Chapter 3

ELARA VANCE POV:

Seraphina lay on the cold stone of the dais, her breaths coming in staged, pitiful sobs. "It's alright," she whispered, loud enough for the Elders nearby to hear. "She's just... confused. I forgive her."

Her performance was flawless. She was the picture of grace and forgiveness, a magnanimous Luna-to-be, while I was cast as the crazed, violent Omega. The murmurs of the pack turned against me, their sympathy shifting entirely to her.

Lucian knelt beside Seraphina, his touch on her shoulder gentle. Then he rose, his eyes blazing with a fury I had never seen directed at me. "Are you insane?" he roared, his voice echoing in the stunned silence.

He turned to the pack, his arm gesturing toward me as if I were a piece of trash. "This wolf and I have no connection," he declared, his voice cold and absolute. "She is nothing more than a low-ranking Omega with a pathetic, sick obsession."

Each word was a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. This was it. The final, public humiliation.

He locked his gaze with mine. The moon was directly overhead now, its cold light bathing us, a silent witness to the atrocity he was about to commit.

"I, Alpha Lucian Blackwood, reject you, Elara Vance, as my mate."

The words, spoken into the sacred silence, shattered the world around me. A pain unlike anything I had ever known tore through my very soul. It was not a clean cut, but a violent, brutal ripping. It felt as if a vital part of me, the part that connected me to him, to my other half, was being clawed out of my chest, leaving a raw, gaping wound.

Tears of blood streamed from my eyes, a testament to the spiritual violence being done to me. The ancient laws of the pack demanded a response. I had to accept, or the rejection would be incomplete, leaving us both in a torturous limbo.

My voice was a broken whisper, forced from a throat tight with agony. "I, Elara Vance, accept your rejection."

The bond snapped. The world went gray. The vibrant scent of pine and storm that had always defined him turned to ash in my nose.

Later that night, he came to my small cottage. I was curled on my cot, shivering in the shell of my own body. He didn't knock. The door just opened, and he was there.

He tried to touch me, but I flinched away.

"Elara, you have to understand," he said, his voice low and urgent, a politician doing damage control. "My union with Seraphina is purely political. Her family controls the silver mines to the east. This alliance is for the future of the Black Moon Pack."

The words were hollow, meaningless.

"Trust me," he pleaded, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Give me a year. Two at most. Once my position is secure, I will set her aside. Then we can be together. I'll make you my true Luna, the one I keep hidden away, my real prize."

He wasn't defending her; he was defending his choice. He was justifying his ambition. "Her family is powerful, Elara. You must be patient. You must do this for the good of the pack."

I looked at him then, truly looked at him. The man I loved was gone. In his place was a stranger, a politician whose heart was ruled by ambition, not love. The last embers of my affection for him died out, replaced by an ice-cold hatred.

The agony of the rejection, combined with the insult of his pathetic lies, pushed my grief to its absolute limit. And in that abyss of pain and betrayal, something deep within me, something ancient and dormant, began to stir.

A power I never knew I possessed was waking up.