Rejected Luna, Claimed by the King
As a wolfless charity case at the Hyde Pack's celebration, my world shattered when Braydon, my supposed protector, publicly announced Katherine Parrish as his Luna, erasing me.
Heartbroken, I fled into a terrifying contract marriage with Alpha King Dallas Marshall for protection. Braydon's public assault and threats forced me to reveal my secret marriage, challenging the King.
My "protection" felt like a prison. Braydon revealed I was a "key" to power, not a mate, confirming my fears. Enraged by my attempt to take a morning-after pill, Dallas forced me to swallow it, then branded my lips with a furious kiss.
His chilling silence hardened my resolve. I immediately drafted an addendum to our contract, setting strict boundaries to reclaim control.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 8
Dallas POV
The morning sun cut through the glass walls of my office in Marshall Tower, but it did nothing to warm the ice in my veins. I stood overlooking the city, the world below looking like a chessboard I had already won. But my mind wasn't on the empire I built; it was on the woman sleeping in my penthouse three floors up.
Adella.
Even her name tasted like rain on my tongue.
My solitude was shattered by a mental intrusion so sharp it felt like a physical blow. It was Azalea.
Dad. Her voice in the Mind-Link was trembling, not with fear, but with a rage that mirrored my own. He's here. In SoHo. Braydon Hyde just sat at my table.
I didn't move, but inside, my wolf, Ragnar, rose from his slumber, his hackles raised. Is he threatening you?
He's trying to buy me, Azalea spat. Through our link, I saw what she saw: a velvet box sitting on a white tablecloth next to her mimosa. Inside lay a tarnished silver locket, embedded with a clouded moonstone. He says it's a token of goodwill. He says he found it in the rubble of the Rogue attack years ago.
The air in my office grew heavy, charged with ozone. I knew that locket. I had seen it in the old dossiers. It belonged to Adella's mother—the Luna of the Moonstone Creek Pack. It wasn't lost. It was stolen off a corpse.
He is using a dead Luna's memory to hunt her daughter, Azalea's mental voice cracked. He desecrated her grave, Dad.
A low growl vibrated in my chest, deep enough to rattle the crystal decanter on my desk. This wasn't just a rival Alpha making a move. This was sacrilege.
Ruin him, Azalea commanded, her tone icy and final.
With pleasure, I replied.
I severed the link and immediately opened another to my Beta, Duncan Whitaker.
Duncan. Initiate the Hyde Protocol.
There was a pause on the other end, a moment of hesitation. Sir? The full protocol? That includes shorting their holdings and freezing the supply chain. It will bankrupt the Hyde Pack by sunset.
Do it, I ordered, my voice flat. Leak their Q3 earnings deficit to the press. I want their stock trading at pennies before the market closes.
Sir, Vance Decker, my Gamma, chimed in, his mental tone laced with caution. This is tantamount to a declaration of war. The Council will view this as unprovoked aggression against a sovereign Pack.
He tried to barter with my Mate's soul, I cut him off, projecting a wave of dominance that I knew would force them to their knees wherever they stood. Burn it down.
Ragnar roared in approval, pacing the cage of my mind. Blood. We want blood.
Soon, I promised him. First, we take his power. Then, we take his head.
By the time I returned to the penthouse that afternoon, the damage was done. Hyde Consolidated was in freefall.
I found Adella in the study. She was curled into the leather armchair, looking small and fragile, an iPad glowing in her hands. The screen displayed the red, jagged line of the market crash.
She looked up as I entered, her eyes wide and glassy. The scent of her distress—salt and wilted lilies—hit me instantly.
"You did this," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The news... they're saying the Hyde family is ruined. They're saying it's a hostile takeover."
I walked over to the desk, loosening my tie. "It is a correction, Adella. A necessary one."
She stood up, the iPad clattering onto the chair. "You can't do this for me, Dallas. You can't destroy an entire economy just because... because of me." She took a step back, shaking her head. "I'm a wolfless orphan. I'm a charity case. I'm not worth this."
Not worth it?
Something inside me snapped. The leash I kept on Ragnar frayed.
I crossed the room in two strides, closing the distance between us before she could blink. I backed her against the bookshelves, my hands slamming onto the wood on either side of her head, caging her in.
"Don't you ever say that," I growled, my voice dropping into that dangerous, inhuman register that made lesser wolves cower.
Adella gasped, her back pressing against the spines of the books. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird, calling to the predator in me.
"You have no idea what you are," I murmured, leaning down until my lips were inches from her ear. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with her scent—moonflower, rain, and the sweet, intoxicating aroma of Mate. "You are worth more than every Pack, every territory, and every crown in this kingdom."
Ragnar was screaming now. Claim her. Mark her. Bite.
My canines elongated, aching to sink into the soft curve of her neck, to leave a permanent claim that would tell the world she belonged to the Lycan King. I could feel the heat radiating from her skin, the electric pull of the bond arcing between us. She didn't push me away. She was trembling, her breath hitching, her eyes searching mine with a mixture of fear and something else... something like hope.
It would be so easy.
But it was too soon. If I took her now, out of anger and instinct, I would just be another monster controlling her life.
With a monumental effort of will, I forced myself to pull back. I straightened my suit jacket, masking the tremor in my hands.
"Pack a bag, Adella," I said, my voice rough but controlled.
She blinked, dazed, still leaning against the bookshelf for support. "What? Where are we going?"
I turned toward the door, needing to put distance between us before my control shattered completely.
"Moonstone Creek," I said, not looking back. "We're going home."
You may also like
8.4
To keep her grandmother on life support, Aracely was blackmailed into taking Evelyn's place in the pitch-black bedroom of the ruthless billionaire, Brennen Levine.
After that night, Evelyn tossed a hideous silicone scar at her feet, forcing Aracely to glue it to her face and work as a bottom-tier maid in his estate so he would never recognize her.
Brennen, suffering from chronic insomnia, was completely addicted to the sweet gardenia scent of the woman from the dark. But when he saw the "disfigured" Aracely scrubbing floors, he was physically repulsed, publicly humiliating her and calling her a monster.
Meanwhile, Evelyn paraded around as his soon-to-be wife. Terrified of her lies unraveling, Evelyn constantly abused Aracely, throwing scalding coffee at her face and threatening to pull the plug on her grandmother if Aracely didn't sneak back into Brennen's room to act as his human sleeping pill.
Aracely endured the suffocating fake scar, the insults, and the freezing servant quarters. She ground her teeth, swallowing the bitter injustice just to keep her only family alive, wondering when this torturous hell would ever end.
But Evelyn's malice knew no bounds. When Evelyn raised her hand to strike again, threatening to rip off the very disguise she forced Aracely to wear, something inside Aracely finally snapped.
"Do not push me."
Aracely locked her hand around Evelyn's wrist in a bone-crushing grip, completely unaware that Brennen was watching from the balcony above, his dark eyes narrowing as a dangerous realization hit him.
7.0
She was desperate. He was merciless.
Liana Moore's sister's life is on the line, and the only person who can save her is Dominic Vale-the man who destroyed her family years ago.
One year. One marriage. One chance to survive.
Dominic is cold, controlling, and unforgiving. Liana is fierce, stubborn, and trapped in a union built on hatred and power.
But when secrets are revealed and the line between punishment and protection blurs, the fire between them becomes impossible to ignore.
In a marriage never meant to exist, love is the most dangerous risk of all.
7.2
My family went bankrupt overnight, leaving me to face a mountain of predatory debt.
Instead of standing by my side, my billionaire fiancé's mother threw a five-million-dollar check on the marble table, demanding I take the money and disappear from her son's life forever.
Meanwhile, my former social circle mocked my downfall. They secretly took photos of me meeting with ruthless loan sharks, waiting for me to come crawling back to beg for charity.
I didn't give them the satisfaction. I legally took on my father's massive debt, threw the check back, and ruthlessly dumped my fiancé.
To stop my heartbroken mother from worrying, I lied and told her I had already found a new, reliable boyfriend.
But the lie was a ticking time bomb. My malicious rival even forced her way into my cramped apartment, demanding to meet this mysterious man, laughing that he must live in a dumpster.
I was suffocating under the pressure. I had nothing, and I had no idea how I was supposed to magically produce a husband to get these toxic people off my back.
Until a dying stranger I helped in the park made a final wish.
His grandson—my cold, aloof high school upperclassman, Caleb Barnes—handed me a watertight prenuptial agreement at the hospital.
"Marry me," Caleb said flatly. "I get to give my grandfather peace. You get a shield against your family."
I picked up the pen and signed my name.
7.8
After eight years in a cold marriage, I watched my husband, Damian, run past me during a raging fire. He ignored my screams, his only focus on saving another woman.
That night, he coldly admitted he never loved me. Our entire marriage was just a business deal he was forced into.
But his betrayal didn't end there. His mistress, Aida, framed my innocent younger brother for a crime he didn't commit. Damian believed her lies without question.
He stood by as she had my brother murdered in his hospital bed. He even forced me to crawl over broken glass to apologize for "upsetting" her.
The final blow came when he threatened me with my mother' s heirloom box, not knowing it held my brother' s ashes. He had taken everything from me-my love, my family, my dignity.
He thought he had broken me. But he only forged me into a weapon.
Now, I'm back. And as the new majority shareholder of his company, I'm here to make him pay for every last sin.
9.3
I sacrificed my dream career for my fiancé, only to find him cheating with his older investor-a betrayal that led to my mother's death.
He reached a new level of cruelty when he dumped my mother's ashes in the trash and conspired to have my wedding dress disintegrate off my body at the altar.
I vanished for five years, building a new life with a new family, but now he's found us-and just saved my daughter's life to force his way back in.
9.4
I used to believe love meant enduring. Staying. Shrinking myself so someone else could grow.
I told myself it was worth it-hiding who I was, working jobs I never had to work, pretending my life was smaller than it was. I loved him. I thought that was enough.
It wasn't.
He chose her.
My best friend looked me in the eyes and took everything I had built with him. And I remember standing there, wondering how I could feel so empty when my heart was still beating.
For a long time, I blamed myself. For trusting too much. For giving too much. For not being enough.
But I'm tired of carrying guilt that was never mine.
I am not broken. I was betrayed.
And there's a difference.
I'm going back-not to beg, not to explain-but to take back the parts of myself I abandoned. My name. My power. My voice. They don't know who I really am, and that might be the only advantage I have left.
Then he appears-calm, powerful, watching me like he sees the cracks I try to hide. And suddenly, revenge doesn't feel as simple as it used to. Neither does healing.
This is my second chance.
Not to love recklessly... but to choose myself, even if it changes everything.