FORSAKEN BY MY ALPHA

Aria's POV

The kitchen should have been a refuge. The same warm, yeasty breath of fresh bread, the tang of roasted meat and bruised herbs reached for salves-these homely, comforting scents that have soothed me since childhood-will normally fold around me like a familiar shawl. Today, they feel thin and brittle, stretched tight over a fire that has nothing to do with cooking.

I move to the back of the kitchen where I think no one will notice my presence, but I am wrong. I feel eyes follow me, sharply, till I take my sit on a bench. When I look up, everyone seem to be busy with their work.

"Have you heard?" whispers someone so close I can reach out and touch the words. The speaker is no older than an omega, hands rolling over an onion as if the vegetable itself were a secret. "They say she's been sneaking off with Jaxon."

My skin flushes. Jaxon. The name feels absurd and foreign - a young warrior who gives polite bows and carries wood, whose smile was sheepish, whose presence hasn't yet lodged in her life beyond polite nods. The rumor does not care for facts. It only needs volume.

"They say a Luna with wandering eyes-" another voice chimes, a giggle sliding like oil. Heads lean together, eyes glittering with the thrill of scandal. Laughter, hush at first, finds its feet and swells.

My throat tightens so suddenly I feel breathless. My wolf folds in on itself, ears flatten to the back of my skull. This isn't mere curiosity; it is aggression disguised as amusement. The pack's collective gaze shines with the inclination to judge, to brand. A Luna's faith is not a trifle to toy with. Such accusations can destroy an entire park.

I put away my bowl of stew as I no longer have an appetite. A woman who had taught me to knead bread meets my eyes for a single, faint second - pity and apology flickering there - then returns to the oven as if food can mend what words break.

I stand, with my head high and my shoulders straight. I try to carry myself like the Luna the pack expects. But I can hear the whispers grow behind me.

"I need air," I try to lie to myself. I want to run away. I want to end it all, the rumours, the pain.

A child darts past, basket on his head, and pauses, watching me with the bright, ruthless curiosity of youth. "Luna!" he calls, loud enough to cut through a pause. Everyone's heads turn. The small voice is a flare. The sound of more whispers follows like smoke.

I suddenly feel very small. The bond - that invisible thread that has once been a source of comfort, a promise - hum alarmingly in my chest. It is not comforting. It stretches taut and raw, and I can feel Damon's presence within it like a blade that has not yet been set - sharp, distant, dissatisfied.

I tell myself I will not collapse. I tell myself I will not plead. I have already learned that pleading does little for the angry, and little for the proud.

I tread the path to the training yard, drawn by the familiar smell of sweat and leather, the steady, reliable rhythm of practice - a drumbeat I can rely on when the world's music skews.

A pair of warriors pause mid-drill to stare. One raises an eyebrow. "Who fed them that tale?" he mutters.

My shoulders sag instead of straightening. Jaxon passes by with a stack of practice targets balanced on his shoulder. Our eyes meet for a moment. I see concerns in them. Then he turns away.

I want to rescue him, to take his name out of the rumours. He deserves none of this. He doesn't deserve to be caught up in rumours as dangerous as this one.

My wolf shifts, a dull ache in my bones. These things do not pass on their own. They need tending. Rumors are weeds; left untended, they spread, choking out the garden.

Damon's POV

The great hall reek of ink and smoke and the low metallic tang of strategy. Maps unfurl across the oak table, the borders of the territory trace like wounds. Calder, Beta, taps at a ridge with the tip of his finger. "Redfang scouts are testing the eastern passes. If they exploit the river crossings, they can slip through patrols within a moon."

I listen to the words, catalog them, and set them aside. My focus narrows to something that moves like a stone in my gut. The rumor has reached me on thinner feet than a scout: a whisper borne by someone's laughter in the kitchens and carried on the wind to my ears. My Luna. With another.

A low, coiling fury rises up inside my wolf. The image that the pack feeds me - Aria laughing with a warrior - inserts itself into my head with the cruelty of a spiteful child. I do not believe the words and yet each syllable hum with poison. Loyalty is not merely a contract; it is an expectation carved into their bones, and if Aria's name is sullied, the festering will spread.

Calder's cautious voice drifts. "Alpha?"

I steady myself, palms flat on rough wood. I can call her into the hall and make her defend herself. I can punish the offenders and make them answer in blood for their insolence. My hands want retribution; my pride wants spectacle.

Instead I say, quietly, "I will find who started this. And they will answer for it."

It is not mercy. It is not grace. It is my way of saying that my Luna's dignity should not be bartered in public, but also my confession that I can not look at her and see anything but the truth I want and the truth I fear. I leave the hall with the map crumpled at my fist and the image of her laughter like an ember that would not go out.

The bond thrums, a dull drum of worry and shame and wrapped promise. It pulls at me with the insistence of tide against rock. I want to take her, to protect her, to erase every rumor with my presence. But pride - older, harder - keeps my steps measured and my mouth tight. I tell myself I will act, and yet the way I will act has teeth and claws I can not afford to show without tearing more than I will mend.

Elias's POV

The kitchen is more crowded than the great hall with gossip. I had come in this morning with a purpose - to fetch broth for ailing elders - and found instead a hotbed of speculation.

I favour the place where I can lift my mug and listen: by the counter where the bread cools, where one can see both entrances. When the rumor surfaces I feel it like a physical blow. Jaxon's name sticks, and I watch the young warrior from the corner of his eye. Jaxon carries targets, hauls logs, and keeps his mouth respectful. He does not deserve this.

Anger rises clean and precise in my chest. It surprises me how hotly protective I feel - not just of Jaxon as a fellow pack member, but of Aria: of the slight tilt of her head when she's concentrating, the way she hums under her breath when kneading dough, the slow strength that lives in her hands.

I set my mug down with more force than the cup warrants. The sound echoes like a threat. Conversations waver and then cut off. I catch an omega with a ladle mid-swing, her eyes wide as if a predator has entered. A young warrior's face reddens; he mutters something and then goes silent.

I walk the length of the room, measuring steps, voice lowering to a dangerous hush. "Say her name again," I say. "Call her anything but what she is, and you'll be eating in silence for a very long time."

My words slide along the walls and sink into the stone. A dish falls; a man spits in his mouth and swallows his insult. The air grows heavy. I let my anger be a shield - not just to bruise, but to protect the small, vulnerable thing that was the truth: Aria does not deserve to be scorned.

I step away finally, the warmth of my anger cooling into something else: an ache that has nothing to do with the kitchen. I can repel rumors, hush the worst of the jeers, but I can not close the wound that has opened between Aria and Damon. That is the wound that bleeds the deepest - a slow, private erosion carved by silence and absence.

Aria's POV (again)

When I return to the kitchens to gather a small parcel of herbs the old woman insists I take, I find Elias waiting by the back door. He hands the bag over with a softness that grounds me. His eyes meet mine, steady as a promise.

"You handled it," I say, voice small and surprised.

"I did what had to be done," he replies, but there is more in the tightness at the corner of his mouth. "You shouldn't face that alone."

I want to ask him why he cares so fiercely, to where the warmth behind his words come from. I want to ask why Calder has been so quick to flinch and why the children think scandal is a sport. Instead I tuck the herbs into my skirts and swallow each question down with a single, careful breath.

Outside, the wind rustles with great strength Somewhere beyond the trees, Damon stands on the western battlements, shoulders squared against the wind, jaw set as if he can clamp the world's mouth closed.

I think of walking to him. I think of crossing the yard and placing myself where the bond can not be misread, where his hands might finally be the banishment to my shame. But pride, stubborn and stupid, is not mine alone. The memory of his last look - hard and cold and then a fissure of something as helpless as an animal's - stops my feet.

I fold the herbs into the pocket of my skirt and let Elias's presence be a small, steady thing at my back. Rumors can be fought. But the thing I most want to mend - the chasm between me and my Alpha - requires more than alliances in kitchens. And it's going to take us both climbing out our prides.

Alone, in the quiet of my room, I let go and take a deep breath. My wolf curls in safer places. The bond thrum, patient and insistent. It promises friction, and it promises fire.