He Rejected His Luna for My Sister, Then Begged Me to Return

"You should drink the tea before it gets cold," Maya said, sliding a porcelain cup across the granite island.

I kept the ice pack pressed against my swollen cheek. "I don't want tea, Maya. I want my lawyer to draft the severance papers before noon."

"Your lawyer isn't going to need them," she replied, leaning against the counter. Her eyes stayed glued to her tablet screen. "Not yet, anyway."

"I told you last night, I just want out," I said, setting the ice down. The throbbing in my cheekbone had dulled to a stiff ache. "I don't want a circus. I want my name off the Blackridge registries, my mother’s heirlooms from the vault, and a clean break."

Maya tapped the screen twice, then spun the tablet toward me. "Too late for quiet, Sera. Look."

The headline screamed in bold crimson across the front page of the *Continental Wolf Chronicle*:

**ALPHA'S BETRAYAL: DAMON VANE FOUND IN BED WITH SISTER-IN-LAW WHILE LUNA WAS AWAY.**

Directly beneath it was a second article, pinned to the top of the Sterling Media syndicate:

**TWENTY YEARS OF DECEIT: HOW COUNCILOR VICTOR LAURENT ABANDONED HIS DYING MATE FOR A MISTRESS, AND TAUGHT HIS DAUGHTER TO DO THE SAME.**

My throat closed up. "Maya... what did you do?"

"I did what should have been done twenty years ago," Maya said, her voice completely even. "I attached the time-stamped security photos from Blackridge Manor. I included the hospital admission records from your mother’s final weeks, right alongside Victor’s property transfers to Celine. It went live three hours ago."

"The pack council will execute you for leaking internal security logs."

"Let them try," Maya sneered. "My family owns forty percent of the communications satellites in this hemisphere. Before your father finished his morning coffee, the northern trade coalition canceled three multi-million-dollar supply contracts with Blackridge. Damon's board members are already calling for an emergency tribunal."

I looked at the photos on the screen. There was Damon, half-dressed, glaring into the camera lens with Isla cowering behind his shoulder. Beside it, the public comments were ticking upward by the thousands every second.

*Disgrace.*

*Rogue behavior in an Alpha's house.*

*Strip his title.*

A dry, sharp laugh escaped my mouth. It sounded hollow even to my own ears. "He wanted to protect her reputation. He stood in my bedroom and told me Isla was innocent."

"Now the whole continent knows exactly how innocent she is," Maya said.

A heavy knock echoed through the foyer, rattling the frosted glass panels of the front doors.

Maya didn't flinch. "That would be the cleanup crew."

"If that's Damon—"

"Damon wouldn't dare step onto my estate without a death wish," Maya interrupted, pushing away from the counter. "Stay here."

I followed her anyway.

The heavy oak doors swung inward. Standing on the marble threshold was a man who cast a shadow that swallowed the entire entryway.

He wore a dark charcoal coat over broad shoulders, dusted with morning frost. His dark hair was cut short, dusting the collar of his shirt, and his golden-amber eyes held the cold, unyielding weight of high mountain glaciers.

Adrian Sterling.

The Alpha of Stormridge Pack.

He hadn't set foot in the eastern territories in four years. When we were teenagers, before political marriages and territorial treaties carved our lives into battle lines, he had been the only person who dragged me away from Victor’s punishing training yards to patch my bleeding knuckles.

Now, he stood there, an Alpha whose name made seasoned warlords hesitate at border markers.

Adrian glanced at Maya first. "You moved fast."

"I don't waste time," Maya said.

Adrian stepped past the threshold. His gaze swept the hall and locked instantly onto me.

He didn't ask how my trip had been. He didn't ask why Damon had turned his back on our sacred vows, or how Isla had managed to worm her way into my bedroom.

His eyes dropped straight to the dark purple contusion across my right cheekbone.

The temperature in the foyer seemed to plummet ten degrees.

"Who hit you?" Adrian asked.

The question came out flat, quiet, and completely devoid of inflection.

"Adrian, it’s fine," I murmured, taking half a step back. "It's just—"

"Who hit you, Seraphina?" he repeated, his voice dropping an octave, rattling the crystal fixtures above our heads.

Maya folded her arms. "Victor. Last night, right in front of the gates."

Adrian didn't curse. He didn't raise his voice. His jaw tightened once, a muscle jumping beneath his tan skin, and then his expression smoothed into stone.

"Get your coat," Adrian told me.

"Why?" I demanded, my pulse kicking against my ribs. "Where are you going?"

"To remind your father what happens when he treats my people like dirt," he said, turning toward the driveway.

"I'm not your pack, Adrian," I said, stopping him in his tracks. "I'm Blackridge's Luna. Or I was, until last night."

Adrian stopped at the bottom of the front steps and turned back to face me. "You think I care about Damon's pathetic claim? You're coming with me, Seraphina. You can watch, or you can sit in the car. But Victor Laurent answers for this today."

Ten minutes later, Maya’s armored SUV pulled up behind Adrian’s convoy at the Laurent clan estate.

Reporters were already swarming the outer perimeter, held back by nervous Laurent guards armed with riot batons. When Adrian’s heavy black truck smashed straight through the temporary security barriers, nobody dared fire a shot.

Victor was standing on the front portico, his face flushed scarlet, shouting into a satellite phone while Celine wept hysterically beside him on an outdoor bench.

"I don't care what the regional magistrate said!" Victor roared into the receiver. "Block the broadcast! Sue the Sterling network for defamation!"

The sound of car doors slamming shut cut him off.

Adrian strode across the courtyard gravel, not even glancing at the armed guards who scrambled out of his path. I walked three paces behind him, Maya at my flank.

Victor froze, dropping the phone to his side. "Adrian? What the hell is the meaning of this intrusion? You have no jurisdiction in this sector!"

Adrian didn't slow his pace until he was two feet from the bottom of the porch steps. "I don't need jurisdiction to deal with an abusive old man."

Victor’s eyes bulged with rage. "You insolent whelp! I am a senior councilor! I was negotiating pack treaties while you were still wetting your bed! You will show me proper respect!"

"Respect?" Adrian tilted his head. "You hit Seraphina."

Celine gasped, pulling her shawl tight around her throat. "Adrian, please, this is a family dispute! You don't understand the strain we've been under—"

"Shut your mouth," Adrian said, not even turning his head toward her. His glare remained fixed on Victor. "Did you strike her?"

Victor puffed out his chest, trying to salvage his Alpha presence before the lingering reporters at the gate. "I disciplined my daughter. That is my right under Laurent pack law. She publicly insulted her sister and defied my authority!"

"She isn't your daughter," Adrian said, each word landing like an iron hammer. "Not anymore."

Victor sneered, glancing toward me. "She will always be my blood! She belongs to the Laurent clan, and by extension, she answers to Damon! You cannot interfere in territorial marriages!"

"Try me," Adrian said quietly.

He reached into his inner pocket, pulled out a thick document stamped with the silver crest of the Stormridge High Council, and tossed it at Victor’s feet. The heavy paper fluttered across the stone steps.

"What is this?" Victor demanded, staring down at it.

"A formal sanctuary writ," Adrian announced, his voice carrying clearly over the courtyard wall, right into the microphones of the press gathered at the fence. "Effective immediately, Seraphina Laurent is under the direct sovereign protection of the Stormridge Pack. Any attempt by the Laurent clan or the Blackridge Alpha to touch her, coerce her, or force her onto their lands will be classified as an act of war."

Victor choked on his breath, stumbling back a step. "You... you can't do this! A Luna cannot claim foreign sanctuary without council approval!"

"The council already approved it," Maya chimed in, holding up her phone with a vicious grin. "Three magistrates signed off on it twenty minutes ago after viewing the domestic assault footage. Have a nice day, Victor."

A sudden screech of tires tore across the drive.

A silver sports coupe skidded to an abrupt halt right behind our vehicle.

The door flew open, and Damon jumped out. His coat was rumpled, his hair disheveled, and his slate-gray eyes were wild with exhaustion and panic.

"Sera!" Damon shouted, sprinting toward the porch before the guards could react. "Seraphina, stop this madness!"

He reached out to grab my arm, just as he had done the night before.

He never touched me.

Adrian moved like a strike of lightning. His hand clamped around Damon’s throat with sickening force, slamming the Blackridge Alpha backward against the hood of his own car with a deafening metallic crunch.

"Take your hands off her," Adrian warned, his grip tightening until Damon’s face turned an ugly purple.

Damon clawed at Adrian's wrist, his boots skidding across the gravel as he fought for air. His eyes shifted frantically from Adrian's murderous glare to my frozen face.

For three years, Damon had looked at me with cold authority, confident that our bond made me his permanent property.

Now, looking at the bruised skin on my cheek, the foreign Alpha standing over him, and the absolute void in my eyes, the arrogance drained out of him.

His fingers slackened.

For the first time in his life, Damon realized the bond wasn't just cracking.

I was already gone.

"Sera..." Damon rasped, his voice trembling under Adrian's chokehold. "Please... don't do this..."

Before I could answer, a loud wail of emergency sirens echoed from the valley below, heading directly for the manor gates.