Chapter 2
"Who?" My voice barely scraped out, raw and jagged.
Grace didn't answer right away. Instead, her eyes flicked to the steaming herbal brew on my nightstand, the one Sienna always brought me each night.
Sienna was Cain's childhood friend, a Beta from the Silvermoon Pack, sent here as part of a political alliance. She was the candidate Cain publicly claimed as his chosen mate.
She was always gentle with me.
She made my herbal brew, and on those nights when Cain disappeared for a week straight, she'd sit beside me, pat my shoulder, and whisper, "He's not used to it yet. Give him time."
For three years, I believed she was the only warmth in this frozen manor.
"I can't say for sure who." Grace chose her words carefully. "But you need to stop drinking anything I haven't made myself."
After she left, I dumped the brew into the sink. The brown liquid spun down the drain, leaving behind a faint bitterness I'd never noticed.
I didn't sleep that night. Cain never came back. The burning pain from the mark lingered until dawn.
The next day was the Spring Hunt Festival, the Blackwood Pack's annual hunting celebration.
The warriors shifted into wolf form and entered the Silverpine Woods for a group hunt, while the Alpha and Luna waited at the finish line to receive the prey as tribute.
But I wasn't a real Luna. No one called me Luna. They called me "the Alpha's human mate".
On the assembly square, Cain stepped out in his black hunting gear.
Beside him stood Sienna, her hair pulled back in a sharp ponytail, dressed in Gamma Warrior tactical gear. She had a wolf, a silver-gray she-wolf, able to shift, fight, and stand tall next to Cain.
She said something to Cain, and when he looked down at her, a smile curved his lips. He had never once looked at me like that.
The horn blared, and the hunting party charged into the Silverpine Woods. I was stuck at the back. A Luna without a wolf was not allowed to join the main group.
Then, rogues showed up.
Three rogues burst out from the eastern treeline, barreling straight for the supply team in the rear. I got knocked to the ground, branches scraping my arms and cheeks, and the sharp scent of blood filled the air.
I desperately reached out to Cain through the bond. The bond was practically vibrating with panic, and he felt it.
The massive black wolf really did come tearing through the woods.
But he wasn't coming for me.
He was heading for Sienna, who was cornered at the edge of a cliff by another rogue.
The black wolf ripped out the rogue's throat, then shifted back to human form, grabbed Sienna, and pulled her close. "Are you okay?"
As for the rogue next to me, a Gamma Warrior passing by took care of it at the very last second.
I sat in the mud, blood dripping from my fingertips onto the dead leaves.
Cain finally looked over.
He didn't look guilty at all. Instead, he felt annoyed. "Seriously? You can't dodge?"
Sienna peeked out from his arms, her voice soft. "Cain, don't blame her. She doesn't have a wolf. She can't handle this kind of situation."
She was so considerate and so kind, always reminding everyone, at the right moment, that I was a weakling who needed forgiveness.
*****
That night, at the bonfire feast, Cain stood up with a glass of wine in hand, the firelight stretching his shadow long across the ground. The whole pack went silent.
"Next full moon," his voice rang out across the square as he said, "I'll hold the rejection ceremony at the moonstone in the sacred grove."
Every eye in the pack, some pitying and some gleeful, locked onto me.
"The Luna's role deserves someone truly worthy," he added.
And the mark on my neck felt like it was slowly withering away.