Chapter 5: The Proposal, Rejected

He walked in wearing the same smile he wore at my funeral, if wolves had funerals, if anyone had bothered to grieve me properly instead of just filing paperwork.

Kael Draven filled a doorway the way I remembered, broad shouldered, dark haired, that easy confidence that used to make my chest flutter before I understood what it actually was. Not warmth. Just certainty. The certainty of a man who had never once been told no and didn't expect to start now.

"Marcus." He clasped my father's hand, all charm, the picture of a respectful suitor. "Thank you for seeing me on short notice."

"Kael." My father's voice was careful, neutral, the tone of a man juggling politics he hadn't fully explained to his daughter yet. "You said this was important."

"It is." Kael's gaze slid to me, and there it was, right on schedule, the smile that used to undo me completely. "Luna. You look well."

*I'm dead in another life because of you,* I thought, and smiled back with nothing behind my eyes at all. "Kael."

We were gathered in the main hall, my father at the head of the long table, Elias beside him with his arms crossed and his usual wary calculation written across his face, three pack elders seated further down looking like they already knew what this visit was about and were pleased with themselves for it. I stood near the window, hands folded, heart hammering so hard I was half convinced everyone in the room could hear it.

Kael didn't sit. He came to stand in front of me instead, close enough that I could smell the same cedar and leather scent that used to be comforting once, back before I knew what it was covering up.

"I'll be direct," he said, "because I think you're the kind of woman who appreciates directness."

*You have no idea what kind of woman I am. Not yet. Maybe not ever.*

"Our fathers have discussed an alliance between our packs for years. I think it's time we stopped discussing and started doing." He reached into his jacket and produced a small velvet box, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor, because I recognized it, I recognized the exact ring inside it, the one I'd worn on my finger while he called me *mine* like a possession in front of two hundred cheering wolves.

The room held its breath. My father's jaw was tight. Elias had gone very still, watching me with an intensity that told me he already sensed something was wrong, he just didn't know what yet.

Kael opened the box. "Luna Everly. Marry me. Unite our packs, secure our borders, and let's build something stronger than either of our families could alone."

Not a single word about love. Not one. I'd missed that the first time, swept up in the ceremony of being chosen, being wanted, being *picked* out of every woman in the territory. This time I heard every gap in his proposal where affection should have lived and didn't.

Every eye in the room was on me. I felt my father's hope, radiating off him like heat, the desperate wish that his daughter would make this easy, make the peace hold, save them all a war none of them wanted. I felt Elias's suspicion, sharp and quiet, though he didn't yet know what he was suspicious of. And I felt Kael's absolute certainty that this was already decided, that I was already his, that the box in his hand was a formality and nothing more.

I let the silence stretch. Just a beat too long. Long enough that his smile flickered, just barely, at the edges.

"No," I said.

The word landed like a dropped glass in a silent room.

"I'm sorry?" Kael's smile hadn't fully collapsed yet. He genuinely thought he'd misheard me.

"No," I said again, steadier this time, my voice not shaking at all though every part of me was screaming. "I won't marry you."

My father half rose from his chair. "Luna—"

"I've made my decision, Father." I didn't look away from Kael. I wanted him to see it, whatever flickered behind my eyes, wanted him to feel the weight of a rejection he'd never once considered as a possibility. "I'm not interested in an alliance, Kael. Not this one."

For one heartbeat, his mask slipped entirely.

It wasn't hurt. I watched for hurt, some small cruel part of me hoping to see it, hoping some fragment of the man I'd once loved would flash pain at losing me. There was none. What crossed his face instead was irritation, quick and cold, gone almost before it arrived, the look of a man whose carefully laid plans had hit an unexpected obstacle.

Not heartbreak. Inconvenience.

That single flash told me everything the ledger had already confirmed in my first life. He'd never wanted me. He'd wanted what I represented, land and bloodline and the Everly name folded neatly into his, and the box in his hand had never been an offer of love, only a business proposal dressed up in velvet and diamonds.

"Luna." My father's voice had gone tight, urgent, pitched low like he could still fix this if I'd just soften my answer. "Perhaps you'd like some time to consider—"

"I don't need time." I finally looked away from Kael, toward my father instead, and softened my voice only slightly, enough to make it clear this wasn't about disrespecting him. "I've considered it. My answer is no."

The elders exchanged glances down the table, murmurs rising low and uneasy. This was not how these meetings were supposed to go. Marriages between pack heirs were negotiated in advance, agreed upon quietly before they were ever staged this publicly, and a public refusal wasn't just embarrassing, it was destabilizing, the kind of thing that made other packs start asking questions about the Everly pack's reliability, its alliances, its strength.

I didn't care. I'd already died once for being agreeable. I wasn't doing it again.

Kael closed the ring box with a soft, deliberate click, and when he looked at me again his mask was fully back in place, charming and unbothered, though I could see the tension banked just behind his eyes now, controlled but not gone.

"Well." His voice was light, almost amused, though nothing about his posture matched it. "That's certainly direct of you."

"You said you appreciated directness."

Something flickered across his expression again, sharper this time, gone just as fast. Almost respect. Almost anger. I couldn't quite tell which, and I realized with a small, cold jolt that maybe it had always been both, tangled together in him in ways I'd never bothered to examine before, back when I was too busy being flattered to look closely.

"I do," he said. "I'll admit, I didn't expect it aimed at me."

"Get used to it."

Elias made a small sound that might have been a laugh, quickly smothered. My father looked like he wanted to sink through the floor. The elders were already whispering amongst themselves, no doubt calculating exactly how much damage this refusal was going to cost the Everly pack in the coming weeks.

Kael slid the ring box back into his jacket, unhurried, and inclined his head toward my father with perfect, practiced politeness. "Marcus. I appreciate the audience, regardless of the outcome." His gaze cut back to me one final time, and whatever warmth had ever lived in his eyes during my first life was entirely absent now, stripped down to something calculating and cool. "Luna. I hope you know what you're turning down."

"I do," I said. "Better than you think."

He left without another word, footsteps unhurried across the stone floor, the doors closing behind him with a heavy, final sound that seemed to echo through the hall far longer than it should have.

The moment he was gone, my father rounded on me, color high in his face. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"

"Yes," I said quietly. "I just saved us both."

He didn't understand. Not yet. Elias was watching me with narrowed eyes, arms still crossed, something calculating already turning behind his gaze, the first thread of suspicion that his sister was suddenly, inexplicably, someone he didn't fully recognize.

I let them wonder. I let the whispers start, let the elders mutter about instability and pride and squandered opportunity. None of it mattered. I'd stood in that hall and watched Kael Draven's mask crack for exactly one honest second, and it had told me more truth than a hundred proposals ever could.

He didn't love me. He'd never loved me. And this time, unlike the last, I wasn't going to spend one more moment pretending otherwise.

Outside, past the window, I caught one final glimpse of him crossing the courtyard toward his waiting car, and for just a moment he paused, glanced back up toward the hall, straight at the window where I stood.

His expression, from that distance, gave nothing away.

But I felt it anyway. Some old, sharp instinct, the same one that used to warn me right before Selene's claws found my side.

*This isn't over. Not even close.*