After My Alpha Cast Me Out, I Became a Luna

I barely reached the bottom of the staircase before heavy boots echoed across the marble.

Hands slammed into my burned shoulder. The agony made my vision blur gray, and my duffel bag was ripped from my grip, skidding across the floor.

"Alpha's orders," Gamma Darian muttered, twisting my arms behind my back.

They didn't just detain me. They dragged me through the double doors and straight into the Great Hall.

The entire pack was already there. More than two hundred wolves stood in absolute silence, shoulder to shoulder beneath the high rafters. Word had traveled fast. The air smelled of tension, old cedar, and cold fear.

At the center of the dais stood Edwin. And right beside him, standing in the Luna’s rightful place, was Lola.

My stomach twisted. She was wearing my slate-gray silk dress—the one I had saved for months to buy for the Winter Solstice, the one that still held the scent of my cedar chest. She smoothed the front of it with manicured nails and offered me a tiny, venomous smile.

Darian shoved me forward. My knees hit the stone steps with a dull thud.

Edwin looked down at me. His face was carved from stone, his dark eyes void of the seven years we had shared. There was only bruised pride and absolute spite.

"You thought you could walk away from me, Salma?" Edwin’s voice boomed through the hall, rich with cruel satisfaction. "You don't dismiss an Alpha. You don't abandon Ironvale. You leave only when I discard you."

He stepped closer, raising his right hand to address the silent crowd. His voice took on the formal, heavy cadence of an ancient rite.

"I, Edwin Rice, Alpha of the Ironvale Pack, reject you, Salma Lane, as my mate."

The words struck like a physical blade.

The half-formed mark on the left side of my neck—the bond I had nurtured and protected for seven long years—went dead. The heat vanished in a split second, replaced by an arctic, paralyzing frost.

Then came the biological tear.

It was like every nerve ending in my body caught fire and ripped apart at once. A scream tore from my throat, but it came out as a strangled gasp. My spine arched violently. My hands clawed at the polished flagstones as the shockwave of the severed bond ripped through my bloodstream. The agony convulsed through my chest, stealing my breath, forcing my forehead down against the cold stone.

Around the room, nobody dared to breathe.

Near the third pillar, Briana stood with her head down, her trembling thumb pressed flat against the small recorder hidden inside her tactical pouch. Every sickening crack of my joints, every breath Edwin drew, was captured by the mic.

"Look at her," Edwin sneered, his gaze sweeping over the pack. "Seven years of feeding at our table, and she repays us with treachery and sabotage."

I pressed my palms flat, fighting the tremors running through my limbs, trying to lift my chin. Every breath tasted like blood.

"By pack law," Edwin announced, pulling a thick leather folder from inside his coat, "all titles, privileges, and territorial grants earned by the rejected party are forfeit to the pack."

My heart stopped.

"The north valley homestead," he continued smoothly. "The five acres and the cabin Salma was promised for her service. A packless stray has no right to Ironvale soil." He turned, his gaze softening as he held out the deed to Lola. "I grant this land to you, Lola. As a welcome befitting the true future Luna of Ironvale."

Lola gasped, placing a delicate hand over her heart. "Oh, Edwin... it’s beautiful." She took the deed, her eyes darting down to meet mine, dripping with pure triumph.

In the second row of warriors, Carmen Reyes stood rigid. The senior Gamma’s jaw was corded so tight the tendons stood out against her neck. Her fists were clenched at her sides, her knuckles white. She didn't look at Edwin. She looked at me, something ancient, loyal, and dangerous shifting behind her dark eyes.

Edwin wasn't finished. He flared his Alpha aura, pushing an invisible, suffocating weight across the junior ranks.

"Speak your loyalty," Edwin commanded them, his Alpha tone ringing with undeniable compulsion. "Tell her what she is."

The younger wolves shivered under the psychic pressure.

Briana stepped forward half a pace, her young face pale, her jaw trembling as Edwin’s aura forced the words from her throat. "You are... unworthy," she whispered, her voice cracking with sickness and forced compliance. "A liability to Ironvale."

Tears pricked Briana's eyes, but her hand stayed buried in her pocket, keeping the recording alive.

"Get her out of my sight," Edwin ordered coldly. "Throw her across the border. If she steps foot on our lands again, kill her on sight."

Two enforcers seized me by the collar of my torn jacket. They dragged my limp legs across the hall, leaving faint scuff marks on the marble. I didn't fight. I didn't beg. My body felt hollowed out, the space where the bond had lived now a gaping, bleeding void. My wolf was so deep and silent she felt dead.

They hauled me down the gravel road in the freezing dark, past the perimeter gates, and dragged me fifty yards past the territorial stone marker.

With a hard shove, they threw me facedown into the frozen dirt at the tree line.

"Good riddance, stray," one of them spat.

Their footsteps faded into the distance. The iron gates slammed shut behind them.

I lay alone in the mud, staring into the pitch-black woods, stripped of my home, my name, and the past seven years of my life.

Cold wind whistled through the barren trees.

And then, deep beneath the frozen ashes of my severed bond, something massive and silver opened its eyes.