CHAPTER 2: Walk Away Tall

Caomh ignored my sister. He squared his broad shoulders and looked down at me, his face a mask of stone.

"I, Caomh Willard Colson, Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack," he began, his voice echoing with ancient, heavy magic.

The words struck my chest like a swinging hammer. I gasped, stumbling back a step. The pack bond—the invisible, glowing thread connecting my soul to his—pulled painfully taut inside my chest.

"Reject you, Meghann Clemmie Nelson, as my fated mate," he continued. His voice didn't waver. Not even a fraction.

Pain, hot and blinding, ripped through my chest. It felt as if someone had reached between my ribs with bare hands and violently yanked my heart in two. I fell hard to my knees. The cold marble bit into my skin through my jeans. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, bending forward as my wolf howled in pure misery inside my mind. She clawed at the fading connection, desperate to hold onto the mate she was made for.

"I strip you of your title as future Luna," Caomh's voice droned on above me, cold and terribly indifferent. "I release you from my side."

"No," I choked out, hot tears finally spilling over my lashes, dropping onto the floor. "Caomh, please."

"I accept Dreda Jaida Penn as my chosen mate, and the mother of my heir."

The invisible thread snapped.

A deafening crack echoed loudly in my ears, followed immediately by a rush of freezing emptiness. The warmth I had felt every single time Caomh was near vanished, replaced by a hollow, aching void in the center of my chest. I gasped for air, pressing my forehead against the floor. My vision blurred heavily. My wolf whined, curling into a tight, miserable ball in the dark corners of my mind, going completely silent.

It was done.

He actually did it.

The silence in the hall returned, thicker and more oppressive than before. I could feel hundreds of eyes staring down at me. They expected me to beg. They expected me to grovel, to plead for a place in the pack even as a rejected, broken mate.

Dreda’s soft, triumphant sniffle reached my ears.

Something inside me snapped. The crushing despair vanished, burning away in a sudden, fierce flash of unadulterated pride. I wiped my face roughy with the back of my hand. I tasted my own tears, salty and bitter on my lips.

Slowly, painfully, I pushed myself up from the floor. My knees shook badly, but I locked them. I forced my spine straight, rolling my shoulders back.

I looked at Caomh. He was staring directly at my chest, where the mate mark would have eventually appeared. He looked sick, pale, and sweating profusely. Good.

"Meghann," he started, taking a hesitant step toward me. "You can stay. We will provide for you. You are still a member of this pack."

"Stay?" I laughed. The sound was incredibly harsh, scraping against the stone walls and making several wolves flinch. "Stay and watch you play house with the woman who manipulated you into throwing away your destiny?"

Dreda gasped, hiding her face against Caomh's arm again. "Caomh, make her stop. She's scaring me."

"Enough, Meghann," Caomh warned, his eyes flashing gold again to demand my submission.

"You don't get to give me orders anymore," I said smoothly.

I reached up to the collar of my heavy jacket. The dark blue fabric bore the intricate silver crescent moon crest of the pack right over the heart. I had earned this jacket. I had fought rogue wolves for the right to wear it with pride.

My fingers gripped the thick material. I unzipped it in one sharp, fluid motion and shrugged it off my shoulders. The heavy fabric pooled in my hands.

"Meghann, what are you doing?" Caomh demanded, his voice suddenly tight with panic.

I didn't answer him. I threw the jacket onto the floor. It landed right in the puddle of spilled rosehip tea, the dark, sweet liquid soaking rapidly into the silver crest, staining it brown.

Loud gasps echoed all around me. Disrespecting the pack colors was a massive, unforgivable offense.

"I, Meghann Clemmie Nelson," I said, my voice ringing clear and strong over the crowd, "accept your rejection."

Caomh flinched violently as the finality of the words settled over us, completing the ritual.

"Furthermore," I continued, turning my back on him entirely. I looked out at the vast sea of faces. People I had grown up with. People I had healed in the infirmary when they were wounded. Most of them wouldn't even meet my eyes now. "I reject the Silver Moon Pack. You are no longer my family. I will not bleed for an Alpha who thinks with his ego instead of his head."

"You can't do that!" an elder shouted from the back rows, his face purple with outrage. "You will be a rogue! You will die out there!"

"Better a rogue than a fool," I replied evenly.

I didn't wait for Caomh to dismiss me. I didn't wait for the guards to step forward and escort me out of the building.

I walked directly down the center aisle of the grand hall. The crowd parted for me immediately, practically scrambling out of my way. Nobody dared to touch me. I kept my head high, my shoulders back, and my gaze fixed firmly on the heavy oak doors at the end of the room. I ignored Selene's sobbing, knowing if I looked at her, I would break.

The freezing night air hit my face the second I pushed the doors open, stepping out into the dark. Rain was just beginning to fall, washing away the scent of the pack house behind me.

I was completely alone. Mateless. Packless.

I started walking toward the edge of the territory, determined not to let a single tear fall until I crossed the border into the unknown.

But as I passed the thick line of towering pine trees near the southern gate, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. A deep, heavy chill rolled over my skin, entirely different from the freezing rain.

I stopped dead in my tracks. My wolf lifted her head slightly, her ears swiveling.

Someone was standing in the trees.

I peered into the dense shadows, the darkness too thick for my human eyes to pierce. But I didn't need to see them to feel the sheer, terrifying weight of the aura rolling off them in waves. It was wild, dominant, and incredibly dangerous. It certainly wasn't a Silver Moon guard.

"Who's there?" I demanded, my voice steady despite the frantic beating of my heart.

A low, dark chuckle vibrated through the wet leaves, sending a shiver straight down my spine.

"Well, well," a smooth, chillingly calm voice murmured from the shadows. "That was quite the show, little wolf."