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Chapter 2

Auteur: Cece West
“You know the video is real.”

He didn’t answer.

Only after the meeting ended did his voice reach me through our mate link.

“Satisfied now, sweetheart?”

I once thought I would never forget how that humiliation felt.

But remembering it now, I didn’t cry.

I only thought how foolish I had been.

I had believed that if I showed him the truth, a man who had already decided to protect her would change his mind.

Blood soaked through the tissue in my palm.

I replaced it, then unclasped the necklace around my neck.

The pendant was a small steel wolf’s head. Its edges had worn smooth, and our initials were engraved on the back.

Jake had given it to me when he was nineteen.

Back then, he had no right to sit in this study.

He hadn’t had diamonds to hand out on a whim, either.

He had worked part-time for three months to buy that necklace.

I had once valued it more than every piece of jewelry I owned as Luna.

Now, I placed it beside the dissolution declaration.

Jake’s gaze followed it.

“Why are you taking that off?”

“I won’t need it anymore.”

His jaw tightened.

“Suit yourself.”

I reached for the suitcase beside my chair.

It was old. The handle sometimes stuck.

I had to press it down once before I could pull it out properly.

Jake watched.

“Aren’t there new ones in the dressing room?”

There were.

His assistant delivered them every season, along with gowns, shoes, and jewelry.

I had brought only this one, which I had bought myself.

“I don’t need them.”

At the door, he stopped me again.

“Susan.”

I turned.

He looked as though he had something to say.

In the end, he only stared at my suitcase.

“Don’t have someone call me again saying you’ve disappeared.”

“I won’t.”

I closed the study door behind me.

Downstairs, the housekeeper stood in the entrance hall.

Her expression changed when she saw the suitcase.

“Shall I arrange a driver, Luna?”

“No, thank you. I’ve called a car.”

She looked at the tissues wrapped around my hand and lowered her voice.

“At least let me get the first-aid kit.”

I nodded.

She returned quickly and dressed the cut for me.

She never asked why I was leaving.

Before I went, she squeezed my hand.

“Take care of yourself.”

It was the first kind thing anyone had said to me that day.

I almost cried because of it.

As the car pulled away, I watched the brightly lit house shrink in the rearview mirror.

I had once thought it was my home.

To earn my place as Luna, I had learned every family’s name. I had cared for young wolves who had lost loved ones and organized supply deliveries when blizzards cut off the roads.

But when my mate betrayed me, everyone told me not to make a scene.

As though a good Luna should look after everyone except herself.

When we passed through the town center, a digital billboard was playing Emily’s perfume ad.

She wore a white dress and smiled as she held up a bottle.

Beneath it were her name and her new title.

Spokesperson for the Blood Moon Foundation’s Youth Initiative.

The driver recognized her.

“That girl’s everywhere lately.”

I looked out the window and didn’t answer.

The first time I discovered Jake was cheating, it had been a morning just as disgustingly bright as this one.

Emily had come to the pack house for a foundation meeting.

She was wearing his jacket.

As she passed me, she reached up to adjust the collar.

There was a fresh bite on the side of her neck.

Not a complete mate mark.

But enough to tell me what they had done.

She smelled of Jake, too.

So strongly that even the newly grown wolves in the hallway could have caught it.

I asked whose jacket she was wearing.

She looked down as though she had only just realized she had put on the wrong thing.

“Sorry. It was cold last night, and Jake told me to wear it.”

I stared at her.

Then she added softly, “You don’t mind, do you?”

That day, I smashed the vase in the entrance hall.

When Jake came downstairs, the first thing he did was put himself between Emily and me.

“You’re scaring her.”

I asked him which one of us should really be afraid.

He didn’t answer.

Later, I told my friends what he had done.

I told the elders who had witnessed our mating ceremony.

Some were angry for me.

More told me to endure it.

“You’re still Luna.”

“She’s just an Omega. She isn’t worth losing your dignity over.”

“An Alpha carries more pressure than an ordinary wolf. He needs comfort somewhere.”

But I was his mate, too.

Who was supposed to comfort me after everything I had carried all these years?
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  • The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: His Regret   Chapter 40

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  • The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: His Regret   Chapter 39

    I sat in front of her and slowly told her about the past year.I told her I’d bought a ranch.It wasn’t big, but it got wonderful sunlight.I told her about my neighbor, who was very direct and had informed me on her first visit that my sheep might be smarter than I was.I told her about the young French man I’d hired.He had been a good worker with an equally good appetite. Now he was interning at a much larger ranch.I told her I’d learned to repair a small section of fence.Though Beth hadn’t trusted it and had gone to check it again the next day.I laughed at that.Wind moved through the pines with a soft rustle.I paused.“Mom, I didn’t go back with Jake.”My eyes still burned when I said it.Not because I felt guilty.Because I could finally sit in front of her and tell her what I had truly chosen.“I know you used to love him.”“I did, too.”“But I don’t want to make excuses for him anymore.”I touched her name on the headstone.“And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hat

  • The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: His Regret   Chapter 38

    He had lost a lot of weight.His once carefully styled hair had been cut short.His jacket looked worn. The sleeves were rolled back, exposing his wrists.When someone came to buy apples, he looked up and told them the price in an even voice.No one called him Alpha.No one rushed to explain themselves when he frowned.He handed over the change and said thank you.I watched for a while from behind the flower shop’s window.My chest didn’t suddenly tighten.There was no sense of victory, either.Only the clear realization that the man I’d once believed I could never escape was now simply someone making a life by the side of a road.He had lost his power because of what he’d done.Losing his legs was a separate act of violence. It wasn’t something to celebrate.The two things didn’t need to be confused.I didn’t have to save him.I didn’t have to watch him suffer to prove I’d survived.The florist wrapped my white roses and asked whether they were a gift.“For my mom.”“Would you like a

  • The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: His Regret   Chapter 37

    Before summer, Lucas finished his courses.He was offered an internship at a large ranch and came to tell me, hesitant.I was happy for him.“Of course you should go.”“What about this place?”“I’ll hire someone else.”He looked a little disappointed.“You answered too quickly.”I laughed.“Should I have started with, ‘What will I do without you?’”He considered that seriously.“You could say it once.”“All right.”I cleared my throat.“What will the storage shed do without you?”He finally laughed.Before leaving, he organized all my tools and wrote a simple maintenance checklist.He even made a special note about the sheep most likely to squeeze through the fence.“Don’t trust it just because it looks innocent.”I promised I wouldn’t.After he left, the yard was quieter for a little while.I didn’t feel abandoned.Someone could come into my life, do good things, leave warmth behind, and then go on to follow his own path.It could be that simple.A relationship didn’t have to last for

  • The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: His Regret   Chapter 36

    In spring, I planted a small herb garden behind the house.At first, it was a mess.Beth came over, took one look, and told me I’d crowded together plants with entirely different watering needs.No wonder none of them were happy.I crouched in the dirt with a hand trowel and started separating them.She stood beside me, giving instructions.Lucas passed and asked whether we were having a meeting.“An emergency meeting,” Beth said. “About Susan’s gardening skills.”I laughed and threw a glove at him.That evening, Claire arrived for a visit of a few days.She looked thinner than she did on video.When she saw me, she held me for a long time.Then she stepped back and looked at me.“You really are different.”“How?”She thought about it.“You used to talk like you were waiting for someone’s permission.”I stood by the door, momentarily still.At the main house, I had been so used to watching Jake’s face.If he approved, I continued.If he frowned, I began wondering what I’d done wrong.S

  • The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: His Regret   Chapter 35

    I held the phone without speaking for a long time.Once, he had shielded me from those boys in the snow. His ribs had broken, but he hadn’t let go.Later, he had stood so far above everyone that he thought no one could touch him.Now all of those images belonged to the past.I felt no satisfaction.I didn’t want to visit him, either.My attorney asked if I wanted him to pass along a message.“No.”After hanging up, I stood in the kitchen and listened to the faint metallic sounds of the tray cooling.Lucas knocked twice at the door.“Can I come in?”“Yes.”He smelled the bread and smiled.“Did I come at exactly the right time?”I handed him the knife.“Go ahead.”He washed his hands, then carefully cut the loaf into even slices.I watched for a moment.Suddenly, I remembered Jake’s first time in our kitchen, years ago.My mother had asked him to slice the bread.He had kept his head down, so afraid of getting it wrong.My eyes burned.Lucas noticed. His hands slowed.“Did I do something

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