<3> I Reject you, Damien Vane

Damien lunged, his fingers clawing for the phone, his face a mask of desperate greed. I pulled back, my heels catching on the plush carpet, nearly sending me tumbling. I steadied myself, holding the evidence of my own stupidity to my chest.

"Give it to me, Zosia! Now!" he hissed, his Alpha aura flared—a sharp, stinging pressure that usually made me bow.

I shook my head, tears finally spilling over. "How could you? Nyx... you said you were saving her."

Damien’s eyes went cold, the last of his facade falling away like dead skin. He stopped lunging and simply stood over me, utilizing his height to make me feel as small as the Hippo he called me.

"I was saving us a lifestyle, Zo. Nyx was always a lost cause. You’re the one who kept her on life support while I did the actual work of making us relevant." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a cruel, intimate whisper. "Be smart. Give me the phone. I’ll tell the followers it was a skit for our anniversary. I’ll keep paying the clinic. Otherwise... well, you know how expensive a funeral is."

The air in the room felt like it had been sucked out. My heart, already bruised, felt like it was being crushed by a giant’s fist. This was my First Mate. The man the Moon Goddess had tied to my soul. And he was standing over me, bartering my sister’s life for a livestream.

I looked at the phone in my hand. I saw the red ‘LIVE’ light. I saw the comments still mocking my weight, my face, my existence.

Something inside me snapped.

"You want the show to continue?" I whispered, my voice trembling so hard the words almost broke.

I didn't wait for his answer. I raised the phone and slammed it against the edge of the mahogany table.

CRACK.

The glass shattered. The screen went black. The 'LIVE' light died, and with it, the ad revenue that Damien loved more than me.

Damien froze. The silence that followed was deafening, a vacuum where my love used to be. I looked at him, and for the first time in eight months, I didn't see a savior. I saw a coward.

"Now," I whispered, the gold in my eyes finally beginning to bleed through the brown, fueled by a desperation so deep it hurt. "Let’s talk about my anniversary surprise."

Damien swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He tried to pull himself together, to find that sneering mask of superiority, but his hands were shaking.

"You… you’re crazy," he stammered. "You think because you broke a phone that you’re suddenly in control? Look at you, Zosia. You’re worthless. A fat Omega stripper who just threw away the only man who was willing to touch you. Without my name, you’re just another Hollow’s casualty."

He reached out, his fingers trembling as he tried to grab my chin, his old habit of forced intimacy. "Apologize. Crawl. Maybe I’ll let you stay."

I stared at his hand until he pulled it back as if he’d been burned.

"I used to think you were my anchor, Damien," I said, my voice dropping into a register that made the glass decanters on the sideboard hum. "But you were right about one thing tonight. You did see a goldmine. You just didn't realize that the gold wasn't in the clicks."

I leaned in, though my knees felt like they were made of glass. The Serum-9 was screaming in my blood, fighting the sudden, violent surge of the Alpha I had buried.

"My weight? The curves you mocked?" I let out a low, jagged laugh that sounded more like a sob. "That was strength, Damien. Eight years of Prime Alpha power, suppressed and stored because I had no other way to contain it. Every time you called me a whale, you were just describing the size of the storm that was about to drown you."

Suddenly, a sharp, white-hot spike of heat lanced through the base of my throat.

The high latex collar of my suit, designed to hide the jagged, faded scar of my original Alpha mark, began to sear. It wasn't an external heat; it was a fire breaking out from within my very bones.

"I, Zosia Kane," I began, the words ancient, heavy, and agonizing to speak. "Reject you, Damien Vane."

The air in the room vanished.

"I reject your pack. I reject your name. I reject every lie you ever told me in the dark."

The spiritual bond—the fated tether I had allowed him to weave around my soul—didn't just break; it was incinerated.

The agony hit us both like a physical flaying. Damien let out a choked, strangled cry, his knees buckling as the rejection tore through his system. An Alpha being rejected by his First Mate was a humiliation that felt like his soul was being ripped out through his teeth. He slumped to the floor, his face contorting in pure, unadulterated pain.

But my pain was worse.

I gasped, my hands flying to my throat as the Alpha scar on my collarbone ignited. A white-hot sensation lanced through my chest, burning through the chemical haze of the Serum-9. It felt like my blood was boiling, like my very skin was being rewritten.

"Zo… your neck…" Chris whispered, his eyes wide with horror.

Smoke—thin, wispy, and smelling of chemical—began to curl up from the edge of my high latex collar. The material was distorting, melting under the sheer intensity of the power surging underneath. The black latex turned a molten gray, bubbling as the heat from my old Alpha mark burned through the synthetic fabric.

My vision sharpened until it hurt. I could see the microscopic tremors in Damien’s hands, the dust motes dancing in the strobe lights. My scent—usually a dull, muffled sweetness—erupted into the smell of an incoming storm and burnt sugar, so potent it made the other Alphas in the room gag.

I reached up, my fingers brushing the smoking latex of my collar. I couldn't feel the burn of the fabric, only the soul-deep agony of the broken bond. I felt hollowed out, my strength a fleeting, borrowed thing.

I looked toward the mezzanine.

The man in the shadows was still there. Our eyes met across the distance, and for a heartbeat, the heat at my neck flared in response to his darkness. It was a recognition so deep it made my wolf howl—not in rage, but in a desperate, lonely plea for help.

I turned back to Damien.

He was on his knees, panting, his golden hair matted with sweat. He looked up at me, his eyes full of a pathetic, desperate hatred. Even now, with my collar smoking and my world ending, he couldn't help himself.

"You... Do you think this makes you a Luna? A loser like you rejecting me?" he wheezed, his voice a jagged rasp. "You’re still just a freak, Zosia. A broken, bloated freak. No Alpha will ever want a woman who smells like a slaughterhouse and looks like a—"

I didn't let him finish.

The disgust I felt was the only thing keeping me standing. I leaned down, my face inches from his, the smoke from my collar stinging his eyes. I felt weak, my heart stuttering, my body ready to collapse from the sheer trauma of the rejection.

"You wanted an audience, Damien," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Here is your finale."

I gathered the last of my strength and spat directly into his face.

The glob hit his cheek, a final, ultimate insult to his rank. Damien froze, his eyes wide and fixed, as the white glob slid slowly down his skin.

Then, he snapped.

"You fat, useless bitch!" Damien shrieked—a sound of pure, ego-driven madness. He scrambled to his feet, his face twisted, his hand pulling back for a blow.