lungs cried out for mercy. I ran until the stars blurred and the trees thinned. The farther I went, the freer I was.

Every step away from Darius was a step towards myself.

Towards something new.

But the fates had other plans for me.

For at dawn... I would cross into a land forbidden.

And into the arms of a King.