CHAPTER 5: THE WORDS THAT BROKE ME

"My son has chosen his mate."

Alpha Marcus's voice rang through the hall like a death knell.

Time slowed.

Everything around me blurred—the faces of the pack, the candles flickering along the walls, the flowers decorating the platform. All of it faded into background noise, meaningless and distant.

All I could see was Adrian.

I searched his face, silently begging him to look at me. To see me standing here, breaking apart in front of everyone. To remember what we had been, what we had shared, what he had promised me in the dark when no one else was listening.

Please, I thought desperately. Please look at me.

He didn't.

His eyes stayed fixed on Bianca, on her perfect smile and her white dress and the mark on her throat that he had put there. He looked at her like she was the only thing in the room worth seeing.

Like I didn't exist.

Like I had never existed.

"Bianca Reeves," Marcus announced, his hand resting on my sister's shoulder with paternal pride. "Daughter of my Beta, a wolf of strong bloodline and excellent character. She will be a Luna worthy of Silvercrest Pack."

Applause thundered through the hall.

The sound crashed over me like a wave, drowning out my thoughts, my breathing, my desperate attempts to stay standing. Pack members cheered and howled their approval, celebrating the union that would secure their future.

Celebrating my destruction.

My knees buckled.

I caught myself on the wall behind me, my fingers digging into the stone hard enough to hurt. But the pain in my hands was nothing compared to the agony building in my chest.

The bond was dying.

I could feel it withering inside me, like a flower being slowly crushed. Every second that Adrian stood there holding Bianca's hand, every moment he didn't look at me, didn't acknowledge what we had been—it killed a little more of what connected us.

But it wasn't gone yet.

Not completely.

And some foolish, desperate part of me still hoped he would stop this. That he would remember. That he would choose me.

Adrian took Bianca's hand in both of his.

The gesture was tender, reverent. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers.

The pack sighed collectively, charmed by the display of affection.

I tasted bile.

Then—finally—he looked at me.

Our eyes met across the crowded hall.

For three years, those golden eyes had looked at me with warmth. With desire. With something I had convinced myself was love.

Now they were cold. Empty.

Utterly devoid of anything resembling regret.

He held my gaze deliberately, purposefully, making sure I was watching what came next.

Making sure I understood.

"However," Adrian said, his voice cutting through the applause like a blade, "there is one matter that must be addressed before we proceed."

The hall quieted.

Confusion rippled through the crowd. This wasn't part of the traditional ceremony. Pack members exchanged glances, uncertain.

Marcus frowned. "Adrian—"

"There have been rumors," Adrian continued, his voice carrying easily through the suddenly silent hall. "Inappropriate rumors. Suggestions of a bond that never truly existed."

My heart stopped.

No.

"I want to make something clear," he said, his eyes still locked on mine. "To eliminate any confusion. To ensure that everyone understands the truth."

He released Bianca's hand and took a step forward, his posture shifting. No longer the tender mate. Now the Alpha heir, commanding and absolute.

"Elena Reeves," he said clearly.

Every head in the hall turned toward me.

Hundreds of eyes. All staring. All witnessing.

I wanted to disappear. To sink into the shadows and cease to exist. But I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything except stand there and wait for the killing blow.

"I formally reject any bond with Elena Reeves."

The words hit me like physical blows.

Each one precise. Deliberate. Designed to destroy.

"I declare before the pack and the moon that she has never been, and will never be, my mate. Any connection between us was false. Any claim she might make is invalid. I reject her completely and absolutely."

Pain exploded through my chest.

White-hot and endless, like lightning striking directly into my heart. The bond didn't just break—it shattered. Splintered into a thousand razor-sharp pieces that tore through me, shredding everything inside.

I screamed.

The sound ripped from my throat before I could stop it, raw and animalistic. My hands clutched at my chest, trying to hold myself together as everything inside me came apart.

I fell.

My knees hit the stone floor hard enough to bruise, but I barely felt it. All I felt was the bond dying, the connection that had defined me for three years being ripped away like skin being flayed from bone.

"Please," I gasped. "Please, no—"

But my voice was lost in the noise of the hall.

Because the pack was laughing.

Not all of them. Not everyone. But enough. Enough that the sound echoed off the stone walls, cruel and mocking and delighted.

"Did you hear that scream?"

"Pathetic."

"She actually believed it."

"An omega thinking she could be Luna—"

"Delusional."

The words swirled around me, vicious and cutting. I tried to breathe through the pain, tried to think, tried to do anything except collapse completely.

But I couldn't.

The bond was gone.

Not weakened. Not damaged.

Gone.

Like it had been surgically removed from my chest, leaving a gaping, bleeding wound where it used to be.

My wolf howled inside me, a sound of pure anguish that only I could hear. She thrashed and clawed, desperate to reach Adrian, to make him take it back, to fix what he had just broken.

But there was nothing to fix.

He had rejected us.

Formally. Publicly. Permanently.

"Adrian," I whispered, but my voice was too weak to carry.

On the platform, Adrian stood tall and unmoved. He watched me collapse with no expression on his face. No guilt. No regret. No acknowledgment that he had just destroyed someone who had loved him.

Just cold, calculated satisfaction that he had done what needed to be done.

Bianca stepped up beside him, her hand sliding possessively around his arm. She looked down at me with barely concealed triumph, her smile sharp as knives.

This was what she wanted.

Not just Adrian. Not just the title of Luna.

My complete and utter humiliation.

And she had it.

"Elena," my father's voice cut through the noise, sharp and angry. "Get up."

I tried. My legs wouldn't cooperate.

"I said get up." Marcus Reeves pushed through the crowd, his face twisted with disgust and rage. Not at Adrian. Not at Bianca. Not at the pack that was laughing at his youngest daughter's pain.

At me.

For embarrassing him.

His hand closed around my arm, yanking me roughly to my feet. I swayed, barely able to stand, my body still screaming from the bond breaking.

"You are making a scene," he hissed in my ear. "Stop it. Now."

"Father, I—"

"Silence." His grip tightened, bruising. "You have disgraced this family enough for one night."

"But Adrian—"

"Adrian has made his choice." Father's voice was ice. "And it was never going to be you. How dare you think it could be? How dare you presume that an Alpha heir would waste himself on an omega? On you?"

Each word was a new wound.

"I didn't presume," I whispered. "The bond—"

"There was no bond." He shook me, hard enough to rattle my teeth. "There was never a bond. You fabricated a fantasy in your pathetic mind, and now you are paying the price for your delusion."

"That isn't true—"

"Isn't it?" He released me suddenly, pushing me backward. I stumbled, nearly falling again. "Look around you, Elena. Look at them laughing. Do you think they believe you? Do you think anyone here thinks an Alpha heir would truly be bonded to something like you?"

The words cut deeper than anything Adrian had said.

Because they came from my father.

The man who was supposed to protect me. Support me. Believe me.

Instead, he looked at me like I was garbage.

"You are not my daughter anymore," he said clearly, loudly enough that nearby pack members could hear. "You are a liar and an embarrassment. I want nothing to do with you."

The pack had gone quiet again, watching this new drama unfold with hungry interest.

"Father, please—"

"Do not call me that." His voice rose. "You lost the right to call me father when you tried to destroy your sister's happiness with your lies."

"I didn't lie!"

"Enough!" Alpha Marcus's command silenced the entire hall. He stood at the edge of the platform, his expression thunderous. "Marcus, control your daughter. She is disrupting the ceremony."

"Yes, Alpha." My father bowed his head in submission, then grabbed my arm again. "She will be dealt with."

"See that she is." Marcus's eyes were cold as they swept over me. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my pack. Wolves who spread lies and cause discord are not welcome here."

The threat was clear.

Stay quiet. Submit. Disappear.

Or face consequences.

Father dragged me toward the exit, his grip punishing. The pack parted for us, their expressions ranging from disgust to pity to cruel amusement.

No one helped.

No one spoke up.

No one questioned what was happening.

I looked back one last time, desperate, praying that Adrian would say something. Do something. Show even a flicker of the man I thought I knew.

He stood on the platform with Bianca pressed against his side, his arm around her waist.

He was smiling.

And in that moment, I understood the truth.

This had never been about politics or pack pressure or his father's expectations.

Adrian had wanted this.

He had wanted to reject me publicly. To humiliate me. To make sure I understood exactly how little I meant to him.

The bond hadn't been a mistake.

Loving him had been.

Father shoved me through the exit into the cool night air. I collapsed on the grass outside the hall, my body finally giving up its fight to stay upright.

Inside, the celebration continued.

I could hear music starting, hear laughter and cheers as the pack toasted their new future Luna.

And I lay there in the dirt, broken and bleeding and utterly alone.

My wolf curled inward, whimpering.

And then—

She went still.

Not quiet. Not resting.

Still.

The kind of stillness that felt wrong. Final. Like something inside her had simply stopped fighting.

"No," I whispered. "Please, don't leave me too."

But she didn't respond.

My wolf, the only part of me that had never given up, that had never stopped believing we were worth something—

She had gone terrifyingly, devastatingly silent.