After My Alpha Rejected Me for Another Luna

The healer's wing smelled like antiseptic and something herbal I couldn't name.

I sat on the examination table while a middle-aged she-wolf with steady hands unwrapped the makeshift bandage I'd put on my wrist that morning. She didn't flinch when she saw the silver brand. Didn't ask questions. Just examined it with the clinical detachment of someone who'd seen worse.

"It won't fade," she said finally. "Silver burns scar permanently, especially when they're this deliberate." She looked up at me. "But there are Luna-bloodline herbs that can reduce the inflammation and prevent infection from settling deeper. Do you know how to prepare them?"

I blinked. "Luna-bloodline herbs?"

"Rare compounds. Most wolves wouldn't know where to start." She pulled out a small notebook and began writing. "But if you have the knowledge, I can provide the raw materials."

I watched her write. The list was forming in my head before she finished—moonpetal root, silverleaf extract, dawn sage. I'd read about them years ago in one of Shadowridge's old pack records, back when I still thought understanding pack medicine might make me useful enough to keep.

"I can prepare them," I said quietly.

She paused. Looked at me with something that might have been surprise. Then she nodded and handed me the list.

"Supply room is two doors down. Take what you need."

I left the healer's wing with the list folded in my pocket and a clean bandage on my wrist. Marcus was waiting in the corridor.

"Training starts tomorrow," he said. "Dawn. Eastern courtyard."

I nodded.

"Rowe doesn't go easy on anyone," he added. "Fair warning."

"I didn't come here for easy."

Something that might have been approval flickered across his face. Then he turned and walked away.

I found the supply room. Gathered the herbs. Returned to my quarters and spent the evening grinding, mixing, measuring. My hands knew the movements even though I'd never done this before. Something old and buried guided them.

When I was done, I had a pale green paste that smelled like earth and moonlight.

I applied it to the brand. The burning eased almost immediately.

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my wrist. The scar would stay. Natasha had made sure of that. But the pain—the pain I could control.

That was something.

---

Rowe was exactly what Marcus had promised—a scarred gamma with a face like weathered stone and zero tolerance for weakness.

The first training session started before the sun was fully up. He didn't introduce himself. Didn't ask about my history. Just pointed to the center of the courtyard and said, "Shift."

I stood there. Tried to reach for the wolf I'd felt stirring in the corridor with Apollo. Tried to find that tremor of heat and fury that had flared in the great hall when Calvin spoke the rejection.

Nothing.

"Shift," Rowe repeated.

I closed my eyes. Concentrated. Pushed.

Nothing.

Rowe circled me slowly. "Your wolf's in there. I can smell it. So why isn't it coming out?"

I didn't have an answer.

He pushed me through drills designed to trigger involuntary shifts—exhaustion protocols, adrenaline spikes, controlled aggression. By the time the sun was overhead, I was covered in sweat and bruises and my wolf was still silent.

Rowe finally stepped back. "That's enough for today."

I wanted to argue. Wanted to demand more. But my legs were shaking and my lungs burned and I had nothing left.

I walked back to my quarters alone.

---

The second session went the same way. And the third. And the fourth.

By the sixth night, I was starting to wonder if Calvin had been right all along. Maybe my wolf really was too weak. Too broken. Too nothing.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, too tired to sleep, too angry to rest.

Then I heard voices in the corridor outside my door. Low. Controlled.

Rowe's voice: "The wolf's not absent. It's suppressed. Whatever did this was sustained and deliberate."

A pause.

Then Marcus: "How long would that take?"

"Years. Maybe the entire bond."

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Tell Desmond," Marcus said finally.

Footsteps moved away.

I lay there in the dark, Rowe's words echoing in my head. Suppressed. Sustained. Deliberate.

Calvin hadn't just ignored my wolf. He'd buried it.

The hollow space in my chest pulsed once. Cold. Empty.

I turned onto my side and closed my eyes.

---

I woke at 2 AM from the same nightmare I'd been having since the Summit. Natasha's smile. The silver coin heating in the flames. Calvin standing in the doorway, watching.

I sat up, heart racing, and forced myself to breathe.

One. Two. Three.

When my hands stopped shaking, I got up and opened the door—just to feel the cool night air, just to remind myself I wasn't trapped.

There was a covered clay bowl on the threshold.

I stared at it.

Steam rose from under the lid. Still warm.

I looked down the empty corridor. No one.

I picked up the bowl and brought it inside. Lifted the lid. Broth. Rich and dark and smelling like herbs I recognized from the healer's wing.

I sat on the edge of the bed and ate it slowly.

No note. No explanation. Just broth that someone had heated at 2 AM and left outside my door.

I told myself it was protocol. Some kind of Lycan Court hospitality standard.

I didn't believe it.

---

The next night, the bowl was there again. Same time. Same warmth.

I stood in the doorway longer this time, looking at it. Looking down the corridor.

Still no one.

I brought it inside. Ate it in silence.

The night after that, I didn't bother constructing explanations.

I just opened the door, picked up the bowl, and sat with it in the dark.

The broth was always the same. Always warm. Always waiting.

And somewhere in this massive compound, someone was waking up at 2 AM to make sure it was there.

I didn't know what to do with that information.

So I ate the broth and tried not to think about the fact that for the first time in eight years, someone was taking care of me without asking me to disappear first.

It felt dangerous.

It felt like something I could get used to.

And that—that was the most terrifying thing of all.