Chapter 4: I reject you.

Lyra POV

My blood went cold, my body freezing as I recognised the voice.

I turned slowly and saw Asher standing in the clinic doorway, one shoulder braced against the frame, his expression unreadable. Behind him, Vivienne hovered like a shadow, her eyes puffy, a faint ring of redness around her throat that I knew she had put there herself.

How long had he been standing there? How much had he heard?

Elliot moved first. He stepped forward, calmly positioning himself slightly between Asher and me. He flashed Asher a cold smile and asked. "Alpha, can I help you with something?"

Asher didn't answer him. His gaze was locked on me; then it dropped to the bag I was clutching against my side. The exam report was inside. I tightened my grip and shifted the bag behind my hip, and I knew the second I did it that the reaction was too fast, flustered and definitely too obvious.

Asher's eyes narrowed while Vivienne tilted her head beside him.

Then Asher's attention slid past me to Elliot, and something changed in his expression. It was subtle, a slight tightening of the jaw, a hardness settling behind his eyes, but I recognised it instantly.

It was pure displeasure and possessiveness. The quiet, territorial irritation of an Alpha who had just found his Luna alone in a room with another man.

The irony almost killed me. He didn't want me, but he didn't want anyone else near me either.

"I need to speak with you." Asher's voice was directed at me, but his eyes stayed on Elliot a beat too long. "Outside."

I wanted nothing more than to leave. To walk out the back entrance and never look at either of them again, but Asher was blocking the only way out, and the look on his face told me this wasn't a request.

I sighed inwardly, took a deep breath and stepped into the corridor.

My footsteps faltered when I saw that a small crowd had already gathered as if they were expecting us.

A dozen pack members, maybe more, gathered in a loose semicircle outside the clinic.

Word travelled fast in this pack. They stood with their arms crossed and their jaws set, indignation baked into every expression. They must have already heard the story of how I attacked Vivienne, and how I tried to choke my sister. The Luna lost control because she couldn't handle being replaced.

I scoffed at the looks on their faces and turned to Asher. I didn’t care what anyone thought of me now.

Asher positioned himself in front of me, arms folded. His voice carried the rich tone of his Alpha command. "I've already had the physician examine Vivienne's neck. There's no serious injury, but as Alpha, I owe this pack transparency and accountability." He paused. "You will apologise to Vivienne, publicly."

Vivienne stood a few steps behind him, fingers resting delicately against the redness on her throat. Her eyes glistened with tears.

"Asher, please." Her voice was soft, trembling, pitched exactly for the crowd. "I'm fine. Really. No one needs to make this harder for Lyra than it already is."

A murmur of approval rippled through the onlookers. See? Even after being attacked, Vivienne is still thinking of others.

Then she turned to face the crowd, chin dipped, every inch the gracious victim. "Lyra has been under so much pressure as Luna. I'm sure she was just exhausted and lost control for a moment. It could happen to anyone."

She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was just a fraction louder. Just enough to ensure everyone caught it.

"After all, Lyra grew up without parents and without proper guidance. It's understandable that she might not always know how to handle her emotions."

The silence that followed was worse than shouting. I could feel it move through the crowd like a wave in a quiet, collective agreement. Of course. She's an orphan. What did you expect?

Still, someone near the back muttered, "A Luna should know how to conduct herself."

I looked at Asher. He was glaring at me with cold indifference. Probably waiting for my apology like it was a formality to be dispensed with.

I looked at Vivienne. She was poised, and I didn’t miss the triumphant look beneath her tears; every word out of her mouth was deception.

I looked at the crowd. The same pack members I had served for three years. The people whose disputes I had mediated, whose supply shortages I had resolved, whose children's naming ceremonies I had organised when Asher couldn't be bothered to show up.

Three years of labour, three years of swallowed pride, three years of holding this pack together with hands that no one ever thanked, and this was what it amounted to. A circle of people who had already decided I was guilty, waiting for me to grovel.

If this was all the title of Luna would ever mean — a leash to keep me kneeling — then the title meant nothing.

If I was always going to be the one sacrificed, then this time, I would choose what I sacrificed.

Elliot stepped forward. "If I may—"

I put my hand on his arm and gave him a quiet look, shaking my head as I mouthed. "Don't."

He looked at me, startled. I shook my head again and sent him a mindlink. Don't worry, I've got this.

I turned and moved towards Vivienne. She watched me approach, her eyes glinting with amusement. Her lips parted, and this time, the trembling-victim mask slipped just enough to let the real her peek through. 

When I neared her, her mouth curved into a smirk as she murmured loud enough for the crowd to hear.

"You know," she said softly, tilting her head as though a thought had just occurred to her, "I've been wondering, why were you alone with Dr Crane behind a locked door? The two of you have always been so... close." She paused, her gaze sliding sideways to the crowd. "I'm sure it's nothing. But people do talk. And a Luna's reputation is really all she has, isn't it?" Her eyes found mine again, flashing with amusement. "Well. All you had."

Anger coursed through me, and all the rage I’d suppressed, all these years, filled me. 

Without thinking, I closed the step between us and slapped Vivienne so hard that her head snapped sideways.

The sound sounded through the courtyard like a whip.

Vivienne stumbled back a step. Her hand flew to her cheek, eyes wide, reddening instantly. But she didn't scream or cry. Her first instinct, the one that surfaced before the mask could slide back into place, was to look at Asher. To check his reaction and calculate to what degree of pitfulness she would display this time around.

The crowd had already gone silent, each of them staring at me with shock. A smirk curved on my lips, and I raised my hand again.

But this time, Asher moved fast. His fingers locked around my wrist, wrenching my arm down. His face was inches from mine, his expression caught somewhere between fury and disbelief.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" His grip tightened. "You're the Luna of this pack, and you just struck your own sister in front of everyone. Is this who you are?"

I looked up at him, calmer than I had been in days, calmer than I have ever been.

"Fine," I said. "I did strike Vivienne just now, and I apologise for it."

Asher blinked. The grip on my wrist loosened by a fraction as my words caught him off guard.

He was shocked that I had given a simple, direct apology without tears or excuses. Not what he had been expecting. But I wasn't finished.

"And while I'm making things official—" I pulled my wrist free. “Effective immediately, I resign from the position of Luna. I understand I am not what the pack wants, or what my husband, the Alpha, had in mind when he made me Luna. So, from this day, I resign from my position as Luna and relinquish everything to whoever is more qualified than me.”

Asher’s face went blank, as if his brain had received a piece of information it couldn’t process. His lips parted, but nothing came out.

The crowd had gone quiet too, each of them staring at me with unbelief. The silence stretched so thin I could hear someone’s heartbeat from ten feet away, or maybe it was mine.

For the first time in three years, I watched something flicker across Asher’s face that I had never seen before. It wasn’t anger, or irritation or the coldness he always wore; it was unease.

The faint, fractured realisation that something had just shifted beneath his feet, and he didn’t know how to get it back. I didn’t wait for him to figure it out. I took a step toward him, closing the distance between us and reaching for his left hand, my eyes firmly locked on his.

“I, Lyra Hartley, former Luna of Ashford Dominion Pack, formally reject you, Asher Voss, as my mate and Alpha. From this moment, I cease to be yours, and you cease to be mine.”