Rejected Mate's Revenge

I locked the door to my study and leaned against it, my hands still trembling from the night's devastation. The room felt like a sanctuary—mahogany shelves lined with ancient pack histories, my desk where I'd handled Luna duties with such pride just hours ago. Now everything seemed foreign, as if I were seeing it through different eyes.

My wet dress clung uncomfortably to my skin, but I couldn't bring myself to change. The physical discomfort felt appropriate somehow, a reminder of what I'd endured while my mate played savior to another she-wolf.

I pulled out the leather-bound journal I kept hidden in my desk drawer—the one where I'd planned to record memories of our growing family. My hands shook as I opened it to a fresh page and began to write.

*My little one,*

*I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you. Your father was supposed to be here tonight, supposed to celebrate the bond that created you. Instead, he chose her—again. But I promise you this: your death won't be meaningless. I won't stay with a mate who values another she-wolf over his own family.*

Tears blurred my vision as I set down the pen. Sage whimpered in my mind, still reeling from the trauma of losing our pup. The mate bond ached like an infected wound, sending waves of Reid's emotions through our connection—guilt, confusion, and something else I didn't want to identify.

I moved to the ancient texts section, my fingers trailing over spines until I found what I was looking for: *Sacred Bonds and Their Dissolution*. The book felt heavy in my hands, weighted with centuries of pack law and tradition. Mate bond rejection was rare, dangerous, and considered an affront to the Moon Goddess herself.

But as I read the ritual requirements, I felt something crystallize inside me. The formal words, the witnesses needed, the irreversible nature of the ceremony—it all seemed like a path toward freedom from this poisonous connection.

The study door rattled suddenly, making me jump. Reid's voice boomed through the wood, rough with panic and something that sounded like desperation.

"Christina! Open this door. Now."

I quickly closed the book and slid it beneath other papers on my desk. "It's late, Reid. We'll talk tomorrow."

"No." His Alpha tone cracked through the air, and I felt the door shudder under his fist. "I felt it through our bond. You were pregnant. Why didn't you tell me?"

The breath left my lungs in a rush. Of course he'd sensed it—the severing of that tiny life force would have echoed through our mate connection like a scream. I opened the door slowly, meeting his wild eyes with as much composure as I could manage.

Reid looked haggard, his usually perfect hair disheveled, his shirt stained with what I assumed was Aitana's blood. But it was the desperate hunger in his gaze that made me step back.

"Answer me," he demanded, pushing into the room. "Were you carrying my heir?"

*His heir.* Not *our pup*, not *our child*. Just another possession for the great Alpha Reid Walker.

"I was," I said quietly, watching his face crumble. "I planned to tell you tonight, at our anniversary celebration. The one you abandoned."

He reached for me, but I moved away, putting the desk between us. "Christina, if I had known—"

"You would have what? Chosen me over Aitana for once?" The words came out sharper than I intended, but I didn't regret them. "I lost our pup tonight, Reid. While you were playing hero, I was bleeding in the rain, losing the future you claim to want so desperately."

His Alpha aura flared, filling the room with suffocating dominance. "You will not speak to me that way. I am your mate, your Alpha. Everything I do is to protect this pack, including you."

"Protect me?" I laughed, the sound hollow and broken. "You left me alone on our anniversary. You didn't even notice I was gone."

"I notice everything about you," he snarled, his eyes flashing gold. "And I'm noticing that you're pulling away from our bond. Stop it. Now."

But I could see the truth in his eyes, the way they kept darting toward the door as if part of him was still with Aitana. An idea formed—dangerous, but necessary.

"Reid," I said softly, letting false hope creep into my voice. "Maybe... maybe we can work through this. If you can honestly tell me you choose me over her. Can you do that?"

He stepped closer, relief flooding his features. "Of course I choose you. You're my Luna, my—"

"Say it," I interrupted, watching his face carefully. "Say you choose Christina Russell over Aitana Porter. Say it like you mean it."

The silence stretched between us like a chasm. Reid's mouth opened, closed, opened again. His eyes flickered with uncertainty, with the weight of a lie he couldn't quite force past his lips.

That hesitation was all I needed.

"I, Christina Russell, Luna of the Crescent Moon Pack," I began, my voice carrying the ancient power of the rejection ritual, "reject you, Reid Walker, Alpha of the Crescent Moon Pack, as my mate and the other half of my soul."

Reid's eyes went wide with shock and horror. "Christina, no! You can't—"

"By the laws of our ancestors and the witness of the Moon Goddess herself, I sever this bond freely and completely."

The words hung in the air like a death sentence, and I saw the exact moment Reid realized he'd been trapped by his own inability to choose me over her.