CHAPTER TWO

The guards moved as soon as Garrick gave the order.

Three of them stepped into my path before I could take a single step off the platform. Their faces were carefully blank, but their bodies blocked every possible exit. Around us, the pack whispered like a living thing. Some stared in open shock. Others looked at me with something closer to disgust, as if I had committed a crime by refusing their Alpha.

Garrick remained on the stone platform, watching me with cold amber eyes. The polite mask he had worn for the ceremony was gone. What remained was the man who expected obedience and was already calculating how to force it.

“You have embarrassed this pack,” he said, voice carrying easily over the murmurs. “You will explain yourself. Now.”

I met his stare without lowering my gaze. “There is nothing to explain. I rejected the bond. That is the end of it.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You do not get to decide that a mating bond is finished simply because you woke up in a difficult mood. You are my mate. You have always been my mate.”

“No,” I said clearly. “I am not.”

The Alpha pressure rolled off him then, heavy and oppressive, pressing against my skin like a physical weight. In my previous life, that force alone would have made me yield. Today, I only straightened my spine and held my ground.

“You are confused,” Garrick continued, addressing the crowd more than me. “The ceremony, the pressure… it is understandable. But a rejection spoken in panic cannot stand. Anya will come to her senses.”

I let out a soft, humorless breath. “I have never been clearer in my life.”

Isolde stepped forward then, her green eyes wide with false concern. She placed a delicate hand over her heart as if the entire scene distressed her.

“Perhaps she is unwell,” she said sweetly. “Rejection is a serious matter. Maybe the stress of the day has affected her judgment. We should not take her words too seriously until she has had time to rest.”

I turned my head slowly and looked at her. The same woman who had stood beside Garrick while the gates remained closed. The same woman who had smiled while feral wolves tore into me.

“I am not unwell,” I said. “And I do not require your concern.”

Isolde’s smile tightened at the edges. “I am only trying to help. We are all part of the same pack, after all.”

“Are we?” I asked. “Because from where I stand, you seem far more interested in the position of Luna than in my well-being.”

A few gasps rippled through the nearest listeners. Isolde’s cheeks flushed, but she recovered quickly, tilting her head with practiced grace.

“You are distressed,” she murmured. “It is making you unkind.”

Garrick raised a hand, cutting her off. His attention never left me. “Enough. Anya, you will return to your quarters. You will remain there until I decide how to handle this… situation. You are not permitted to leave pack territory.”

The words settled over me like chains.

I recognized them. This was how it had begun the first time. Small restrictions. Careful control. Isolation disguised as protection. By the time I understood what was happening, it had already been too late.

I looked at the guards surrounding me, then back at Garrick. Fighting them here would only confirm that I was unstable. I needed space. I needed time. And above all, I needed to stop reacting and start planning.

“I will return to my quarters,” I said. “But do not mistake my compliance for acceptance. The rejection stands.”

Garrick’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, I thought he might push further in front of the entire pack. Instead, he gave a sharp nod to the guards.

“Escort her.”

They closed in without touching me, forming a silent barrier that guided me away from the platform. I walked with my head high, refusing to look back, even though I could feel Garrick’s stare burning between my shoulder blades. Isolde’s soft voice followed me for a few steps before the crowd swallowed it.

The path to my quarters felt longer than it ever had. Every face I passed carried judgment. Some of these people had called me Luna in another life. Some of them had watched me heal their wounds and thank me with tears in their eyes. Now they looked at me as if I had betrayed them by refusing to be owned.

When the door to my room finally closed behind me, I stood still for several long seconds, listening to the guards take up position outside. Only then did I allow my shoulders to drop.

The room looked exactly as it had that morning. Neat. Familiar. Safe in a way that felt like a lie.

I moved to the small wooden chest near the window and opened it. My hands paused.

Something was wrong.

The arrangement of the folded shawls was slightly off. A book I kept on the left side had been shifted. I crouched and ran my fingers along the bottom of the chest until they found the empty space where a small, worn box should have been.

My grandmother’s box.

In my previous life, I had barely paid it any attention. It had contained an old pendant, a few fragile pages of handwriting, and a sealed document I had never opened. I had been too busy trying to be the perfect Luna to care about family relics.

Now the box was gone.

I searched the entire room with careful, controlled movements. Under the bed. Behind the wardrobe. Inside every drawer. Nothing. Whoever had taken it had known exactly where to look. There were no signs of forced entry, no scattered belongings. Only the quiet absence of something that should have been there.

A cold feeling settled in my stomach.

Someone in Blackthorn knew enough about my grandmother’s belongings to target them the moment I rejected Garrick. That was not coincidence. That was preparation.

I sat on the edge of the bed and forced myself to breathe slowly. Panic would not help me. Fear would not help me. The woman who had died outside those gates had begged and pleaded and trusted. That woman was gone.

I would not make her mistakes again.

Outside my door, one of the guards shifted his weight. The soft scrape of boots against wood reminded me that I was already under watch. Garrick had wasted no time tightening his hold.

I looked toward the window. The sky was still bright, the sun high. Somewhere beyond these walls, the first signs of the coming darkness were already stirring, even if no one else could see them yet.

I pressed a hand against my chest, feeling the steady beat of a heart that had already stopped once.

They had taken the box.

But they had not taken my memories.

And as long as I still had those, I was not as helpless as they believed.