Chapter 3: The Luna Who Walked Away

The physical pain of the rejection was a living thing. It crawled beneath Ariyah’s fur, gnawing at her joints and clouding her vision. In the wolf world, a rejected mate didn't just lose a lover; they lost their tether to the world. Without the bond, many went mad. Many simply laid down and let the forest reclaim them.

But Ariyah had a second heartbeat thrumming against her own—a tiny, flickering spark of life that acted as a compass.

She ran until her paws bled, crossing the rushing rapids of the Silver-Vein River. Water was the great eraser; it washed away her scent, shielding her from any trackers Kael might send in a fit of belated guilt. By the time the sun began to bleed over the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and oranges, she was deep within the "Grey Zone"—a no-man’s-land between the Great Packs.

Exhaustion finally claimed her. She collapsed in the hollow of an uprooted cedar tree, her shift breaking as she reverted to her human form. She lay naked and shivering on the damp earth, the remnants of her white slip torn to rags.

We are alone, Lyra whispered, her voice a hollow echo of its former strength. The pack link... it’s gone. I can’t hear the others.

"I know," Ariyah croaked. She curled into a ball, pressing her forehead against the rough bark. The silence in her mind was the loudest thing she had ever heard. For twenty-three years, she had felt the hum of the Nightfang Pack—a constant, comforting psychic warmth. Now, it was like a limb had been amputated.

She reached out, her fingers trembling as they touched her lower abdomen. "It's just us now, little one. Just us."

The Alpha’s Morning After

Back in the Nightfang Citadel, the atmosphere was anything but celebratory.

Kael stood on the balcony of the Alpha’s suite, staring out at the valley. The alliance was signed. Seraphina was officially his betrothed. The Iron-Claw warriors were already integrating into his barracks. On paper, he was the most powerful Alpha in three generations.

So why did he feel like he was suffocating?

"She’s gone," Bastien said, entering the room without knocking. His eyes were red-rimmed, his posture rigid.

Kael didn't turn around. "She went back to her father’s house. I told her I would provide for her."

"She’s not at her father’s house, Kael. She’s not in the village. She’s not in the territory." Bastien threw a scrap of white silk onto the table. It was stained with dirt and blood. "We found this at the border of the Forbidden Woods."

Kael stiffened. The Forbidden Woods were a death sentence for a lone wolf. "She wouldn't be that foolish. She’s probably hiding in one of the mountain caves to make me feel guilty."

"You really don't get it, do you?" Bastien stepped forward, his voice rising in a rare display of insubordination. "You didn't just break a contract, Kael. You broke a soul. You rejected the Moon Goddess’s gift in front of everyone she ever loved. She didn't leave to make you feel guilty. She left because there is nothing left for her here."

Kael turned, his eyes flashing Alpha red. The power in the room spiked, making the furniture rattle. "Watch your tone, Beta."

"Or what? You'll reject me too?" Bastien laughed bitterly. "The pack is whispering. The Priestess refused to bless the morning meal. They’re calling you the 'Oathtaker' behind your back."

Kael felt a surge of irritation, but beneath it, a cold stone of dread was settling in his stomach. The absence of Ariyah in his mind was a void that sucked the air out of the room. He had expected a dull ache, perhaps a lingering sadness. He hadn't expected this—this feeling that he was standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into forever.

"Send out scouts," Kael commanded, his voice tight. "Don't make a scene. Just find her and bring her back. Tell her... tell her she can have the East Estate. She doesn't have to see me, but she must stay within the walls."

"And if she doesn't want your charity?"

"She’s a fated mate without her Alpha, Bastien! She’ll be dead within a month if she’s not near my scent." Kael’s jaw tightened. "She’ll come back because she has to. Biology demands it."

The Rogue’s Choice

Ariyah watched from the shadows of a rocky overhang as a group of scavengers picked through the remains of a deer carcass below. They weren't wolves—they were outcasts, a mix of low-level shifters and humans who lived on the fringes.

She knew she couldn't stay in the wild forever. Not in her condition.

She remembered the stories her grandmother used to tell about a place called The Hollow—a sanctuary hidden deep within the mist-shrouded peaks of the Iron Mountains. It was a place for those whom the Goddess had forgotten, or those who had forgotten the Goddess.

It was a city of rogues.

To go there was to give up her status as a high-born wolf forever. She would be a nobody. A nameless exile.

She looked at her reflection in a small puddle of rainwater. Her eyes, once bright with the hope of a future Luna, were now shadowed and hard. She took a sharp stone from the ground and, with a steady hand, drew it across the faint, silver mating mark on her neck—the one Kael had given her during their first, innocent night together.

The skin broke. Blood dripped down her collarbone.

The physical scar would hide the spiritual one. If she was to survive, Ariyah the Luna had to die.

"We aren't going back, Lyra," she whispered to the wind. "Let him have his throne. We’re going to build a kingdom of our own."

She stood up, ignoring the pang of hunger in her belly, and began the long climb toward the peaks. She didn't look back at the Nightfang valley. She didn't look back at the life she had lost.

She was walking toward a future that had no name, carrying a child who would one day make the world tremble.