The Neglected Luna's Ultimate Rejection

EVELYN'S POV:

Three days passed in a blur of pain medication and ancient architectural diagrams. I'd barely left my room, using my injury as a valid excuse to avoid the pack, to avoid him. My ankle was healing, but my heart remained a numb, cold thing in my chest. I'd successfully blocked Dorian from my side of the mind-link, a feat that left me with a constant, dull headache but was worth the silence. It was like holding a heavy door shut against a hurricane.

Hanna brought my meals, her worried glances a constant presence. She knew I'd retreated, but she didn't know how deep the change went.

I was sketching a design for a cantilevered meditation platform, a concept from my great-grandfather's journal, when my phone buzzed on the desk. I ignored it. It was probably just another concerned message from my assistant, Tessa, about the Azure Cove project I was supposed to be leading for the pack.

The phone buzzed again. And again. A string of notifications. Annoyed, I picked it up. It wasn't a call. It was a series of messages from an unknown number. My stomach clenched with a sudden, sick premonition.

I opened the first message. It was a picture. A professionally taken, artfully lit photo of a slice of chocolate cake on a pristine white plate. I frowned, confused. Wrong number?

The next message was text. "He said this is your favorite. Devil's Food cake from Le Reve bakery. He remembered."

My blood ran cold. There was only one person who knew that. I told Dorian on our first and only "date" three years ago, a stilted, formal dinner where I'd talked nervously to fill the silence. He had seemed bored, but apparently, he'd been listening.

My thumb shook as I opened the next picture. It was a selfie. Sloane Sterling smiled sweetly at the camera. She was in the formal dining room of the pack house, a room I hadn't set foot in for months. Behind her, the table was set for a celebration. She was holding up the slice of cake next to her cheek, presenting it for the camera.

The next picture was even worse. It was of the whole cake, candles blazing. And sitting next to the cake, gleaming in the candlelight, was a small, hand-carved wooden wolf.

I stopped breathing. That wasn't just any carving. It was the protective talisman Dorian's father carved for him before he died. He had told me once, in a rare moment of vulnerability, that it was his most prized possession, something he never let out of his sight, a conduit to his family's spirit.

He let her touch it. He let her use it as a prop for her little celebration.

The final message arrived. Another picture. This one was of Sloane and Dorian. He wasn't smiling, but he was looking at her, and she had her hand on his arm, leaning into him. The cake and the wooden wolf were on the table in front of them. The caption read: "Thank you for making my birthday so special, Alpha."

Alpha. Not Dorian. A deliberate choice of word. A reminder of his power, and her proximity to it.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers and clattered onto the desk. This wasn't just flaunting. This was a targeted strike. A declaration of war. She took something deeply personal to me—a memory, a favorite thing—and twisted it into a weapon against me. And she used something deeply sacred to him—his father's legacy—to do it. And he let her.

The last fragile wall around my heart didn't just crack; it exploded. The numbness was gone, replaced by a tidal wave of agony so profound it stole my breath. My inner wolf, which had been whimpering in a corner of my mind, let out a raw, soul-shattering howl of betrayal and grief. PAIN. BETRAYAL. MATE HURTS US.

I stumbled back from the desk, knocking my chair over. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold my splintering soul together. It wasn't enough to take his time, his affection, his smile. She had to grind my face into the dirt. She had to prove that every part of his life, even the parts that once belonged to me, were now hers to play with.

Hanna burst into the room, her eyes wide with alarm. "Evie! What is it? I felt that through the link! It felt like you were dying!"

I couldn't speak. I just pointed a trembling finger at the phone on the desk.

Hanna picked it up. Her face shifted from confusion to disbelief, then to pure, unadulterated rage. "That... BITCH."

But I was no longer listening. A decision, cold and sharp as a shard of glass, formed in the wreckage of my heart. I would not be a victim in my own story. I would not be a ghost in my own life. This bond, this cursed chain that linked my soul to a man who despised me, had to be broken. Not just ignored or blocked. Utterly and completely severed.

"Hanna," I said, my voice eerily calm. "Find me the pack laws. Find me the chapter on The Rejection."