CHAINS OF DUTY

There was an air of confusion in the crowd, wolves looked between me and the platform, unease rippling through the crowd. A rejection from an alpha should sever the mate bond instantly. Everyone knew it, yet the air still felt wrong. 

On the platform, Alpha Xander remained  bent forward, one hand braced against the stone, as though steadying himself, in one swift movement, he stood straight.

Selene  stepped closer to the Alpha, sliding her arm through his as if nothing unusual had happened. Her smile was soft, composed, perfectly measured.

“An emotional backlash,” she said lightly, addressing the crowd before anyone else could. “The Moon resists sudden severance. It happens.”

The elders exchanged uncertain glances.

I was still kneeling where the guards had left me. The bond throbbed faintly in my chest , not broken, not gone. Just… buried.

Alpha Xander did not look at me.

One of the elders frowned. “It should have severed.”

Xander’s jaw tightened, “And it did!” A small pause, “Remove her,” he ordered.

The guards stepped forward again, Selene’s fingers tightened slightly around his arm.

“My Alpha,” she said softly, just loud enough for the front rows to hear. “If she is dragged out tonight, the pack will speak of nothing else for weeks. They already question the bond.”

That made him look at her.

Not tenderly, calculating.

“The spectacle has already happened,” one elder muttered.

Selene turned toward the crowd, not to command them, but to manage them.

“We will not create a martyr out of a rejected omega,” she said gently. “She will remain…as a staff.” Murmurs rippled outward. It was easy to mistake her gesture for mercy, and not punishment.

Xander’s gaze finally shifted to me, It was unreadable.

“Fine,” he said after a long moment. “She stays. As a servant.”

The authority settled back in the square. 

Selene stepped down the platform stairs then, her white dress glowing in the torchlight. When she stopped in front of me, her smile was soft. Up close, it was cold. “You should be grateful,” she murmured.

“Prepare quarters in the lower wing,” she ordered. “She will report to me at dawn.

The message was clear, she  wasn’t keeping me out of mercy; she was keeping me close.

Alpha Xander’s jaw tightened.

For the first time since the rejection, his eyes flicked toward m

And just like that, I became the Luna’s maid.

The celebration resumed behind us, slower at first, uncertain , then louder, as though the pack was trying to bury what it had just witnessed. Laughter rose again, forced and sharp, followed by the drums. The sound chased me down the corridor, as the guards escorted me, as if harboring a thought that I may run away.

Stone corridors replaced torchlight. The air cooled, carrying the familiar scents of storage rooms, damp mortar, and old wood. My footsteps echoed too loudly in the quiet halls.

“Lower wing,” one said shortly. “You’ll be assigned in the morning.”

They left me there.

For a moment I simply stood in the corridor. My chest still hurt, but worse than the pain was the silence where the bond should have been. Not gone… just distant. Like a door closed but not locked.

I didn’t know where I meant to go. I only knew I couldn’t stay inside those walls — not with the echo of his voice still in my ears.

I followed a side passage I used when delivering supplies. Past the kitchens. Past the store yard. Past the last torch fixed to the outer stone.

Cold night air met my skin.

Only then did I realise my hands were shaking.

I didn’t stop walking until the palace lights were distant behind me and the trees thinned toward the water.

 I sank beside the lake, the water trembling softly under the moonlight. The palace noise was gone here. No whispers or  pitying looks. Just the ache in my  chest where the bond had been torn.

“I don’t understand…” My voice barely held. “Why would the Moon choose wrong?”

“You assume it did.”

The voice came from behind me.

I turned sharply.

A man stood beneath the trees, half in shadow. He was dressed like a traveller, dark clothes without a house crest, but nothing about him felt ordinary. The air around him carried a quiet weight, the kind warriors had when they didn’t need to prove they were dangerous.

I rose quickly and lowered my gaze. “Forgive me. I didn’t realise anyone was here.”

He didn’t answer immediately.

“You were at the ceremony,” he said.

My fingers tightened around my shawl. “Everyone was.”

His eyes wandered as if searching for something, then settled on my wrist where the sleeve had slipped back.

I pulled the fabric down instinctively, too late.

He had already seen, his expression changed into recognition.

“I heard the Alpha rejected his mate,” he said.

I swallowed. “Then you heard enough.”

I turned to leave.

“Does it hurt?”

My steps halted before I could stop them.

“…Yes.”

Silence stretched between us, the lake wind moving softly across the water, 

My chest tightened. “You weren’t there.”

“I didn’t need to be.”

Before I could  react, he stepped closer

His hand lifted,  slowly but with certainty, enough for me to pull away, yet I didn’t. His fingers hovered over my wrist but never quite touched it.

A sudden sharp heat pulsed through my chest,  the same heat from the ceremony.

I gasped, across  the bondless emptiness… something answered; second heartbeat.

I staggered back.

“That’s impossible,” I whispered.

The stranger’s jaw hardened.

My mind reeled. “No… I felt it break.”

“You felt the rejection,” he corrected softly. “Not the end.”

I shook my head. “You’re wrong.”

For the first time, his composure cracked slightly in concern.

“You should not still be alive if a true Alpha rejection took hold,” he said.

The words made my stomach drop.

“…what?”

He looked directly at me now.

“An Omega cannot survive a completed mate severance. The wolf fails within days.”

The wind stirred violently across the lake.

My breathing grew uneven.

“Then why am I fine?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he slowly lowered himself to one knee before me.

I froze.

Warriors did not kneel to omegas.

When he spoke again, his voice was no longer that of a passing traveller.

“…because you are not what they think you are.”