Rejected by the Alpha's Luna

The grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight as I slipped the last of my healing journals into my worn leather satchel. My hands trembled, but my resolve remained steady. Sarah, my wolf, paced anxiously within me, her silver presence a comforting flame in the darkness of my decision.

*It's time,* she urged. *We can't stay here another night.*

I ran my fingers over the spine of my most treasured journal—filled with complex healing remedies I'd developed over fourteen years. Remedies that had saved countless Silvermoon wolves, including Marcus himself, twice. Remedies he had never once acknowledged.

"I know," I whispered aloud, the sound barely disturbing the heavy silence of our—no, *his*—bedroom.

I left my Luna robes folded neatly on the bed we had shared. The bed that had grown cold years ago when Marcus started returning late, his skin carrying Ashley's floral scent poorly masked by his morning showers.

The pendant-shaped hollow at my throat felt naked without my crystal. I touched the empty space, a habit I couldn't yet break. Ethan's betrayal cut deeper than Marcus's ever could. My own son.

*Don't think about him now,* Sarah growled. *We need to move.*

I opened the window instead of the door, knowing the night guards would report directly to Marcus. The cool midnight air rushed in, carrying the scent of pine and freedom. Without a backward glance, I shifted.

The transformation was swift and familiar—bones realigning, skin yielding to silver-gray fur, human consciousness merging with wolf instinct. As Sarah, I was stronger, faster. The pain in my heart remained, but in this form, I could outrun it, if only for a while.

I leapt from the second-story window, landing silently on the soft earth below. The moon, three-quarters full, guided my path as I streaked across the manicured gardens of the pack house and into the dense forest beyond.

The territory I had called home for fourteen years blurred past me. Each pawprint I left behind felt like shedding another piece of the Luna I had been—dutiful, overlooked, diminished. Each breath of night air filled my lungs with something I hadn't tasted in years: possibility.

I ran until the Silvermoon borders faded behind me, until my muscles burned and my breath came in ragged pants. Still, I pushed on, following the scent-trail that would lead me northeast, toward the only person who had never stopped seeing me: my sister Emma.

---

Marcus returned to our bedroom as the first light of dawn crept through the window I had left open. I wasn't there to witness it, but I could imagine the scene with perfect clarity—his confident stride faltering as he noticed the emptiness, the folded Luna robes, the missing journals.

He would have caught my scent immediately, mixed with the night air and the unmistakable trace of my wolf. And underneath it all, the absence of something vital—the severed mate bond that had once connected us across any distance.

He would have roared then, his Alpha voice shaking the walls of the pack house, demanding my return. He would have reached for our mental link, that invisible tether that had grown so thin over the years, only to find it completely severed.

But I was beyond his reach now, beyond his commands, beyond his dismissal.

---

The Crescent Valley Pack border appeared through the trees as my strength finally gave out. My paws stumbled over exposed roots, my vision blurring at the edges. I had run through the night and half the day, stopping only briefly to drink from streams.

*We're almost there,* Sarah encouraged, though I could feel her exhaustion mirroring my own. *Just a little further.*

The border sentries spotted me before I could cross. Two massive wolves, brown and black, materialized from the underbrush, their teeth bared in warning.

I collapsed then, my legs finally surrendering to fatigue. My wolf form shimmered and receded, leaving me human, vulnerable, and trembling on the forest floor.

"Victoria?"

Emma's voice cut through my haze of exhaustion. My sister pushed past the sentries, her Delta status evident in her commanding presence despite her lower rank. She shifted from wolf to human in one fluid motion, kneeling beside me.

"Goddess above, what happened to you?" she whispered, wrapping her jacket around my shoulders.

I looked up into her familiar face, so like my own but unmarked by the years of quiet suffering I had endured. The tears I had held back throughout my desperate flight finally broke free.

"He used his Alpha voice on me," I choked out, the words burning my throat. "In front of everyone. Called me weak and worthless."

Emma's eyes flashed dangerously, her wolf rising close to the surface. "He did what?"

"Ethan gave my Luna crystal to Ashley," I continued, each word releasing a fraction of the pain I'd carried. "My own son..."

Emma gathered me into her arms as I broke down completely, fourteen years of neglect pouring out in heaving sobs against her shoulder. The border sentries looked away, offering what privacy they could.

"I've severed the bond," I finally whispered, feeling both hollow and somehow lighter for having said it aloud. "I can't go back."

"You won't have to," Emma promised, her voice fierce with protective rage. "You're under my protection now. Under Crescent Valley protection."

As she helped me to my feet, I felt something stir within me—not Sarah, but something I had thought long extinguished. A tiny spark of hope, flickering to life in the ashes of my former existence.

Behind us, a distant howl echoed across the forest—deep, commanding, and unmistakably Marcus. He had discovered my trail. But for the first time in fourteen years, his call held no power over me.

I was no longer his Luna. I was simply Victoria—and I was finally free.