Chapter 5. The Cost of Rejection

Chapter 5 --The Cost of Rejection

Elias continues to drive through pack territory from the airport. As we enter the gates to the pack compound, I see what the attack from that bitch’s betrayal has wrought on the pack.

Homes destroyed.

Schools burned.

The ceremonial mating ring destroyed.

Training fields in shambles.

The pack has started rebuilding, but the cost was immeasurable. We drive past the pack cemetery. I see too many fresh graves. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. Sylvie howls in distress at the loss of life.

I open my eyes as tears form.

“I need to see the Moon Healing Temple, Elias.”

“You don’t want to see it, Alara,” he says.

A tear rolls down my face as I touch the crescent pendant I had put back on when I left for the airport.

“Take me there,” I growl.

“The elders are waiting.”

“The elders can wait. Take me to the Moon Healing Temple. I will not repeat myself.”

He turns off onto a dirt road and heads toward what is left of the temple. I keep my eyes closed and softly whisper a prayer to the Moon Goddess above.

We arrive at the ruins, and my brother stops the car. I open my eyes and see the devastation the bitch has wrought on the temple. The Moon Healing Temple was where my grandmother taught me the healing arts so I would be a useful omega. The temple stones glowed every full moon with the healing runes inscribed into every stone. Now it is charred and blackened from the destruction.

I step out of the car, legs trembling.

I remember the warmth of the stones, the hum of healing energy, the way my grandmother’s hands guided mine. Sylvie feels my pain and the memories of what was lost.

I close my eyes and whisper, “Grandmother, I am glad you were not here to witness the destruction.”

Elias places his hand on my shoulder in sympathy. I slap it away. He is not my brother right now. He is the pack’s beta following council orders.

“I’m ready to go before the elder council,” I say coldly.

My brother drives us to the pack house.

The pack house looms ahead, larger than I remembered, its stone walls scarred from the attack. Fresh timber braces sections of the outer structure, and wolves move across the grounds carrying supplies, repairing damage, or standing guard. Their eyes follow the car as we pull in — some curious, some wary, none welcoming.

Sylvie rises inside me, not in challenge, but in cold acknowledgment.

This was once home.

Now it is a battlefield wearing a roof.

Elias parks near the east entrance, the one used for formal summons. He steps out first, stiff, unsure if he should open my door or keep his distance. I don’t wait for him. I open the door myself and step out, heels clicking sharply against the stone walkway.

A few pack members pause their work, staring.

Whispers ripple.

Omega returned.

Rejected mate.

Human‑world survivor.

Changed.

Sylvie pushes forward, her presence sharp enough to make a nearby junior warrior lower his gaze.

Good.

Elias swallows hard. “They’re waiting inside.”

I walk past him without responding, entering the pack house. The air inside is heavy with dominance, old magic, and the lingering scent of fear. Sylvie doesn’t bow to any of it.

I move down the hallway, each step steady, controlled, unbroken.

I reach the council chamber doors.

“Ready, Sylvie?” I ask.

Sylvie goes on high alert. I’m ready, she growls.

I walk to the chamber doors , push them open and walk in ready to show them who I am.

The doors whisper shut behind me.

I stand before the elder council. As an Omega, I should be bowing my head, but I don’t. This is the same council that allowed Adrian to reject me in favor of their betrayer, who lies dead and rotting in a ravine.

The senior elder orders me to kneel like an Omega should before them.

“Omega Alara,” he says, voice cold and brittle, “you stand before the council. Show proper respect and kneel.”

I refuse.

A ripple of confusion moves through the elders.

Another elder leans forward. “You defy a direct command? You return after five years and bring insolence into this chamber?”

A third elder hisses, “This is why the Alpha should never have summoned her. She has forgotten her place.”

“I have answered your summons, elder. Speak of why I am here, or I leave now,” I say with the voice of an alpha female.

The elders are stunned.

“How dare you show disrespect to the council, Omega Alara,” the senior elder snaps.

“Disrespect?” I laugh. “Disrespect. You say I disrespect you. YOU!”

My anger rises, and my wolf aura surges.

The elders flinch.

One elder whispers, “Her aura… an Omega should not be able to—”

Another cuts him off. “Control yourself, girl! You stand before the governing body of this pack!”

“Five years ago, you stood and witnessed Alpha Adrian reject his fated mate under the full moon. You then blessed the betrayer of our pack as I stood there bearing the pain of rejection, Sylvie dying a little inside as they spoke the vows I was meant to speak that night. Now you summon me back for what? To treat me like you did before? To have me be the meek, mild, lovesick Omega that you and the Alpha can control?

Take a good long hard look. That Omega is gone. The pack gamma will testify to that.”

My aura has them on their knees.

One elder chokes out, “This… this is impossible…”

Another whispers, “What has she become?”

They couldn’t bring themselves to tell me that the Alpha had ordered them to summon me. If I would not come back on my own, he thought, let the elder council force her home.

I turn my back on the council and walk out, muttering curses about the council and the Alpha all the way out of the chamber and down the hall.