THE LUNA WHO LEFT HER ALPHA CHAPTER 2

Something that Corinne hadn’t noticed about her previous incarnation until the last possible moment.

In those last seconds, when the blackness had engulfed her and everyone was celebrating her death, she could feel that someone was watching her. They were not the rogues. They weren’t the warriors. Some person had watched her from within the shadows of the trees. This one was the only one to remain behind as all the others ran over to where Trisha lay.

Percie Blade.

It was the name that had popped into her head like the secret that the Moon Goddess had hidden beneath her sharp teeth. It was the name of the silent warrior who had trained the young wolves in the morning. It was the name of the person who would only say what was absolutely needed. He had always been there when Corinne went running, when she was at council meetings, waiting for Leon. He knew everything. He had known everything. He had not spoken a single word.

Corinne stopped crying. She touched her face with trembling hands and looked at the calendar until the numbers seared into her brain.

Three months.

Three months to alter everything.

She was not going to beg this time.

She was not going to compete against Trisha.

She was not going to die for a man who had chosen somebody else in a past life.

Adrian Leon could have the woman he loved.

Corinne Spark had had enough.

A light knock sounded on the door, and the voice that used to be her entire world spoke up.

“Corinne?” Leon’s voice was warm and gentle as always, still holding the affectionate tone of his innocent self from before the incident. “Are you awake, love? Our training begins early. I figured we could go running together before the others get up. Just us.”

The mate bond tugged at her, disloyal and filled with hope, giving her the golden warmth which had once weakened her. It tried to drag her towards the door. It tried to make her compliant. It tried to alter the memory of ten steps and the sound of her own breaking heart.

Corinne shut her eyes and took deep breaths to keep herself from the pull. She kept the golden light down inside of her, trapping it behind impenetrable walls which had never been required of her before.

“I am awake,” she said into the room. “But I am not running with you today.”

There was only silence from the other side of the door for a while, but Corinne could feel the confusion in her mate through the bond, the first small tear in the perfect image he held in his head.

“Are you alright? You sound different.”

She stood up and moved to the mirror where she saw the girl who had died from loving a man who had never picked her.

“I’m okay. I just need to be alone for now.”

The first time in two lifetimes that she actually meant every word that she was saying.

She waited for his steps to disappear from the hallway before allowing herself to continue moving. The bond vibrated softly and insistently, but she didn’t pay attention to it. She went to the window and opened the curtains. Daylight was just starting to tinge the skies. The moon shone brightly from above the tree line.

“You’ve given me another chance,” she murmured. “Don’t waste it by expecting me to repeat my mistakes.”

The moon remained silent.

She turned away from the window, from the bond, from the man who still thought of her as his sweet and smiling Luna. Three months. She would make use of every single one of them. She would know what Percie Blade had known. She would discover the secret that the pack had never revealed. And when the rogues returned because they were bound to return, she would no longer be the one left lying in a pool of blood while another was dragged to safety.

This time around, Corinne Spark would be the one to leave.

This time around, the blood upon the moon would belong to someone else.

She silently prepared herself, putting on her training clothing rather than the dresses that she once wore for him. The bond pulled at her again, and Corinne placed a hand over her heart, saying the words that she should have said the first time around.

“I reject you.”

The mate bond flickered in response, glowing and intense, and nearly hurting. And then it dimmed, growing quiet. Not severed. Not yet. But no longer the sole factor in defining her.

She went through the door and entered the hallway.

Leon was there, just as she knew he would be.

He looked much the same as he had done three months before the ending of her first lifetime: tall, broad, his dark hair still wet from his shower, his green eyes concerned, melting her once upon a time. The mate bond flared the instant their gazes met, sending heat and comfort and a desperate desire to go to him and make sure nothing had changed through her system.

Corinne locked her knees and stood her ground.

“You never miss morning runs,” he said, watching her with interest. “You look pale. Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Yes, I slept just fine.”

He moved nearer. His hand came up the way it always did, poised to cradle her face. The same hand that had pressed against the face of Trisha as Corinne bled out ten steps away.

She moved her face just far enough for him to brush air.

The gesture was tiny. Barely there. Not even an inch.

Leon’s eyes showed a hint of uncertainty that she had never before seen aimed at her.

“Corinne,” he said with the voice that had once made her wolf purr. “Something’s going on. Talk to me.”

She held his gaze steadily. The bond tugged harder. Frustrated and hungry. She could feel his wolf wanting hers, feel the Alpha within him snarling at the separation she was putting between them and she took a step back.

"There's nothing to talk about. I just want to train alone today."

"Since when?"

"Since now."

He gazed at her like she’d sprouted an extra head. "Did I do something? Did someone say something to you?"

Yes, she wanted to scream. You let me die. You picked her. You watched me bleed out ten feet from you without even looking down at me.

But instead she simply said, in a voice that was soft and completely controlled, "Not yet."

Something flickered in his face. Concern. Irritation. The beginnings of the same possessiveness that once made her go weak in the knees.

"You're my mate," he reminded her, as if that word carried the same holy significance for her that it once did. "When there's a problem, you tell me. It's how this is done. It's how we've always been done."

Corinne nearly laughed. The laughter was clamped shut behind her teeth.

"Is it?" she questioned. "Is it really how this is done, Leon?"

He frowned at her, and the first sign of doubt flashed across his face. "What does that mean?"

She didn’t answer. She simply walked past him, down the stairs, and out the front door of the pack house without looking back even once.

Halfway down the path she felt it again.

Eyes.

Not hostile. Not hungry. Just present. Steady. Familiar in a way that made her breath catch.

Corinne stopped and turned.