002

Rejected and Carrying His Heirs

MEIRA

I woke the next morning with the ghost of that stranger’s cologne still clinging to my skin, haunting me like a forbidden memory. My hands brushed over my swollen eyes, raw from the tears I’d spilled into the night. Turning to the empty space beside me, I found Kaelan’s side of the bed still cold. Of course. I didn’t need to be told where he’d been.

I rose to my feet, rubbing at the tremor in my hands as the throb of a headache bloomed behind my eyes. Then it came, the sound that froze me in place. Moans. At first, I told myself I’d imagined it, that fatigue was playing cruel tricks. But then I heard it again…

A deep chuckle followed; Kaelan’s.

And then Isabella’s light, breathless giggle.

My chest constricted, a vise of disbelief and fury. He brought her here? To the packhouse?

My head spun, the pounding in my skull matching the ache in my chest. I had convinced myself he would walk in this morning with flowers in his hand and an apology on his lips, like he always did when he broke me.

But the bed beside me was still empty.

I pulled on my nightwear, my bare feet silent against the wooden floor as I made my way down the hall. I stopped at his door, my fingers hovering over the handle. For a long moment, I just stood there, breathing through the tremor in my hands.

Then I turned it.

The scene inside stole the air from my lungs. Kaelan’s hands were buried in Isabella’s hair, her body pressed flush against his. The sound of her soft giggles tangled with his low chuckle, the kind he used to save for me.

But it wasn’t just them that shattered me.

Around her neck glinted a silver necklace, delicate, beautiful, and heartbreakingly familiar. The same necklace I’d once found hidden in his drawer. The one I thought he was saving for my birthday.

Turns out, I was wrong.

So, so wrong.

“What are you doing here, barging into our private moment?” Isabella’s voice dripped with venom, her eyes narrowing in that familiar look of disgust she reserved just for me.

She glanced at Kaelan, silently demanding his support.

And, of course, he gave it.

“What do you want, Meira?” His voice was so cold it felt like it froze the air in my lungs, stopping my heart mid-beat.

“Why is she here, Kaelan?” I demanded, forcing my gaze to lock with his cold, unfeeling eyes.

Before he could speak, Isabella’s laughter sliced through the air, soft at first, then morphing into a cruel, mocking sound that made my stomach twist.

“You should address him as Alpha now,” she purred, her voice dripping with hatred. “It’s disrespectful to call your Alpha by his name.”

My chest tightened. “What… what is she talking about, Kaelan?” I tried to steady my voice, but the crack that slipped through betrayed me completely.

“You haven’t told her yet?” Isabella’s voice reeked of fake innocence, but her smirk told a different story.

Kaelan didn’t even flinch. “I’m making Bella my Luna,” he said straight and plain… like it was nothing. No warmth. No remorse. Just a cold, cutting truth that split me open from the inside.

I stared at him, my pulse thundering in my ears. No… no, he wouldn’t… He had promised me forever. He had sworn to stand by me no matter what.

Isabella’s voice broke through my spiraling thoughts, sharper than a blade. “Who would want a barren Luna as a mate?” she taunted, her words sinking into my chest like poison.

“An omega for that matter,” she added.

I gulped in a shaky breath, the air burning my throat like dry ash. My tears pressed against my lashes, desperate to fall, but I refused to give them the satisfaction. I would not cry in front of them.

I turned to leave, to save what little dignity I had left, when Kaelan’s voice cut through the air like a blade.

“I’m ready to reject you now.”

I froze. He was looking straight into my eyes, his gaze as merciless as winter ice, and yet there was no pity… none at all.

Here? Now? In her presence? My mind screamed the questions, but he didn’t give me the courtesy of answers.

“I, Kaelan Darius, Alpha of the Silver Fang Pack, reject you as my Luna from this moment forth.”

His words were a death sentence, and I felt the bond inside me splinter, each break a jagged shard of agony cutting deeper.

I swallowed the pain, forcing my trembling lips to form the reply. “I, Meira Nicholas, former Luna of the Silver Fang Pack, accept your rejection.”

The moment the words left my mouth, the dam broke. The agony of the severed bond ripped through me, unrelenting and brutal. Omegas were never strong enough to hold a broken bond, and I was no exception.

My knees buckled, and darkness closed in. The last thing I heard was Isabella’s quiet, satisfied laugh before everything turned to pitch black.

**********

The sharp sting of antiseptic filled my lungs as my eyes fluttered open. The ceiling above me was a blinding white, the kind that pressed down on you with its sterile emptiness.

“Kael…” The name caught in my throat as my gaze landed on Anderson, Kaelan’s beta, standing stiffly at my bedside.

“Where… where is the Alpha?” My voice was raw, trembling with a hope I already knew was foolish.

“You should rest, Luna—” He stopped himself, the title dying awkwardly on his lips. “You need time to heal.”

But I saw it. The flicker in his eyes. That flash of pity that made my chest tighten like a vise.

“Kaelan… Did he come? Did he—”

Silence.

Anderson didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. The heaviness in the room told me everything.

He hadn’t come.

Even though my heart was already shattered, something inside me still cracked smaller but sharper.

“A minute, please,” the pack’s doctor said firmly, stepping between us. Anderson hesitated, then gave me one last unreadable look before slipping out of the room.

The door clicked shut, and the doctor rose and moved to my side, gently pressing me back down when I tried to sit up.

“You need to rest, Luna,” she said, her tone carrying a strange mixture of urgency and care. “The twins need you.”

I froze. My mind stuttered over the word. “Twins?” My voice was barely a whisper.

Rose’s eyes softened, but there was something else there, something she wasn’t saying. “Yes, Luna,” she murmured. “You’re pregnant… with the Alpha’s twins.”