Kira Hayes POV:
I read the text message over and over. Each word was a shard of ice, poisoned and sharp, driving deeper into my heart.
"Performance?" I whispered, and a laugh escaped my lips. It was a raw, ugly sound. The tears were gone. There was nothing left to cry.
Chloe snatched the phone from my hand. Her body trembled with rage as she read the message. "That bastard! I'm going to kill him!"
"Don't, Chloe," I said. My voice was eerily calm, without a ripple of emotion. "He's not worth it."
The greatest sorrow is a dead heart. In that moment, all the love I had for Aiden Carlisle died, along with the child we never got to meet.
I stayed in the hospital for two more days. Chloe never left my side. Aiden never sent another message, never made another call, and certainly never appeared.
On the day of my discharge, I refused Chloe's offer to drive me back to the manor. "No. I have to go back myself. Some things need to be finished, face to face."
I took a cab back to the place I once called home. It had only been a few days, but the opulent mansion felt alien and nauseating.
Aiden was in the living room, sitting on the sofa, reading a file as if nothing had happened. He glanced up when I walked in, his expression bored.
"If you're done with your tantrum, try to be quiet."
I walked right up to him and slapped a copy of the hospital's diagnostic report onto the coffee table in front of him. "Here are the props for my 'performance,' Alpha Carlisle."
He glanced at the title, "Diagnosis of Miscarriage." His brow furrowed for a second, then smoothed out again, his face a mask of condescending indifference. "Did you bribe the Healer? Kira, your methods are getting more and more pathetic."
"Where did you go?" I asked, my voice cold, ignoring his insult.
He seemed taken aback by my tone. He hesitated before answering. "I went to deal with Blanche's situation. After her tire blew out on that mountain road, someone recognized her. Word got out that she'd been stranded there alone, and reporters started showing up. By the time I arrived, they were surrounding her car and shoving cameras in her face. She was already shaken up from the breakdown, and the reporters made it worse."
"So your celebrity ex-girlfriend getting cornered by gossip reporters after a flat tire was more important than your mate's life? More important than your own child's life?" My voice was quiet, but every word was a poisoned dart.
Aiden's expression finally changed. He stood up, his tall frame casting a heavy shadow, radiating pressure. "I warned you. Don't test my limits with a non-existent child."
I looked at him and found it all so ridiculous. I straightened my spine, meeting his deep brown eyes without flinching.
In the clearest, coldest voice I could manage, I spoke the words that would change everything. "I, Kira Hayes..."
Aiden's pupils contracted violently. He knew what was coming. In the werewolf world, every single one of us knew what those words signified. The beginning of the Rejection.
"Stop!" he snarled. A wave of his powerful Alpha pheromones crashed against me, an invisible wall meant to force me into submission, to silence me.
In the past, his Alpha's Command would have made my knees buckle.
But today, the pain of losing my child and the last of my love for him burned hotter than the instinct that once compelled me to obey my Alpha.
I stood my ground against the immense pressure and finished the sentence he had tried to cut short.
"...reject you, Aiden Carlisle, as my mate."
The moment the words left my mouth, I felt a searing pain, as if my very soul was being ripped in two. It was the backlash from rejecting a fated bond. The room went dark for a second.
Aiden staggered, his face instantly turning deathly pale. As the one being rejected, the pain he suffered was far greater than mine. It was the law of the Goddess.
He clutched his chest, staring at me in disbelief. "Are you insane?"
According to Pack law, a rejection required mutual consent. As soon as he said, "I accept your rejection," our bond would be severed forever.
I gritted my teeth against the agony. "Now," I said, looking at him coldly. "Say you accept."
He was breathing heavily, a flicker of panic in his eyes, quickly masked by rage.
"I will never accept," he bit out. "You're making a fool of yourself, and of me. You're not going anywhere without my permission."
He was using his Alpha status to threaten me. "As long as I don't agree, you will always be the Luna of the Carlisle Pack. Don't forget your family still lives on Pack lands."
I looked at his face, twisted by pain and anger, and said nothing more. I turned, picked up the small suitcase I had packed before leaving the hospital, and walked to the door.
"Where are you going?" he roared from behind me.
"To a place without you," I said without looking back, and pulled open the heavy front door.
