Chapter 6

Liz’s POV

“Please, Lumian,” Judy called out, her voice soft—desperate. “Please don’t go to her. If you tell her I was the one who told you, it’ll only make things worse. She’ll hate me.”

I froze.

Hate her?

I was already dead. What more damage could possibly be done?

I watched Lumian’s back as he strode toward the door, my breath catching in my throat.

He wouldn’t stop.

Not this time.

For the first time, he was choosing me.

A part of me ached for it.

For him to walk out that door, to come searching for me like I had always wished he would.

But then… he stopped.

I felt my stomach drop.

No.

Not again.

Slowly, he turned back to Judy.

I let out a breath—shaky, disbelieving, breaking.

He stopped for her. He chose her.

Again.

Judy lowered her eyes, her fingers twisting the edge of her blanket. “I’m sorry, Lumian,” she murmured. “I thought she already told you… since everyone else knew.”

A cold laugh slipped from my lips. I couldn’t help it.

“Liar,” I muttered, my ghostly form trembling with anger. “You’re not sorry. You just love giving him another reason to hate me.”

And it worked.

Lumian sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?” he muttered, his voice tinged with frustration. “Why would she keep something like this from me?”

I stared at him, disbelief curling like poison in my chest.

Maybe because every time I tried, you were too busy with her.

Carlos let out a breath, shaking his head. “You know Liz,” he said. “She holds everything in. She probably thought she was protecting you.”

“Protecting me?” Lumian scoffed. “From what?”

Judy sighed, tilting her head. “Maybe… she was afraid,” she suggested. “Afraid of how you’d react.”

Afraid?

I wasn’t afraid. I was waiting.

Waiting for a moment when I wouldn’t feel like an afterthought. Waiting for him to look at me the way he looked at her.

And now, he was falling for her words. Again.

He exhaled sharply. “I don’t get it,” he muttered. “I didn’t plan for this. I wasn’t ready for a pup.”

I felt something inside me snap.

He hadn’t planned for this?

He hadn’t planned for this?

I stared at Lumian, his words slicing into me like a blade.

His tone was full of frustration—almost resentment.

“And I especially didn't want to raise a pup in a loveless family,” lumina said calmly and easily.

Loveless.

The word rang in my head like a deafening bell.

My breath hitched.

Had there ever been love between us?

I had spent three years loving him, giving him everything I had, hoping—praying—that one day, he would choose me.

That one day, he would look at me the way he looked at her.

And now, hearing him say it so plainly…

Loveless.

The entire world seemed to shift beneath me.

I had never been enough.

Not as his mate.

Not as his Luna.

Not as the mother of his child.

Nothing I did was ever enough.

My chest ached, a deep, soul-crushing pain that even death couldn’t erase.

He would never choose me.

I wanted to scream. To tear through the walls. To make him feel what I felt.

But I couldn’t.

I was trapped. Bound to him. Forced to hear him say these words, forced to relive the pain over and over again.

Tears I could no longer shed burned in my eyes as I slowly pressed a hand to my stomach.

Our child.

The little life that had been growing inside me. The life I had been waiting to tell him about.

A life that had never even gotten the chance to take its first breath.

And he didn’t even want it.

I clenched my fists. I was done.

Done hoping.

Done waiting.

Done loving a man who had never once loved me in return.

I lifted my head, my entire being trembling with rage, sorrow, and something deeper. Something final.

“I, Elizabeth Campbell Luna of the Blackthorn Pack, reject you,” I whispered, stronger than I had expected it to be. “Lumian: Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack as my mate.”

A sharp, searing pain tore through me like fire, like a blade, like something being forcibly ripped from my soul.

I gasped, falling to my knees as the world blurred around me.

At the same time, Lumian staggered, his body jerking violently.

His hand flew to his chest, eyes widening in shock.

“What the hell—” he choked, his breath shuddering.

Carlos took a step forward. “Alpha?”

But Lumian didn't look at him. His breathing was uneven, his muscles tense, like something inside him had cracked.

He could feel it, too.

How?

How could my rejection still work when I was already gone?

For the first time since my death, I saw true fear in Lumian’s eyes.