A shiver ran down my spine, I knew that look all too well.
…He was furious with me.
I instinctively tried to step back, to put distance between us, but it was already too late. He stormed forward and grabbed me by the throat, slamming me against the wall. A jolt of pain radiated from my shoulder where it struck the hard surface.
"Alex… please…," I gasped, my voice barely a whisper against the pressure of his grip.
His hold eased just slightly, enough to let me breathe, but still tight enough to remind me who held the power.
It was twisted, but even now, the mate bond sparked beneath his touch, sending unwanted tingles through my skin. It was nauseating, how the Goddess could bind her child to someone this cruel and still make it feel like this.
"Do you think you're so important that you can treat Leah however you like?" he bellowed, his face inches from mine.
"Aleric… she came to me first, and.."
"Enough!" he snapped, cutting me off. "I don't want to hear your lies. Leah is nothing like you. She's gentle, kind. What if your petty behavior had stressed her so badly she lost the baby? Is that what you want to kill a child out of jealousy? A future Alpha, no less?"
Even through the fury twisting his features, he still looked devastatingly handsome. A loose curl of his messy midnight-black hair had fallen across his forehead, and his green eyes shimmered with intensity.
He towered over me by at least a foot, his broad shoulders and godlike build making his presence all the more intimidating. In moments like this, the difference in our height and power was unmistakable. He was terrifying… but the bond made him impossible to resist.
I forced myself to clear the fog in my mind. This wasn't real, not truly. It was the mate bond manipulating my emotions. His scent, his touch, it was all too consuming. But it wasn't me who felt this way anymore. It was the curse the Goddess had placed on us.
"Alex… no, I'd never do that. She came to me even though she knew…"
Before I could finish, his hand struck me hard across the face.
My vision swam as pain flared through my cheek, hot and stinging.
"You're nothing, Aria," he hissed. "You're only here because I allow it. Don't forget that. The Goddess might have chosen you as Luna, but I make the decisions in this pack. If you ever hurt Leah again, I'll make damn sure you regret it."
Then he released me, and I collapsed, my back sliding down the wall as my legs gave out beneath me.
In that moment, I was certain he had considered killing me. His anger wasn't unfamiliar, but this was the first time the threat to strip me of everything… or worse… had felt so real.
With one final glance filled with disgust, he turned and walked out, just as suddenly as he'd appeared.
The moment the door shut behind him, I broke. Laughter burst from my lips, wild, uncontrollable, and laced with pain as tears streamed freely down my face.
If only he had stripped me of my position from the beginning, none of this would have happened. If he had just rejected me the moment he found out I was his mate, instead of dragging me through five years of torment, maybe, just maybe, I could have found a way to live a life without him.
I was only still here because of him. Because the pack, and Alex, had asked me to stay as Luna.
Had he let me go back then, I could have tried to move on. I could have tried to forget him.
Maybe even found someone who could love me for real.
"Aria?" Sophie's voice came softly, cautiously. She looked at me with worry as I laughed through my tears.
She must have thought I'd finally lost my mind. And maybe she was right.
She'd just witnessed everything I'd gone through, seen it with her own eyes, only to watch me laughing like it meant nothing.
Maybe I really had broken. Maybe today was the day I finally lost myself.
"It's all just a joke Sophie, don't you see?" I said with a wide smile, still laughing through the madness. "One big, cosmic joke. My entire life! I bet the Goddess watches me for fun. Do you think the Gods get bored? Maybe that's why she made me Luna, to keep herself entertained while I suffered."
"Oh, Aria," Sophie whispered, kneeling beside me and wrapping me tightly in her arms. "My poor girl. It's alright. You're going to be alright."
She gently stroked my hair as my laughter gradually gave way to sobs, muffled against her chest.
"I'll go with you," she said softly once I had calmed. "We'll leave together. We'll have a better chance if we do it as a team."
Sophie was willing to come with me?
I stared at her, stunned. She would be sacrificing everything to become a rogue, choosing exile with me. If we were caught, the punishment could be death.
"Come on," she said, guiding me to my feet. "I'll make us a cup of tea, and we can figure out a plan."
I nodded slowly, offering her a small, grateful smile.
Sophie cared. I wasn't alone.
We would be okay. Somehow we'd be okay.
The next morning, I prepared myself for the eight o'clock meeting with the senior members of the pack council. My long silver hair was still a tangled mess despite my best efforts to tame it.
Dark circles hung heavily beneath my violet eyes, a testament to the stress and sleeplessness from the night before. Even makeup had done little to hide the evidence,I still looked worn and fragile.
My appearance marked me unmistakably as a member of the Crystal bloodline. The silver hair and violet eyes were a signature trait of our ancient Beta heritage. It was a rare and striking look, especially to outsiders unfamiliar with our pack. But I took pride in what I saw in the mirror. I was the first daughter born into our Beta family in over a hundred years and the only child of my parents. Born just two years after Alex, it had always seemed inevitable that we would be mated. Our families were deeply entwined, and the elders had long foretold that our union would bring prosperity to the pack.
In that, at least, they had been right.
Inside the meeting hall, I took my usual place at Alex's right side. But today, it felt different. I could feel the eyes of the elders and high-ranking members fixed on me, heavy with judgment and unspoken curiosity.
There was nothing I could do to stop it. No defense to make.
So I kept my gaze lowered, always lowered.
They all knew. Knew what had happened. Knew how humiliated I must feel. How discarded I had become. And still, they stared at me like I was some kind of spectacle.
Not a person. Not a Luna.
Just a girl who had been used up and cast aside.
The meeting went on as usual, routine topics like border patrol rotations, rogue sightings, and alliance negotiations. But today, no one directed a single question my way. It was as if I didn't exist.
And honestly… I wished I didn't.
I had already told Sophie we would leave by the end of the week. There were still a few loose ends I needed to tie up, things I wanted to organize to ensure the pack would function without me, at least for a little while.
My hope was that no one would realize I was gone for a few days. If we were lucky, we'd be far enough away by the time they noticed, our trail cold and scent dispersed beyond tracking.
"What do you think, Luna?" Elder Luke's voice suddenly cut through my thoughts.
My head snapped up, startled. I hadn't expected to be spoken to, not after the way they'd all been avoiding me like I was invisible.
I cleared my throat, trying to refocus and recall what had just been said. But I'd let my mind drift too far.
"Well… that's, um…" I began, fumbling.
But before I could embarrass myself further, the doors to the meeting hall burst open with a loud crash, rescuing me from having to answer.
What I hadn't expected… was for the person storming in to be my father.
I hadn't even noticed he'd been missing from the meeting, my gaze had been fixed on the table the entire time.
But there he was now, standing at the front of the hall, and he looked absolutely livid. The sight made me flinch instinctively.
Was he angry with me? Did he agree with Alex about Leah? Was he here to scold me too?
"What is the meaning of this?!" he thundered.
I braced for the blow of his anger, but it never came.
Because, to my surprise, he wasn't looking at me.
He was staring directly at Alex.
My head snapped toward Alex, who remained seated, expression blank. He was a master at hiding what he truly felt or maybe he just didn't feel anything at all.
"What seems to be the problem, Beta James?" Alex asked coolly. "You not only arrived late, but now you've disrupted the entire meeting."
"Don't insult my intelligence," my father snapped, his voice low and dangerous. "You really thought you could humiliate my family like this and I'd just keep serving you loyally?"
He pointed toward me then, eyes burning. "She's my daughter. Your Luna. Your mate. And yet you allow some tramp to carry your child and declare that child your heir?"
The breath caught in my throat so sharply it nearly choked me.
My father… was defending me?
Against Alex? Our Alpha?
I couldn't believe it. He had always been more loyal to the Alpha bloodline than to his own family.
We had never been close, not really. His usual emotion toward me had always been disappointment. Disappointment, no matter how hard I tried or how much pain I endured living in this hell.
Alex's jaw tensed at my father's outburst, his teeth visibly clenching.
"I think you need to calm down," he said, voice low and taut with warning. The threat in his tone was clear to everyone in the room, but my father either didn't hear it or didn't care.
"Calm down? Calm down?!" he shouted, his voice booming through the council hall. "No. I've let you walk all over her for too long, pup. She is a daughter of Crystal and deserves your respect, if not as your Luna, then at the very least for her Beta blood."
His voice cracked slightly as the anger sharpened. "And to think… to think you'd cast her aside like garbage and impregnate another woman? It's unacceptable."
Tension rippled across the room like a storm building.
Alex's hands curled into fists. He was seething.
"Beta Jam…" he began, but my father didn't let him finish.
"Your father would be ashamed of you," my father snarled, cutting him off. "If Aria can't have children, then that's not her fault, it's the Goddess punishing you. For the way you've treated her. For the way you've poisoned this bond. Aria doesn't deserve this."
He paused, chest heaving. "You don't deserve her."
That was it.
Alex finally snapped.
"You dare suggest that the Goddess cursed me through your daughter's infertility?" he spat, his voice sharp with fury. "Do you even realize the weight of your words, Beta James? That's treason. The Goddess chose me to lead this pack, ME!. To carry forward its future and strength. If Aria has failed to fulfill her role, then that's on her, not me."
His voice rang with finality, unyielding.
"Leah is carrying my child, and that child will be the heir. That decision is made. Now I strongly advise you to leave this meeting at once and get control of yourself."
A low murmur of agreement rippled around the room, subtle but present. Even though Alex had used his Alpha command, the power behind it seemed to have no effect on my father.
Instead, my father's fury only ignited further.
A roar of rage tore from his chest, silencing the room instantly. Heads bowed instinctively in submission, the air thick with tension. His eyes darkened, the shift beginning, warning everyone that his wolf was dangerously close to taking over.
The atmosphere turned electric. One misstep and violence would erupt.
His presence was overwhelming. The sheer force of his power rolled over the room like a crushing wave. He was the second strongest wolf in the pack, second only to Alex and me, and that made him one of the most powerful Betas in the entire country. Some even believed he could overpower weaker Alphas without breaking a sweat.
And yet…
Despite all of that, despite the danger vibrating in the air like a live wire, Alex merely scoffed.
And that was all it took.
A single scoff, dismissive and arrogant, was enough to shatter the last of my father's restraint. You could almost see the exact moment something inside him snapped.
"I'll kill you!" he roared, his voice feral, eyes wild with rage as he lunged across the table at Ale.
"Father! No!" I screamed, heart lurching in panic.
But it was already too late.
Mid-air, his body twisted, bones cracking as he shifted into his massive grey wolf—fury and instinct fully unleashed. With a thunderous crash, he collided with Alex, tackling him to the ground in a violent blur of fur and power.