Exhausted

Rexiana remained on the cold tile floor for what felt like an eternity, her chest heaving as silent tears tracked through the dust on her cheeks. Around her, the pack moved like nothing had happened. No one reached down to offer a hand. The toaster pinged across the room, but no one stepped up to serve the food; they simply stared or looked away.

​Clint had already retreated to his office under the weak excuse of urgent pack business. In reality, he was hiding, locked away to mourn the jagged, agonizing tear in his own chest where their bond used to be. ​Only Maya remained, hovering over Rexiana like a scavenger, dangling a slick black pen.

​"Tick-tock, bitch," she hissed, her voice dripping with artificial triumph. "Your time is running out and you’re wasting it crying. Sign the papers so we can make this official. Remember what the Alpha just said: if you’re still here in an hour, you can only blame yourself."

​Rexiana’s sobbing slowly quieted. She stared at the polished floorboards, a strange, hollow clarity washing over her. Why was she lying in the dust, weeping over a bond that had already been ripped away? Maya was right about one thing, remaining past an hour meant death. Right then and there, Rexiana resolved that if she was going to die today, it would not be in Storm Fang territory. They had taken everything from her; she refuse to give them the satisfaction of taking her final breath.

​She wiped off her tears with the back of her trembling hand, reached up, and snatched the pen from Maya’s fingers. For a fraction of a second, a flash of genuine fear crossed Maya’s eyes before vanishing. Maya hadn't expected her to yield so fast; she had anticipated a desperate, embarrassing scene where Rexiana ran to Clint’s office, screaming and begging for mercy.

​Instead, Rexiana methodically signed her name across every required line, then stood up on steadying legs and turned toward the Alpha quarters. Maya scrambled after her, her heels clicking loudly against the floor, hurling taunts the entire way.

​"You better not get funny ideas, you don't own a single thing in this pack!" Maya warned.

​Rexiana didn't respond. But as she reached for the door handle of her own bedroom, Maya darted forward, blocking the frame with her body.

​"Didn't you hear me?" Maya sneered, her chin raised. "Everything in here belongs to the Luna. You aren't the Luna anymore, which means you can't step foot inside."

​"I only want my personal belongings," Rexiana said quietly.

​"Leave when I'm still being nice," Maya barked. "Everything here belongs to the pack, not you, Rex."

​Rexiana didn't waste her breath arguing. She turned on her heel and walked down the hallway toward the Alpha’s heavy oak office doors. Maya rushed ahead again, planting herself firmly in front of the entrance. Not wanting to give Maya the satisfaction of physical conflict, Rexiana stopped a few feet back. Raising her voice so it carried clearly through the thick wood into the office, she spoke with absolute finality.

​"I, Rexiana Johnson, accept your rejection, Alpha Clint Morris."

​She paused. The moment the formal acceptance left her lips, the suffocating throbbing in her chest eased just a fraction. The bond was truly, irrevocably dead.

​"Alpha, I am requesting my mother’s keepsake before I leave," Rexiana continued, her voice remarkably steady. "Maya has forbidden me from entering the Luna’s quarters."

​She waited. Seconds stretched into a painful silence. Then, from inside the office, came the violent sound of glass shattering against the back of the door, heavy fragments raining down onto the floor.

​Maya smirked, crossing her arms. "What cheap keepsake? Even the Alpha is too disgusted to look at your ugly face. You'd better leave now before your time run out."

​It was clear Clint was unwilling to face her, let alone grant her request. After three heavy minutes of silence, Rexiana turned her back on the office and walked down the grand staircase toward the pack house exit.

​"Wait!" Maya called out sharply just as Rexiana reached the heavy front doors. "Don't you think you are forgetting something?" Maya asked coldly but Rexiana looked at her with genuine cluelessness. Maya sighed "Your wedding band, give it back."

​Rexiana paused on the threshold. She had nothing remarkable on, just a simple, faded blue dress, a pair of worn flip-flops, with her hair pulled up into a loose, messy bun. Clint had always mocked her whenever she tried to dress up or wear makeup, calling her a disguised monster or clown until she simply stopped trying. The only piece of jewelry she had worn for five years was the gold wedding band on her left hand. She had never taken it off once. ​Looking down at her bare wrists and simple clothes, she realized Maya was right. It didn't belong to her anymore, and neither did the nightmare she was leaving behind.

​Rexiana slid the wedding ring off her finger, her movements slow and measured. Five years of wearing it had left a pale, soft band of skin beneath the metal, a permanent mark of a promise Clint had broken long ago. She dropped the gold band into Maya’s outstretched palm. Maya’s eyes gleamed with raw greed as she clutched the gold, already picturing it melted down or resized for her own hand.

​Without another word, Rexiana turned her back on the pack house and began the long walk toward the eastern border.​ Dozens of eyes tracked her movement from the courtyard. The moment Clint had declared the rejection, the pack bond connecting Rexiana to every member had severed, leaving a strange, hollow silence in the air.

​Among the crowd stood Bill, the pack’s Gamma. He watched her go, a sharp pang of guilt twisting in his chest. Bill had been one of the few who saw Rexiana for what she truly was, a devoted, self-sacrificing leader. But Clint had beaten every ounce of resistance out of him years ago. In the early days, when Clint’s mother, Heather, always hurled vile insults at Rexiana, Bill would try to defend her, only to be punished by Clint. Later, an omega even dared to openly disrespect Rexiana and when Bill step in, Clint had simply declared the omega right and accused Bill of sleeping with her. Clint had then explicitly ordered the gamma never to defend his luna again, claiming if it really bothered her, she would have spoken up herself.

​After that, Bill stayed silent. He watched in heavy, helpless shame as the woman who had bled for their pack walked away with nothing.

​"Finally getting rid of the jinx," one warrior snickered from the barracks porch, breaking the silence. A few surrounding wolves chuckled along, eager to stay on Maya's good side, even if the joke fell flat.

​"About time, too," another added, crossing his arms. "Now maybe we’ll actually get an Alpha heir."

​Rexiana heard every single word, their mockery amplified by her wolf's senses. But she didn't flinch. She kept her chin parallel to the ground, her worn flip-flops crunching steadily against the gravel path leading toward the dense trees of the eastern gate.

When she reached the heavy brass gates of the eastern border, the guards on duty offered no mercy. They spat onto the dirt, mocking her with loud, cruel congratulations to one another as if celebrating a victorious battle. Not a single wolf raised a hand to offer her water, let alone safe passage.

​"I don't know how you plan to manage it," Hugh, the head enforcer, sneered, resting a heavy hand on his belt as his eyes roam disgustingly over her form. "You’ve got exactly fifteen minutes left and the border stretches for another twenty miles. I suggest you start running, former Luna. When your time is up, don't blame us for being impolite when we hunt you down like the rogue you are."

​Rexiana didn't dignify his filth with a look. But she took his warning to heart. As soon as her worn flip-flops cleared the heavy iron posts of the gate, she broke into a sprint. Her spirit was shattered, and her wolf wanted nothing more than to retreat deep into the dark corners of her mind and curl into a ball. But survival instinct overruled grief. Pushing through the bone-deep exhaustion and the lingering ache of the snapped mate bond, Rexiana let the shift take her.

​In a flash of light and cracking bone, a sleek, silver wolf burst through her simple dress, hitting the forest floor at full speed. She ran blindly through the dense thickets, paws hammering against damp earth and sharp pine needles. She needed to get as far away as possible from Clint, Maya, and the toxicity of the only home she had known for twenty three years. Deep down, a dark, numb thought whispered that even if she wasn't fast enough, if Hugh eventually caught her and ended her life, maybe it would finally bring her some peace.

​She was so consumed by the agonizing noise in her head that she stopped listening to the woods around her.

​She didn't hear the heavy rustle of brush ahead, nor did she catch the wind shifting.

Rexiana didn't even notice herself dashing past a group of wolves having a standoff, on one side was the Red Ridge Pack wolves, a self righteous and brutal pack of wolves who prided themselves with purging the world of rogues and troublemakers, and on the other side stood scavenger rogues, fierce, lawless, and have been wrecking havoc on neighboring packs.

The warriors from the Red Ridge Pack were chasing a group of rogues that tried to cross into their territory. The patrol teams had been on duty for days without any real fight; the sight of easy targets had made their blood boil, and they had given chase with open eagerness.

Right now the two groups faced off in a tense standoff, until a flash of silver fur suddenly streaked between them without slowing.

Both sides froze for a heartbeat, watching the silver wolf tear past as if the world around her did not exist.

“Go after that rogue,” Beta Elijah of Red Ridge hissed to one of his men. “Bring her back to me alive.”

Three warriors broke from the group and sprinted after the white wolf without question. Rexiana never looked back. To her, every wolf behind her was just another hunter from Storm Fang. She had to keep moving until her legs gave out. Only then would she accept pack law and whatever death came with it. Although she had prepared breakfast, she hadn't had the chance to eat before everything happened this morning. Grief and terror sat heavy in her chest, yet they were the only fuel left in her body. Her wolf pushed forward on pure instinct. She did not notice when the living forest gave way to something else. The leaves around her turned brown and brittle. The ground grew dry and lifeless. She had just crossed into a forbidden zone, The Blood Moon pack.

The three Red Ridge wolves hesitated the moment her white form passed the threshold. Their ears pricked, noses testing the dead air.

The thick, deadened air of the forbidden boundary pressed heavily against Rexiana’s fur as her paws struck the dry, brittle earth. Behind her, the pursuit had stopped. The Red Ridge warriors debated whether crossing into the territory ahead was wise, watching as the silver wolf stumbled further away. If they wanted to catch her, they had to act before she slipped away completely.

​"We need to grab her now and drag her back," one of the Red Ridge wolves growled softly through their mind-link, his ears twitching nervously at the eerie stillness of the dark forest.

​"If Alpha Dalton catches us even ten yards past his line, he won't ask questions," another reasoned. A scolding from their Beta for losing a stray was far easier to survive than Carl Dalton's claws. Yet, dragging her back meant scoring rare brownie points with pack hierarchy, a gamble too tempting to pass up.

​"She’s exhausted," the third wolf snapped back, though his chest heaved with suppressed anxiety. "Look at her, she can barely hold her footing."

​They were right. Rexiana’s silver wolf was running on pure phantom energy. Her stomach twisted with hunger, her chest burned from the agonizing, fresh tear of the severed mate bond, and her legs trembled with every leap. She didn't know she had crossed into the legendary territory of the Blood Moon Pack, the land governed by the formidable Alpha Carl Dalton, a man spoken of only in whispered warnings across every neighboring region. She only knew that stopping meant surrender, and surrender meant death.