Chapter 2 — Public Humiliation

Zane's POV

This had to be a mistake.

I stared at the mark on my wrist and every single rational thought I had ever possessed abandoned me at once. The burning had stopped but the mark remained, glowing faintly against my skin like it was alive and breathing and completely unbothered by my fury.

I looked up again.

She was still crouching on the ground with broken glass around her and wide eyes staring back at me from across the crowd. Round face. Heavy frame. A serving girl in a plain uniform that had no business being anywhere near an altar tonight.

This was my fated Luna?

This?

"Alpha Zane..." Elder Crest stepped toward me with his voice low and careful like he was approaching a wolf mid-shift. "Please. Let us not..."

"Don't," I said quietly.

He stopped.

The crowd had erupted around us. Voices everywhere, gasping, whispering, some people standing on their toes trying to get a better look at the omega still frozen near the stone path. I could hear the words floating through the air like insects.

The fat serving girl.

The omega.

Impossible.

I turned and found Tyla. She had pushed through from the bridal party entrance, still in her robe with her face twisted into something ugly and furious and entirely un-bridal. Her eyes were jumping between me and the girl on the ground like she couldn't decide which one of us to attack first.

"Zane," she said, her voice shaking. "Zane, this is a mistake. You know it's me. You KNOW it's me. Tell them!"

I said nothing.

Because something was wrong. Something felt deeply, structurally wrong and I couldn't name it yet but it was sitting in my chest like a stone I hadn't noticed until now.

I turned back to the omega.

She had stood up. Quietly. Without any fuss. She was holding the broken pieces of the goblet in one hand and the mark on her wrist glowed the same silver gold as mine and she was looking at me with an expression I did not expect.

Not fear. Not hope. Not the desperate excitement of a girl who had just been handed a title.

Just... stillness. Calm. Like she had already made peace with whatever was about to happen.

It annoyed me more than anything else could have.

I walked toward her and the crowd parted immediately. She didn't step back. She didn't move at all actually, just watched me cross the distance between us with those quiet eyes and I stopped close enough to make my height advantage very clear.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Bella," she said. "Bella Cooper."

"Bella Cooper." I let the name sit in the air for a moment. "Do you understand what just happened?"

"Yes, Alpha."

"And do you think," I said slowly, "that I would ever accept this?"

Something flickered across her face. Gone before I could read it.

"That is your choice to make, Alpha," she said quietly.

The sheer nerve of that answer. The absolute calm of it. I leaned in slightly and dropped my voice so only she could hear.

"Let me be very clear. I don't know how this happened. I don't know what trick the universe is playing tonight but I will find out. And when I do..." I held up my marked wrist between us. "This changes nothing about who you are."

She looked at my wrist. Then at her own. Then back at my face.

She said nothing.

I straightened and turned to face the crowd. Every eye in Silverpeak Pack was on me. Alphas from other packs sat in the front rows with unreadable expressions. Elders lined the sides. My warriors stood at every post with confused, stiff postures.

I opened my mouth.

"I, Alpha Zane Ashford," my voice rang out across the entire grounds, loud and cold and absolute, "reject you, Bella Cooper, as my mate."

Gasps tore through the crowd like wind through leaves.

Tyla let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh of relief.

Bella didn't flinch. She didn't crumble. She just stood there absorbing it with her shoulders straight and her chin level and that stillness wrapped around her like armor.

Then quietly... so quietly that only the people nearest to us could hear... she spoke.

"I, Bella Cooper, accept your rejection, Alpha Zane."

Just like that. No trembling. No tears. No performance.

The crowd didn't give her the same dignity.

Laughter broke out first, then the comments came like a flood. Cruel, loud and shameless.

"Did she really think he'd keep her?"

"Look at her! Of course he rejected her!"

"The Moon Goddess must have been sleeping!"

Someone threw a flower at her. It hit her shoulder and fell to the ground. She didn't look at who threw it.

I watched her face and for one second, just one, something passed through her eyes. Not weakness. Something older and quieter than that. Something that looked almost like grief.

Then Elder Crest stepped forward and raised his staff and the crowd hushed reluctantly.

"Alpha Zane." His voice was careful. Measured. "The rejection has been spoken and accepted. However the law of the Moon Covenant is clear." He paused. "A bonded mark cannot be dismissed by rejection alone. For the protection and stability of the pack, the bonded pair must complete the marriage rite... or the Alpha forfeits his strength and his title."

Dead silence.

I turned to look at him slowly.

"You cannot be serious," I said.

"The Covenant does not negotiate, Alpha."

Tyla made a sound like she'd been slapped.

The crowd erupted again, louder this time. I felt my jaw tighten until my teeth ached. I looked at Bella Cooper standing in the middle of all this chaos, flower petals at her feet and the mark surprisingly still glowing on her wrist and my pack laughing at her from every direction.

She looked up and met my eyes.

And in the calmest, clearest voice, with the entire pack as her witness, Bella Cooper said,

“One day… you'll regret this."