Ch. 4 Karma’s a Bitch

Selena’s POV

I slid the ring on my finger, took a deep breath, and exhaled, “Open the door!”

Ronan didn’t even speak, just nodded to the guards. The door opened, and Damon came crashing in. His face was red and his veins visibly bulging in his face as he stalked towards me. But before he could reach me, Ronan stepped in front of me.

“Son, anything you have to say to her you will say in my presence,” Ronan said with full Alpha authority.

“This is between Selene and me and doesn’t concern you. Now I’d advise you to move,” Damon growled out as he went to move and push past Ronan.

I knew a fight between them was brewing, and so I did the one thing I should have done earlier.

“I, Selene Carey, reject you, Damon Bloodhowl, as my mate!” I yelled as loud as I could, wanting everyone to know my decision.

Damon fell to his knees, clutching his head and then his chest as the rejection tore through him. I wanted to rip him to shreds for what he has done. But seeing him in this pain gives me some type of satisfaction, even if it’s temporary.

The sound that came out of Damon was ugly enough to make the guards at the door shift on their feet. It was not the controlled growl of an Alpha heir who believed the world owed him obedience. It was raw. Broken. Humiliated. The same kind of humiliation he had tried to dress me in downstairs in front of the entire pack.

Only now, he was wearing it.

His hands clawed at his chest like he could dig the bond out before it finished burning through him, but there was no stopping it. He had started this when he rejected me. He had made the bond bleed first. All I had done was finally stop holding the wound open for him.

Ronan stood in front of me, broad shoulders tense, every inch of him carved in that dangerous stillness that made even the air feel careful around him. His scent wrapped around me, dark cedar and smoke, steady enough to hold me up when my knees wanted to remember they were weak.

Damon lifted his head slowly, his eyes glowing gold through the pain. “You bitch,” he rasped.

The room went deathly quiet.

Ronan moved so fast I barely saw it. One second he was standing in front of me, and the next Damon’s body slammed against the floor hard enough that the marble cracked beneath his shoulder. Ronan had one hand around his throat, not squeezing enough to kill him, but enough to remind him that blood did not protect a man from consequences.

“You will never speak to her like that again,” Ronan said, his voice so low it sank into my bones. “Not in this room. Not in my pack. Not while I am breathing.”

Damon’s hands locked around Ronan’s wrist, but he didn’t try to fight him. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe for the first time in his spoiled, arrogant life, he understood exactly how small he was compared to the man whose title he had been waiting to inherit.

“She was mine,” Damon choked out.

I stepped around Ronan before I could talk myself out of it.

Ronan’s head turned slightly, his eyes flicking to me in warning, but he did not stop me. He only loosened his grip and rose to his feet, keeping himself close enough that Damon would have to go through him if he wanted to reach me.

I looked down at Damon, at the man I had loved since I was fifteen because I had been stupid enough to believe a pretty promise could survive a cruel heart.

“No,” I said, and my voice did not shake this time. “I was never yours. I was the girl you hid in corners. I was the girl you whispered promises to when no one important could hear you. I was the girl you expected to wait quietly while you let everyone treat me like something beneath their shoes. You wanted my devotion, Damon. You wanted my loyalty. You wanted my body untouched and waiting for you. But you never wanted me.”

His face twisted, and for one weak second, I thought I saw something like regret break through the fury. It was too late to matter. Regret after betrayal was just another selfish thing dressed up to look pretty.

“That isn’t true,” he said, voice rough. “You know it isn’t.”

A bitter laugh slipped out of me. “I know you chose Mira in front of everyone.”

His jaw clenched.

“I know you let Helena smile while I stood there breaking.”

His nostrils flared.

“I know you looked me in the eyes and rejected me like I was nothing.”

Damon pushed himself up onto one elbow, breathing hard. “Because I was angry. Because I was cornered. You don’t understand what was happening.”

“No, Damon. I understand perfectly.” I lifted my hand, letting the light catch Ronan’s ring on my finger. The room seemed to notice it all at once. Damon’s stare locked onto it, and fresh rage flooded his face. “You made your choice. Now I’ve made mine.”

“You think wearing his ring makes you powerful?” Damon snarled, dragging himself upright even though the rejection had clearly left him shaking. “You think my father wants you for anything other than a punishment against me?”

The words struck harder than I wanted them to. I hated that they found old bruises inside me, places Helena had carved open years ago with her sharp little smiles and sharper little whispers. Unwanted. Inconvenient. A burden someone tolerated until they could hand me off to the next person.

Ronan’s hand touched the small of my back.

It was not possessive enough to trap me, but it was firm enough to remind me he was there.

I did not look at him because I was afraid if I did, Damon would see how badly I needed that steady pressure. I kept my eyes on Damon instead, even as my throat tightened.

“You don’t get to decide why he chose me,” I said.

Damon laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You are so desperate to be wanted that you’ll believe anything.”

That one hurt.

Ronan felt it. I knew he did because the power in the room shifted, pressing against the walls until the candles flickered and the guards lowered their eyes.

“Careful,” Ronan warned.

Damon ignored him because Damon had never been smart when his pride was bleeding. “Tell her,” he demanded, glaring at his father. “Tell her this is about me. Tell her you didn’t look at her until I rejected her. Tell her you’re using her to humiliate your own son.”

Ronan’s hand left my back.

For some reason, that made my stomach sink.

He moved beside me instead of in front of me, giving me the choice to stand on my own or step behind him. I hated how much that mattered. I hated how much I noticed every small thing he did, every quiet way he handed me control when every other person in my life had tried to take it.

Ronan looked at Damon with no softness in his face. “I saw her long before tonight.”

My breath caught.

Damon froze.

Ronan continued, his voice rougher now, but no less dangerous. “I saw her when she came to pack dinners and sat at the end of the table because no one saved her a place. I saw her when Helena dressed Mira in silk and put Selene in whatever made her disappear. I saw her when she lowered her eyes because she had learned that surviving sometimes meant making herself small.” His gaze cut briefly to me, and the heat in it made my skin feel too tight. “And tonight, when you tried to break her publicly, I saw what everyone else should have seen years ago.”

My pulse stumbled.

Damon’s face darkened. “And what was that?”

Ronan’s mouth hardened. “That she deserved better than a boy who confused possession with love.”

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Damon lunged.

He did not get far.

The guards moved, but Ronan was faster. He caught Damon by the front of his shirt and threw him back against the nearest column with a crack that made dust rain from the ceiling. Damon snarled, his wolf pushing close to the surface, but Ronan’s Alpha command ripped through the room before he could shift.

“Kneel.”

Damon hit the floor so hard his teeth snapped together.

My entire body went still.

I had felt Alpha authority before. Everyone in Bloodhowl had. It was woven into pack life, into ceremonies, into discipline and order. But this was different. This was Ronan stripped down to the thing that had made grown wolves bow for decades. Not a father. Not a grieving widower. Not a political leader trying to keep his pack from tearing itself apart.

An Alpha.

Damon trembled on his knees, fighting the command with everything in him and failing.

Ronan stepped closer, his shadow falling over his son. “You brought this shame on yourself. You rejected your mate in front of the pack. You chose another woman in front of the pack. You made Selene’s pain a spectacle because you believed she would be too broken to answer you.”

Damon’s hands curled into fists against his thighs.

Ronan’s voice dropped lower. “You were wrong.”

I swallowed hard, the rejection ache still pulsing somewhere beneath my ribs, but it no longer owned me. It no longer felt like the end of me. It felt like something dead being dragged out by the roots.

Then a familiar voice cut through from the doorway.

“Alpha Ronan, please.”