Lahat ng Kabanata ng Rejected by my Alpha, Claimed by the King: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 6

I've learned, over three years, exactly how much space I'm allowed to take up in a room that's supposed to be mine.Tonight it's the width of the doorway. I stand in it with a tray balanced against my hip — sparkling water, a bowl of the candied walnuts Seraphina likes, napkins folded the way the housekeeper showed me twice because I got it wrong the first time — and I wait to be noticed before I come any closer. Nobody's ever said that rule out loud. You wait. You don't just walk into a room where the Alpha is laughing at something his intended's oldest friend has said, even when the intended is you."There she is." Seraphina doesn't look up from the fire. She has a way of saying it that makes *there she is* sound like *oh, right, her*. "Luna, you're a lifesaver. Set it here, would you?"I set it there. I'm good at that part.Damian is sprawled in the big leather chair by the hearth, jacket off, collar open, more relaxed than I've seen him in weeks — in my presence, anyway. He glance

The council room smells like candle wax and old wood, and every time I've been called into it before, it's been for something small — a schedule change, a dispute over kitchen budgets. Tonight the air feels different. Thicker. Twelve elders sit at the long table in their formal grey, and Damian stands at the head of it instead of sitting, which he only does when he wants everyone to remember exactly who's in charge.Seraphina is in the chair nearest him, a shawl pulled tight around her shoulders even though the room isn't cold, dabbing at eyes that don't look red enough to match the crying I heard through the door."Luna." Elder Corwin, oldest of the twelve, doesn't waste time on pleasantries. "Do you know why you've been called here?""No." That's the truth, and I let it sit plainly on my face. I was also curious as to why I was called here."Seraphina's mother-stone is missing." He says it like it should mean something to me, and it does. Everyone in this pack knows what the mother-

Word travels faster than I do.By the time I've walked the length of the pack house, the square is already filling. My father's near the front, close enough to Corwin and the other elders that no one will think to place any of this on him. He 't look for me in the crowd.Seraphina's on the raised platform, one hand resting over a stomach that isn't showing yetdoesn. She catches my eye and doesn't look away fast enough to hide what's underneath the practiced sympathy on her face. Satisfied. Like a problem that's sat on her desk for three years is finally about to be filed away.Damian's already up there, in the formal grey he wears for pack business. Nobody asks if I consent to any of this. There's no ritual, no elder stepping forward to officiate — this was decided the moment he told an enforcer to send word. The rejection doesn't need my permission. It only ever needed his.He reaches out and rests two fingers against the mark on my wrist. The one that's been there since I was seven.