The Luna That He Rejected The Queen He Could Not Break

POV: Vaelira Ashwyn

I can't recall many of the steps on the way home. I recall whispers along the side of the streets, wolves turning their heads as I walked by but none of it really got to me. Each step was heavier than the next, Kaelor's words echoing in my mind. Perhaps, maybe our relationship simply wasn't meant to be.

As I arrived at my door it opened before I could knock.

Elira stood there and as soon as she saw my face, she didn't ask a single question. She just grabbed me and wrapped me up in her arms.

That's all it took. All of my strength I'd been holding on to was finally gone and I cried into her shoulder like a baby.

After some time, she said, "Come in," and led me through the door and put me in a chair. "Tell me everything."

So I did.

I said, "His essence went to her, his voice was hoarse. Just... changed direction and went straight to her, Seraphine. It just went to her, Elira, in front of everyone."

"Vaelira-"

"He said to me... this is a mistake". I closed my eyes with my hands. "He said we were young, maybe we rushed into loving each other, after five years. And his father...."

She asked quietly, " what did alpha Alaric do?"

"He offered  me gold. Land. He would've paid me to keep my mouth shut, else there would've been a scandal." A bitter laugh rippled from my lips. "When I attempted to touch Kaelor and get him to listen, some kind of force propelled me across the room, I didn't know what was it. But I felt it."

Elira's face was as white as a sheet of paper, but she didn't say a word. 

"Say something." I urged at last. 

"Perhaps this was a providence," she said quietly. "But the Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes, Vaelira, as painful as it will be, perhaps Kaelor was never meant to be your mate."

"Don't say that." My chest hurt as I heard them. "It wasn't nothing, what we had, for five years he loved me, we had plans for a future together, you can't tell me that's all for nothing."

She did not say much more, just clutched my hand more tightly.

After a long pause, I said, "I can't stay here. There's nothing here for me but humiliation and everyone looking at me like I'm something to feel sorry for, I can't stay in Moonridge."

"Vaelira, no," Elira tightened his grip. "I can't leave alone, you know how dangerous it is to be an Omega outside pack area, please, do not leave until you can grieve first, a few days."

I didn't say anything and she appeared to take it as a yes.

That evening she had made something very simple and I barely touched it and I was pushing the food around my plate, and she was trying to get me to eat it, but I was not eating it. Later, she assisted me in going to bed and then she quietly left the room, leaving me to my darkness and my thoughts.

I lay there with my eyes closed, but sleep did not get close to me.

Later, I heard a noise in the house. I saw Elira, dressed in outdoor attire, making her way towards the front entrance of the building. I recalled that she used to spend her evenings with her mate, and I knew that she wouldn't come back for hours.

This was the only opportunity I would have.

When the front door was shut behind her, I got out of bed and hurried. I had just a small bag with me, a change of clothes, a waterskin, some dried food, my healing pouch and the little coin I had saved up over the years.

I left no note.

I left out into the night, walking until the edge of Moonridge was lost behind me, until the trees had swallowed up the final lights of the pack I had known all my life.

I didn't know where I was going. I knew that I must not stay where my heart was broken.

As he walked the forest grew still, the trees pressing closer around the narrow path. I let myself think for the first time since I'd left my house what kind of life lay out there, all alone, with a bag over my shoulder, and a broken heart in my chest.

Then I heard it.

Footsteps behind me.

I told myself that it was a figment of my imagination. I continued to walk, this time faster, listening for any sound.

The footsteps continued.

Closer this time.

My heart started to pound. I glanced over my shoulder and saw nothing but endless trees swallowed in shadow. Then there was a sharp snapping somewhere behind me.

I ran.

Suddenly I heard the sound of pursuit coming to me from behind and in no time at all, big wolves came from all around. I ran faster, my breathing accelerating, looking for any place I could hide, but they were closing in too quickly.

Before I had taken twenty steps, they surrounded me, cutting me off from all sides that I could have run in.

"Who are you?" I pulled back, until I bumped into solid muscle behind me, and demanded. "What do you want?"

All of them did not respond. One of the wolves transformed himself into a tall, cold, human shape, and he examined me as though I were a chore.

"To teach you the cost of loving someone you shouldn't have loved," he replied with his voice cold as ice.

I could feel ice running through my veins. "Have you been sent by Alaric? Does the king want to stop me from talking?"

He didn't respond to that one, either. Rather,  they pushed me to the ground in the forest before I could ask for an answer. I clawed and kicked, I screamed and barked, I did everything I could, but I couldn't beat them; I was outnumbered and outmuscled!

One of them tore my jaw open and another squashed some dark green and leafy thing in his fingers and that smell hit me and I knew what it was.

Nightshade root. One of the most lethal poisons a healer could conjure up.

"No," I twisted and tried to close my mouth, tried to scream, but it was no good.

These were forced down my throat.

The reaction was immediate. Fire blazed in my veins, my legs began to grow numb, my eyes to become cloudy. I had a feeling of my own strength ebbing away like water through open fingers.

The wolves retreated, satisfied, as I fell to the ground.

As they melted back into the shadows, I heard their leader speak one last time, his voice carrying easily through the silent trees.

"Seraphine will be pleased," he said, "with how easily this was taken care of."

The words hit me harder than the poison spreading through my body.

I had believed the royal family wanted me silenced.

Now, as darkness crept in from every edge of my vision, I finally understood the truth.

*Seraphine wanted me dead!*