The pack waited for his answer and he stands so still the cold wind cuts right through him.
Beneath the calm mask on his face, his wolf thrashes like a beast trapped behind iron bars.
The word tears at him, claws raking at his ribs from the inside out. It echoes in his blood, louder than the elders' whispers, louder than the jeers of the pack.
He was the Alpha of the moonfang pack, but at this point, he was more confused than a little pup.
He can feel her scent even now, soft, wild, a promise he never asked for but aches for all the same.
His chest burns when he looks at her kneeling on the altar, cloak torn, skin shivering under the cruel eyes of his people.
He became attracted to this omega as his fated mate.
His wolf wants to leap, to tear down the guards, to snarl and drag her away where no one can touch her.
But his name Moonfang, chains him. The crown he wears in his blood presses down on his shoulders heavier than steel.
If he breaks the law of the pack, he breaks the line his father guarded with blood and fang. His people would tear her apart anyway. They'd tear him apart, too.
His fists clench until bone creaks while wondering what to do.
The wolf inside him snarls, biting at the bars of pride and duty.
The word is a plea now. His eyes flick to hers, wide, broken, pleading without sound. His wolf howls so loud he swears it rattles his teeth.
But the cold crown presses harder, heavier than her warmth, heavier than the mark burning on her wrist.
Kaleen's heart cracks around it. His wolf throws itself at his ribs again, but the cage holds. The man holds. And in that silence between his heartbeat and the beast's roar, he feels something precious break.
The elders at that point were closer to him with their robes brushing the ground like dead leaves. Kaleen feels them before he sees them, the chill that clings to old power, to old secrets.
The elders of the pack circle him where he stands at the foot of the altar, their eyes empty of warmth, sharp as winter's teeth. He knew what they wanted but his inner wolf keep snarling.
One leans in, voice a hiss under the rise and fall of cruel cheers.
"Do it now, Alpha," the elder murmurs, words sliding into his ear like a dagger. "Or you're no longer Moonfang, we will strip you off your Alpha's status"
The words coil around Kaleen's throat. His title, once a crown of pride, tastes bitter now
He felt metal and ash on his tongue. He tries to breathe, but the air feels thinner with their presence, with their persistent plea, sucked away by the weight of their will.
Another elder steps closer to Kaleen and gnarled hand brushes his shoulder like a clawed blessing.
"Your father would have done it already," he rasps. "Show your pack you are not weak. Show them your blood still rules."
Kaleen's jaw cracks as he grinds his teeth. His wolf snarls beneath his skin, ears pinned flat in defiance, but the elders stand like stone , unmovable.
Their eyes flick to Lyra, trembling on her knees, cloak in the dirt, wrists marked by the bond they all wish gone.
"Do it," another breathes. "Before the blood moon fades. Before you shame us all."
Kaleen's gaze drops to his boots, caked in the same earth that stains her knees.
He was confused, and his inner wolf told him otherwise, he felt the chill of the night slip under his skin, settle in his bones.
The shadows press closer, voices layering like poison whispering of legacy, of power, of a throne he might never hold again if he falters now.
Kaleen steps forward after the pack elders had spoken to him.
His boots crush fallen leaves, the sound sharp in the hush that grips the clearing. The blood moon stains his shoulders red as if mocking the crown he wears so heavy on his head.
Each step is a choice he never wanted to make, but must to defend his Alpha's status.
His chest feels too tight, ribs straining around the beast inside that claws to break free. Mate, it cries, over and over, but he buries it with every heartbeat.
His face is stone. A mask shaped by years of duty, pride, and fear.
His jaw grinds as if the bones inside him ache from holding back words he can't say.
His eyes betray him with flickers of storm and sorrow that flash before he shuts them down.
He does not look at her yet. If he does, the truth might break free, and the truth is poison when power hangs by a thread.
Lyra's scent drifts to him by wildflowers and rain and the promise of something softer than all this steel.
His hands curl at his sides, fingers digging into his flesh just to stay still. The elders watch from the shadows, wolves with silver hair and colder hearts, ready to strip him bare if he falters.
They were all waiting for what he was going to do.
His voice breaks the silence. A single breath then follows ruin.
"I, Alpha Kaleen of Moonfang, reject you, Lyra, as my fated mate."
The words he spoke hung there, cold and heavy, like stones dropped in a still pond.
They ripple through the clearing, echoing off the trees, off the stone altar, off the watching eyes that drink it all in like fresh blood.
Lyra flinches as if struck, her hands curling into the dirt, nails digging down to find something solid when the ground under her heart is gone.
Kaleen's chest tightens so hard he wonders if his ribs might snap from the inside. His wolf thrashes against his bones, a caged beast spitting fury, Mate, Mate, Mate, the word now a ghost on his tongue.
His inner wolf told him he is not doing the right thing but he had to.
He can't look away from her. Her lips part, but no sound comes out. Her eyes, wide and glassy, hold him captive in a prison of his own making.
A wind stirs her hair, brushing it over her face like a veil the moon can't pierce. She looks so small there on her knees, a girl carved open by words too cruel for any god to forgive.
Around them, the pack shifts some sneer, some turn their eyes away like they're watching something unholy. The elders stand still, silent sentinels guarding his shame; they were all expecting this.
The mark on her wrist flickers once, desperate, like a candle fighting rain. Then it fades, the glow eaten by the cold night.
A soft sound breaks from Lyra's throat, not a cry, not yet, just breath caught between worlds. Her wolf howls somewhere deep inside her, a sound only she can feel as her heart tears at the edges.
Kaleen lowers his eyes for just a moment. Long enough to see the ruin he made.
Long enough to hate himself for the crown that weighs heavier than love. When he lifts his head again, his face is the mask they taught him to wear but his eyes are wild, and somewhere inside, his wolf weeps in chains, he never wanted to do it.
After Kaleen made his declaration, something ancient tears apart inside her. Lyra feels it snap, a thread spun long before her first breath, wound tight through her bones, her blood, her wolf's soul.
It breaks with a sound only she can hear, a sound that is not a sound but a silence so deep it devours every thought, every heartbeat.
The mark on her wrist burns once, flares bright, then dies like a star swallowed by endless dark, which shows she has been rejected as the Alpha's fated mate.
Magic flees her veins, warmth drained out of her limbs until all that's left is cold. Her knees slide in the dirt, robes stained by old leaves and fresh blood.
Her lips part, but no cry comes out, only a breathless gasp that cracks against the hush around her. She was shocked devastated and full of agony all at the same time.
Her wolf screams for Kaleen, for the bond, for the promise the moon made them. But the scream finds no ears. It drifts up, snatched by the crimson sky, pulled into shadows where no god will listen.
Lyra's eyes roll back, lashes fluttering as if fighting to stay here, in this broken place, because there is nowhere else to go, as she was born an omega in the pack.
A shiver rattles her bones, her shoulders slump, and her hands, small and trembling, dig at the earth as if it could hold her together.
She tastes iron on her tongue, feels the press of the pack's stares like knives. Some smirk. Some look away. None come close.
Kaleen stands above her like a ghost now, made of crown and cold, his eyes locked on her ruin, but too far to reach, he couldn't dare comfort her or help in any way.
The wind shifts. Leaves swirl around her bare feet. The altar stone chills her spine.
Somewhere inside, her wolf curls in on itself, a dying flame clinging to ashes that cannot burn again.
Lyra's mouth moves, cracked lips shaping a single word, too soft to touch the night. "Why?"
The pack erupts like wolves drunk on blood with laughter everywhere, they were happy with sharp cheers that tear into the quiet where her bond once lived.
Their eyes shine with cruelty, mouths curled in scorn as if her pain feeds them more than the moon's light above; they were delighted by her suffering.
Lyra's knees dig into the cold stone, her palms pressed flat to hold herself up when her heart wants to fold in half.
Tears slip free, warm trails down frozen skin. She doesn't wipe them. Let them see. Let them taste her shame on their mocking tongues.
Her throat burns. She swallows what's left of her pride, her cracked lips parting around one word that costs more than her breath.
"Kaleen…"
It leaves her like a ghost's whisper, not a plea but something older, a promise or a wound that won't close.
The pack roars louder, but she does not hear them now. Only the echo of his name, buried under the weight of what he broke.
And in that ruin, the storm inside her begins to open its eyes.
Kaleen's shadow falls over her, long and sharp under the blood moon. The pack became quiets on Kaleen command, their laughter sucked into the night like breath before a kill.
His lips part, tongue heavy as stone. His wolf snarls, battering his ribs, screaming Mate, Mate, but he bites it down like poison, just like what the elders told him to do.
He lifts his head, voice stripped raw. "Lyra of Moonfang, by the right of Alpha's blood, I cast you out."
A hush, then a cruel ripple of delight, sharp teeth bared in grins. Lyra's breath stutters. Her eyes find his, hollow with betrayal.
He forces his own to stay dead, though his beast claws behind his eyes, begging to undo what he says next.
"You are no longer of my pack. No longer under my name. You are rogue now. May the borderlands claim you if the shadows don't first."
A wind cuts through them, lifting her torn cloak like funeral cloth. The elders nod in agreement with stone faces cracked by secret smiles.
Lyra's fingers curl in the dirt, nails tearing skin. Her wolf shivers inside her, a ghost trying to find walls that are gone. Kaleen's heart bucks, ribs tight around a howl that will never come.
He turns his back on her kneeling form, each step an iron nail in the coffin of what they might have been.
And as the first footstep echoes into the trees, Lyra's eyes open, and the ruin inside her hums like a storm yet to break.