The Rejected Luna: The Bond That Refused To Break

~SARIA'S POV~

"No."

The word barely leaves my mouth before I clutch my chest.

Something is forming inside me. Slow at first. Then sharp.

Darian drops to one knee.

Blood slips from his mouth and stains the front of his white ceremonial shirt. One hand slams against the stone floor to keep him upright. His face has gone pale, but his eyes stay locked on mine in a way that steals my breath.

For one wild second, I think he is about to call my name.

Instead, he bends forward like something inside him has been ripped open.

The bond should be gone.

I wait for the emptiness everyone talks about.

It never comes.

Instead, something still pulls inside me.

Weak.

Raw.

Like a thread stretched so thin it could snap with the next heartbeat.

I exhale too fast.

High Elder Nykaros shouts for healers. They rush to Darian at once, as if they already knew this would happen.

My mark burns white-hot.

Then it cracks.

Pain cuts down my neck. I cry out and grab for it. My fingers come away wet.

Blood.

The scent bursts from my skin in a violent wave.

Wolves near us stumble backward. Some hit the people behind them. Others cover their noses and stare at me like I have turned into something they cannot name.

Darian wipes at his mouth with a shaking hand. Blood stains his fingers. For one heartbeat, he looks furious. The next, confused. That fear in his face scares me more than the blood.

"This is impossible," I whisper.

His wolf still reaches for mine.

I feel it brush mine.

Weak.

Ragged.

Like it cannot understand what just happened any more than I do.

A murmur moves through the crowd. Then another. Fear spreads fast.

"She is dangerous," someone whispers.

The words settle over the courtyard.

Nobody argues.

Not one voice says they are wrong.

I turn toward the sound and see faces I have known all my life. Wolves who once laughed with my family. Wolves who ate in our home. Wolves who stood by while my parents were buried and promised I would never be alone.

Now they look at me as though standing beside me might poison them.

Darian tries to rise. His knees shake. He presses one hand to the altar to keep himself standing. Blood drips from his lip onto the stone.

A healer catches him from behind before he falls again.

The crowd gasps.

"The Alpha looks terrible," someone says.

"I have never seen this in my life," another voice says. "This bond is dangerous. And Saria is the cause."

I do not look at the face that says it.

But why are they blaming me for something I do not understand?

The question settles in my mind and finds no answer.

I take one step toward Darian, then stop.

He does not lift his head.

The council has gone very still. Nykaros looks unsettled now, his fingers tight around his staff.

My uncle, the Beta, is the first to move.

"Get her away from the altar," he says.

His voice cuts across the courtyard without warmth.

The same uncle who once carried me on his shoulders after training.

The same man who promised my father he would always protect me.

He cannot even look me in the eyes now.

"This isn't fair," I whisper.

For a moment, I cannot move.

Then the guards are there.

Their hands close around my arms. Too firm. One reeks of fear so strong it almost makes me sick. Another refuses to meet my eyes.

"Move," he says.

I stare at him. "What is happening?"

He does not answer.

His grip tightens, and the scent around me rises again. Stronger this time. I hear a wolf curse under his breath. Someone near the back of the crowd turns away.

"Take her to the hall," my uncle orders.

The words land like a slap.

I jerk against the guards. "Wait."

No one listens.

Darian lifts his head at last.

For one breath, we look at each other across the noise, and what I see in his face twists my stomach.

Not rejection.

Not yet.

Fear.

That is worse.

Because he is looking at me like he knows something is happening that he cannot stop.

Then it starts.

Agony crashes through my chest as the warmth between us tears and splits apart.

One half still reaches for him.

The other jerks toward somewhere beyond the pack.

Another pull.

Faint. But real.

It reaches for me like a hand through darkness.

I gasp so hard it tears out of me.

The guards catch me before I fall.

My pulse pounds in my ears.

Then the memory hits.

Red-masked figures.

Nine of them.

Their red masks gleam in the firelight.

Boots pound across stone.

A scream I cannot place until it becomes my own.

My body goes cold from the inside out.

The memory shatters before I can hold it.

I suck in a breath and nearly choke.

The courtyard blurs. For a moment, I am not here at all. I am back in that night, with blood thick in the air and shouting all around me. Red masks turning toward us in the dark.

My hand flies to my neck.

The cracked silver crescent there burns again, like it has just woken up.

Another fragment slams into me.

A wrist.

Bare skin.

A dark-gold crescent catches the firelight.

My breath stops.

I know that mark.

I don't know how.

Before I can reach the memory, it disappears.

A hand grips my shoulder.

"Saria."

My uncle's voice this time.

Not gentle. Not kind.

He does not sound like family anymore. He sounds like an official dealing with a problem.

I look up at him and try to find something familiar in his face.

I do not.

His eyes flick to my neck, then to the frightened wolves around us. His jaw tightens.

"Remove her," he says again.

The guards obey.

They drag me a few steps away from the altar. My feet catch on the stone, and I almost stumble.

Nobody reaches out to steady me.

Darian makes a sound behind me.

I turn before I can stop myself.

He is held up by two healers. He looks like he wants to speak, but his face twists instead, and I can see he is fighting his own body just to stay upright.

The bond jerks again.

Not clean.

Not dead.

My uncle notices me looking and snaps, "Enough."

I hate the way my body reacts to that word.

I hate that some part of me still wants to reach back toward Darian.

The second pull bites deeper beneath my ribs.

I stop walking.

Air catches in my throat.

The feeling spreads slowly through my chest, tightening, refusing to let go.

I press a hand against my ribs, waiting for it to pass.

It doesn't.

This isn't like the memories.

Those come and disappear.

This stays.

It isn't showing me something.

It's trying to lead me somewhere.

I turn my head, searching the courtyard, but I do not know what I am looking for.

Only that whatever it is, it is not here.

The edge of the courtyard seems to tilt.

I see the altar. The council. The staring wolves. Darian held by healers.

And then, for the briefest second, something else overlays it all.

A flash of red.

A wrist with dark gold on it.

Then it is gone.

My breath shakes.

No one around me seems to know what I just saw. Or if they do, they are pretending not to.

I do not know which is worse.

"Take her to the hall," my uncle orders.

The guards tighten their grip.

My chest pulls once more, hard enough to blur my vision at the edges.

Somewhere beyond the pack walls, something answers.

I do not know what it is.

I only know it feels closer now.

And the worst part is this.

The bond to Darian is still there. Weak. Fractured. Bleeding.

It pulls one way.

Whatever waits beyond Night Crown pulls the other.

I feel myself caught between them, and I do not know which one will tear me apart first.

The guards start pushing me toward the corridor.

I let them.

Not because I accept this.

Because I need to know what that wrist belonged to.

Because someone has been lying about the night my family died.

Because something beyond Night Crown is calling me.

And because the bond inside me refuses to die.