Chapter 3 – The Weight of Silence

The moment she was out of the house, she began to walk, fast, her heels clicking against the pavement, her vision blurring with tears she could no longer hold back.

Each step felt like an act of defiance.

Each breath, a tiny rebellion.

It was unfair, all of it.

The laws that bound her. The traditions that said women couldn’t lead. The system that gave power only to men with dominance in their veins and cruelty in their hearts.

She would have made a fine Alpha. Everyone knew it, even Patrick. Especially Patrick.

That was why he hated her so much. Not because she was weak, but because she wasn’t.

She’d grown up here, in these streets, among these people, in this land her father had built with sweat and blood. The forest behind the Range Pack’s territory still held her childhood laughter in its leaves. But now she walked those same paths as a stranger, a shadow.

Her people looked at her and saw only the Luna. The alpha’s woman. The silent figure who never smiled, never waved, never spoke.

They didn’t know she stayed silent because silence was survival.

They didn’t know her smile had been taken from her, one bruise at a time.

A couple of women passed her on the road, pack members she recognised from her younger years. They averted their gaze quickly.

No one greeted her anymore.

Once, they had called her our Luna, with warmth, respect, and pride. But those days were gone. Patrick had worked tirelessly to corrode that love, weaving lies with precision. He whispered that Michelle was cold, ungrateful, too proud for her own good. That she disdained her people. That she was unfit to lead.

Terrified of his temper, Michelle had played the part he demanded.

She kept her distance. Avoided kindness. Turned away when someone reached out.

He had trained her into silence.

Now they called her arrogant, aloof, detached, too proud to care.

They never saw the trembling hands she hid behind her back, the bruises where no one would look, or the muffled sobs that filled her rooms after midnight.

No one knew. Not Beta Jason. Not Patrick’s men. Not even those closest to her.

Patrick was too clever for that.

In public, he was the perfect mate, steady hand at her back, proud smile when she entered the hall. He opened doors, spoke softly, praised her beauty.

He played the role so flawlessly that even Jason, his trusted Beta, never suspected otherwise.

No one questioned the rumours Patrick spread. They fit the image everyone saw: the Luna who never smiled, the woman who walked through the marketplace like a queen among peasants.

But the truth was far crueller.

Michelle was afraid.

Every gesture, every word, every glance was measured to keep the peace.

To the pack, she looked heartless. To Patrick, she looked obedient.

To herself, she looked hollow.

When she passed through the Range Pack’s courtyard, people lowered their eyes, assuming she wouldn’t acknowledge them. They didn’t know she wanted to. They didn’t know how often she rehearsed simple words like good morning or thank you, only to swallow them before they reached her lips. Patrick didn’t like when she spoke to others without reason.

No one saw the way she flinched when his shadow darkened a doorway.

Patrick’s performance was immaculate. To outsiders, he was the model Alpha, strong, charismatic, generous, and people adored him for it.

And her? She became the contrast that made him shine brighter.

To them, Michelle was the spoiled daughter of the former Alpha, a woman who’d inherited everything yet found reasons to be miserable. When she hid away, they said she was sulking. When she appeared with tired eyes or a bandaged wrist, they told themselves she had probably fallen, or that she deserved whatever lesson her Alpha saw fit to teach.

Because in their world, Alphas didn’t hurt without reason.

Michelle had heard the whispers, felt the weight of silent judgment every time she walked through town.

She stopped at the edge of the marketplace that afternoon, pausing before a shop window. The glass reflected her pale face, hollow eyes rimmed red from sleepless nights, skin dull, hair lifeless. She barely recognized the woman staring back.

Her mother used to tell her that Luna meant “light.”

Now she felt more like a shadow.

She thought of her father, Alpha Steven, stern and proud, who had always wanted a son.

She thought of her mother, gentle, protective, desperate to shield her daughter from a world built for men.

And she thought of herself, a Luna who ruled nothing, who owned everything yet possessed nothing at all.

Her fingers tightened around the strap of her purse as she straightened her shoulders. The bite mark on her neck, the mark of their bond, still pulsed faintly, Patrick’s claim seared into her flesh like a living reminder that her body was no longer her own.

Sometimes she wondered what it would feel like to tear it off, to rip away that mark and breathe freely.

But she knew she couldn’t.

The bond was law. Ancient magic. Not just a mark of possession, it was a leash binding her life to his.

She could no more escape it than she could her own heartbeat.

Michelle drew a long breath and kept walking. The air was thick with the scent of pine and dust, once familiar and comforting, now heavy and suffocating. A few pack members stood nearby unloading crates. She recognized their faces, remembered their families, their laughter. But none looked her way.

It didn’t matter that she had grown up among them, that her mother had once healed their wounds and fed their wolves. Those memories were ghosts now.

To them, she wasn’t Michelle, daughter of Alpha Steven.

She wasn’t the Luna who once laughed beside the bonfire or rode at dawn through the forest trails.

She was Patrick’s Luna, distant, silent, unreachable.

And that was exactly how he wanted it.

When she walked past, no one greeted her anymore.

Not because they hated her, but because she never answered when they did.

And she never answered because she was too afraid to.

So the silence became mutual.

And in that silence, Michelle carried her pain like a secret the whole world agreed not to see.