I was nineteen when I gave my heart to Alpha Kael Thorne.
Not with flowers or fanfare—just the trembling pulse of a girl too young to know what love should feel like.
That night, beneath the Crimson Moon, I gave myself to him—my body, my name, my future.
Not because he asked, but because I believed he already owned them.
He didn’t kiss me when it was over.
He didn’t hold me or whisper promises into my hair.
He stood by the window, fastening his belt like I hadn’t just unraveled everything sacred to me.
“I’ll make this right, Sera,” he said, voice flat as cold steel. “You’ll be Luna. It’s the least I can do.”
And he did.
The ceremony was swift, sanctioned by the Elders.
I wore silver silk and a broken smile as they called me Luna Seraphine.
The wolves cheered like I’d won.
But no one saw how his eyes never met mine.
No one noticed how Kael placed the ceremonial mark on my shoulder—not my neck.
Not where it should’ve gone.
I spent the next seven years clinging to a lie dressed in gold.
Until the night he shattered it.
The Bloodmoon Ball was meant to be our night.
But Kael couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Mira Langley.
His new assistant. Barely twenty-two. A rogue-born omega with no name and too many secrets.
She wore a wine-red dress and a defiant smile—like she already knew she’d won.
When Alpha Theron from the Western Borderlands joked that Kael’s assistant smelled "sweet enough to mark," I expected a chuckle.
Instead, Kael snapped.
Right there—before a room of Alphas and Deltas—he lunged.
His claws tore through fabric, flesh, and ego. He beat Theron into unconsciousness with a growl that shook the chandeliers.
And as they dragged him away, Kael didn’t look at me once.
I covered the scandal. I faced the Council. I offered blood money for his outburst.
And then I went to him—behind the iron gate of the holding den, where the man who once promised me the stars now reeked of wine and another woman.
I heard them before I saw them.
Kael and his Beta, laughing.
“She’s nothing like Sera,” Kael murmured. “Mira’s fire. She bites back. She’s not begging for scraps like the Luna.”
My breath caught.
“She’s untamed,” he said. “If I took her as Luna, it’d shake the pack. But better that than be tied to regret.”
My name wasn’t spoken with malice. It was worse.
Pity.
A mistake.
That’s what I had become.
Later that night, Kael sat in my car, blood still on his collar, Mira’s perfume clinging to him like guilt that wouldn’t stick.
His phone buzzed.
He smiled.
That soft, quiet kind of smile. The one I never got.
The kind that made my chest hollow out.
I stared at him through the mirror.
“Was the fight about her?” I asked, barely above a whisper.
Kael didn’t even blink. “She’s under my protection. That’s all.”
“No. I mean… is she why you’ve stopped coming home?”
Silence.
Then he said, “You have status. She has none. I had to defend her.”
And just like that, I disappeared.
No scream. No slap. Just the sound of my heart cracking inside my ribs.
When we reached the Pack Hall, he didn’t thank me.
Didn’t look back.
But he left his phone behind.
And Mira’s name was glowing on the screen.
I should’ve walked away.
I should’ve left the phone on the seat and driven home to cry in private.
But I didn’t.
Something wild inside me—a desperate fragment of the wolf I used to be—climbed those marble stairs.
His door wasn’t shut.
I heard her first.
“Mira, don’t,” Kael murmured.
She was crying. Her voice cracking under the weight of something I’d never been allowed to feel around him.
“I’m scared,” she said. “They hate me.”
Kael wrapped her in his arms.
The arms that once held me like I was glass. Now they were shields for another.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I won’t let them touch you.”
Her sobs turned to silence. She looked up.
“Alpha… this is wrong. You’re mated.”
“I’ll fix it,” he said, like undoing our bond was as easy as tearing a page from a book.
I dropped the phone on the floor and walked away.
Each step was an earthquake. Each breath a howl I didn’t have the strength to make.
The storm broke the sky open as I drove.
I didn’t see the truck.
I only remember the pain.
The way metal groaned around me like it was mourning too.
I was pinned. Trapped.
I called him.
Of course I did.
Even then, some tiny ember in me still hoped.
He picked up.
“What?” he snapped.
“I’m hurt,” I whispered. “There’s… fire. I think the tank—”
In the background, I heard her laugh.
Kael’s voice dropped. “I’ll send someone.”
Then the line went dead.
So did everything inside me.
It was Lucas Rhys who came.
The Delta I’d trained beside. Kael’s war-brother. The only wolf who’d ever seen me cry after the first moon-bite.
He broke open the door. He pulled me free.
And when I could breathe again, when I was coughing blood and trembling in his arms, I whispered:
“Lucas… you’re still licensed with the Council, right?”
He frowned. “Yeah. Why?”
My voice was ash and steel.
“I want you to file a formal matebond termination.”
