Chapter 2: Twisted Reject

Ophilia's POV

The bright blue moonlight above the gathering began to dim, like something unseen had reached up and smothered it.

No one moved. No one breathed. The world had frozen.

Embarrassed, I turned to the Luna Mother, and found her glowing — like this was the happiest day of her life.

The disgrace was too much to bear.

Then, without warning, a surge of pain tore through me, ripping a scream from my throat before I could stop it.

"Somebody — help—"

The gathering, frozen only seconds ago, blurred and rushed past my vision all at once. I heard stilettos clicking toward me across the raised platform, each step landing like a verdict.

"You know what to do, Ophilia." Sydney's grin split wide across her face, hungry for it.

The pain yanked me to my knees. I felt my bones splinter, one by one, like something inside me was being unmade from the marrow out. Sweat poured down my face in sheets, and for one terrifying second I couldn't tell if the sound tearing out of me was a scream or a sob.

What is happening to me.

I looked up and found Jace — gloating, drinking in my misery like wine he'd been saving for this exact moment.

I'd seen this before. The agony every female wolf felt when the mate bond was severed, the pain that hollowed grown warriors into whimpering husks.

Nine years of being beaten, discarded, treated like filth. Not this time.

I gathered whatever was left of me and forced my body upward, inch by agonizing inch, my muscles screaming louder than the crowd.

"What is she doing?" Laughter rippled through the gathering. "If no full wolf has ever stood through that pain, does she really think her size will carry her through it?"

"Let's not forget — an Omega."

I let the words slide off me like water off stone, even as they cut. One leg. Then the other. My feet found the ground, trembling but planted.

The crowd gasped. Chase's eyes went wide with something I'd never seen on him before — fear, raw and unguarded.

My legs shook violently. My teeth ground against each other so hard I tasted blood. And underneath the pain, something else stirred — dark, cruel, and utterly intoxicating.

Revenge.

"And I—" My voice cracked, stammering through the agony. "I, Ophilia of the Makasi Moon Pack — refuse to accept the Alpha's rejection."

Silence detonated across the gathering. A silence so absolute I could hear my own heartbeat hammering against my ribs.

Then the pain hit again, tenfold, and I collapsed. My spirit felt like it was being torn from my body, thread by thread, unraveling me from the inside. My vision swam — and the moon, impossibly, blazed brighter than before, like it was answering me, crowning me.

I turned my head, slow and heavy, to find Sydney's face contorted with a fury so raw I thought it might split her skin open.

The bond had sealed. Jace was mine now — bound to me for life. He could never touch, marry, or so much as look at another woman without it costing him everything he had.

And the Goddess help me, the thought sent a thrill through my chest I hadn't expected — dark, fierce, alive, humming under my skin like victory.

The maidservant they'd broken and mocked for nine years wasn't so weak anymore.

I forced myself upright as the crowd stared in horrified silence. Then a hand cracked across my face — hard enough to snap my head sideways and send white sparks across my vision.

Sydney.

I said nothing. I only smiled, slow and deliberate.

The crowd erupted. Not with claws — with something worse. Whispers. Accusations. Chaos spreading like wildfire through dry grass.

Then it happened — the invisible thread only Jace and I had ever felt became visible to everyone. A shimmering line, gold and trembling, stretching from my chest straight to his.

Jace's face twisted with a rage so violent I thought he might lunge for my throat right there — Chase's grip was the only thing holding him back.

Sydney watched, frozen, as the thread pulsed gold... then blue... then vanished into nothing, leaving a silence that felt heavier than the screaming before it.

"What does this mean?" a woman's voice rang out, and the crowd's murmur turned into a roar.

"This is not what it looks like," Sydney snapped, but her voice wavered — the first crack I'd ever heard in her.

Chase crossed the platform in three strides and seized my wrist, his grip bruising, grinding bone against bone. "This is a disrespect to the Royal family, Ophilia. You will regret this. Mark my words."

I lifted my chin, refusing to flinch. "What's the worst you could do, Chase?"

The words left me before I could stop them.

His eyes went cold, colder than I'd ever seen. "Feisty," he said, almost pleasant. Almost worse for it.

My throat closed around a gasp I couldn't swallow.

*I'm doomed.*

Sydney turned to me, and whatever fury she'd been holding back detonated all at once. Her nails sliced across my throat before I even saw her move, Chase yanking my head back by my hair like they'd rehearsed the moment a thousand times.

I didn't cry out. I stood there, blood sliding warm down my neck, and said nothing.

"You foolish, foolish girl." Sydney's voice shook with restrained violence. "Soldiers — take her to the packhouse. Hold her until I come."

Fear finally cracked through the satisfaction in my chest. My revenge had worked — but standing there, bleeding, dragged by soldiers who'd once looked past me like I didn't exist, I understood it might also be the last mistake I ever made.

***

"Impressive, Ophilia. I didn't know you had a crush on me." Jace's voice slid into my ear as he approached, cold as the whip coiled in his hand. "You hid it well. Looks like beneath all that hatred, something else was hiding there. Love, wasn't it?"

Nausea rolled through me. I'd humiliated them enough for one lifetime — I wasn't giving them my voice too.

I stayed silent as he and Chase stepped closer, the whip stretched taut between them, promising.

They wanted to carve into my skin again. Let them try.

"You've embarrassed this family," Chase said, his footsteps sending shivers down my spine, "beyond anything it can recover from."

"Reject me now," Jace offered, almost gentle, "and we'll let you go free."

I said nothing. They grinned, menacing, and raised the whip together.

"Looks like the whip does its job, then—"

The door slammed open.

"Where is that maidservant." Sydney's voice cut through the room, thick with command.

"Looks like we'll have to wait, brother." Jace lowered the whip, slow, almost reluctant.

Sydney's eyes found mine, and something colder than the whip settled behind them.

"Take her to the dungeon," she said. "Let's remind her what a crimson-cursed nobody really is."