Chapter 3

"And as my mate?" I step closer, ignoring the heavy pressure of his Alpha command. My boots sink into the cold mud, but my posture is unwavering.

My heart is cracking, spiderweb fractures spreading through my chest, each tiny snap of the bond sending a localized tremor of pure agony through my veins.

"Does my future mean absolutely nothing to you? I worked five years for this, Kaelen. Five years of bleeding for this pack, protecting our borders, and fighting your battles while she did nothing but pamper herself. Does that really mean nothing to you?”

"Do not make this about us, Celeste," Kaelen snaps, his jaw clenching tightly. A flicker of genuine guilt finally crosses his features, a shadow darkening his eyes before he quickly blinks it away, replacing it with the stubborn, impenetrable wall of his Alpha pride.

"This is a pack decision, it is not personal. The papers have already been signed and dispatched to the Royal Envoy via courier. Elara's name is already on the official registry. It’s final."

"You’re stealing my life," I whisper, my voice catching on the raw edges of my throat. “You’re taking everything from me. Everything I have ever bled for.”

"I secured our family's safety," he corrects, his voice rising, attempting to wrap his betrayal in the noble shroud of duty. "You will remain here as a pack guardian. You will support your sister's ascension by letting go, and that is final. I do not want to hear another word of defiance."

Elara looks up from his shoulder, her eyes wide with fake innocence, though the corners of her mouth twitch with a suppressed, victorious smile.

"Thank you, Celeste," she says, her voice a fragile, sickening sweet purr. "I promise I won't let your sacrifice go to waste. I will study so hard for the both of us."

The sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy of this entire situation suffocates me.

My mate, the man promised to me by the Moon Goddess herself, the one who swore to cherish my spirit and guard my heart, has just stripped away my dream to hand it to a girl who has spent her entire life trying to erase me from existence.

He looks at my scars and sees a shield to be used, yet he looks at her weakness and sees a treasure to be guarded.

Inside my mind, Lyra is howling, a high, mournful sound of pure, unmitigated betrayal. She claws at the boundaries of my consciousness, her spiritual fur bristling, wanting to tear through the mate bond that now feels like a burning, heavy chain around our neck.

"A sacrifice is something chosen, Kaelen," I say, my voice steadying, the initial shock of his betrayal crystallizing into a cold, hard, and dangerous rage. The tears that threatened to fall dry up, replaced by a freezing clarity. "This is a robbery. You think because I’m strong, I can just bear any load you throw onto my back? You think because I love you, I will let you walk all over me and smile while you do it?"

"I expect you to behave like a Luna!" Kaelen raises his voice, frustration finally cracking his stoic, regal facade. The calm Alpha mask shatters, revealing the irritation of a man who is not used to having his decisions questioned, least of all by his mate.

"A Luna sacrifices for her pack! She puts the needs of the vulnerable before her own selfish desires! If you cannot handle this minor setback with grace, how can I trust you to lead our people beside me? How can I trust you to stand at my right hand?"

"A minor setback?"

I laugh. It is a dry, bitter, and hollow sound that echoes sharply off the stone pavilion, making Elara flinch and press herself deeper into Kaelen’s side.

"I trained in the freezing rain while she slept in silk sheets. I fought wild beasts on the border while she shopped for expensive gowns in the capital. This academy was my ticket to the Royal Guard. It was my chance to bring honor to our family name, to prove that a female warrior from a minor, forgotten pack could stand among the best in the kingdom. And you gave it to someone who cannot even shift without crying from the pain!"

"That is enough, Celeste!"

Kaelen takes a violent step forward, his chest heaving under his heavy leather vest. The golden thread of our mate bond stretches taut between us, pulsing with a painful, chaotic, and erratic energy that vibrates directly against my collarbone. It hurts. It burns like a branding iron.

He wants me to submit. I can see it in the way his pupils darken and enlarge.

He wants me to cry, to beg, to accept this unfair fate so he can comfort me, hold me, and feel like the benevolent savior again. He wants to play the hero to both of us—saving Elara from her weakness, and saving me from my grief.

I will not let him have that satisfaction. I would rather hang myself on the tallest, most rotting tree in the forest than bow my head to his lies.

"No, it is not enough," I say, taking a deliberate step back, breaking the physical proximity that gives his oppressive Alpha aura power over me. The wind whips up, scattering dried leaves across the muddy grass between us.

"You have made your choice, Kaelen. You decided that my hard work, my years of dedication, and my love are all expendable. You decided that I am just a tool for you to use, manipulate, and discard as you see fit."

"I am doing this for your own good, Celeste," Kaelen says, his voice lowering, softening into a patronizing register, trying to sound reasonable and wise.

"The Capital is dangerous. The politics are lethal, and the Royal Academy is ruthless. You are a wild, untrained wolf from the provinces. You would have been targeted, Celeste. Here, under my protection, within the safety of our borders, you are safe."

His protection? My stomach turns. Who is he to protect me? I am the one who has spent the last five years bleeding on the border patrols so he could sit safely in his council meetings.

"Safe?" I look at him, my heart fully hardening, turning into a block of impenetrable ice. "I have never been in more danger than I am right now, standing next to a man who claims to love me while he quietly stabs me in the back."

I look at the golden, crumpled envelope in my hand. Then, slowly, I look back up at his face, seeing the stranger behind the eyes of my mate.

"If this is safety," I whisper, my voice cutting through the damp wind like a razor, "I wonder what destruction would feel like?"

The silence that follows is absolute. Even Elara stops her quiet sniffling, sensing the shift in the air.

The mate bond between Kaelen and me, once a source of warmth and light, now feels like a dead, cold thing, waiting to be severed.