The finality of her words settled over the room like a storm cloud. Elaine stood there, calm, resolute, untouchable.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The silence was suffocating, so thick it pressed against everyone’s chest. Elaine stood tall, her words still hanging heavy in the air, final and irrevocable. And then, Michael moved. The future Alpha stepped forward, peeling himself away from Kathy’s trembling form.
His face was tense, his jaw clenched, eyes locked on Elaine with a mixture of frustration and guilt. His voice, when it came, was sharp-too sharp, as though the weight of his shame demanded he lash out instead of face it. “Enough, Elaine!” he barked, his tone harsher than intended. “You’re not being fair.”
Elaine tilted her head, her expression unreadable. “Fair?” She repeated softly, almost as though the word itself was foreign. Michael took another step forward, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “You think you’re the only one hurting?
You think this is easy for me?” His voice cracked slightly, but he forced it steady. “I never asked for this either! I never asked for Kathy to be pregnant, for fate to play this cruel trick on us. Do you think I don’t feel torn apart knowing you are my mate?
Do you think I don’t feel the bond pulling at me every second I breathe?” His voice rose, anger and desperation colliding. “Do you think it doesn’t kill me that I can’t have you?” For the first time since walking into that office, Elaine’s mask wavered. Just barely.
Her lips pressed into a thin line, and her eyes flickered with a storm of emotions she refused to release. But Michael wasn’t done. His chest heaved as he continued, almost spitting the words, as though confessing them burned. “I chose Kathy before I knew. I can’t undo that.
She is carrying my child. Our pack’s heir. She needs me. The pack needs me. And as Alpha, I don’t have the luxury to follow only my heart.
I have to follow my duty.” He looked at her then, his eyes blazing, raw with pain. “Do you think it’s easy to reject the mate bond every time I see you? Do you think I don’t feel the Goddess’s punishment for it? I do, Elaine.
Every. Single. Day. But I can’t turn back now. I can’t abandon her.
I can’t abandon this pack. So stop acting as though I don’t bleed from this too!” His words left the room trembling, and for a brief moment, his vulnerability filled the air with something fragile, something dangerously close to breaking. Elaine let the silence stretch, her eyes locked on his. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, but it cut sharper than any scream.
“You bleed?” she asked softly, her tone laced with disbelief. “No, Michael. You made a choice. You had me, and you still chose her.
You decided my pain was worth less than your convenience. You call it duty, but it was never duty. It was weakness.” “You can’t abandon her? I never asked you to abandon her.
I would never ask you to abandon your pup. All I wanted was a chance to be what I am supposed to be. To be your Luna, your mate as the Goddess created me. But that is too much for me to ask, right?” Michael flinched as though she had struck him.
Elaine’s eyes hardened, her voice steady once more. “The Goddess gave us a bond, Michael. And you spit on it. You spit on me. Whatever punishment you feel from rejecting me, know this-it is nothing compared to what I am feeling.”
Her gaze flicked briefly to Kathy, still weeping in the corner, then back to Michael. “So don’t speak to me of pain. You do not get to claim my suffering as your own. You do not know what it feels like to be unwanted, to not matter, to not deserve even a chance to be who I am supposed to be.” “You chose to abandon me.
You chose to use me, use my body for your satisfaction. And everyone here chose to sacrifice me, sacrifice my happiness, sacrifice who I am.” The finality in her voice sealed the air between them, leaving Michael speechless, trembling with fury and shame. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, but no words came The air in the Alpha’s office was charged, tense enough to snap. Michael stood frozen, shame and anger battling inside him, while Elaine remained unyielding.
An unmoved wall of ice in the face of his outburst. It was the Luna who broke the silence first. “Enough,” Beatrice’s voice carried through the room, not loud, but firm, resonant with the authority of her position. She rose slowly from her seat, her gaze sweeping over both her son and Elaine. Her eyes, full of both sorrow and resolve, settled on Elaine.
“This is tearing all of us apart. Elaine, you speak with such venom because you are in pain. I see it, even if you try to hide it. But understand this, the bond between you and Michael is real, yes, but so is the bond he has forged with Kathy. We cannot undo what has already been done.
We can only move forward.” Elaine’s jaw clenched, her silence speaking louder than any words could. The Luna’s expression softened for a fleeting moment. “I do not deny that you were wronged. You should not have been put in this position.
As a mother, my heart breaks for you, Elaine. But as Luna, I must also see the bigger picture. This pack cannot fracture over this bond, no matter how unfair it seems. Sometimes…” She faltered, her composure slipping just slightly, “…sometimes the Goddess gives us trials we cannot understand.”
Elaine’s laugh was low and bitter. “Trials? That’s what you call this? A trial? No, Luna.
Trials are meant to strengthen us. This-” She gestured toward Michael and Kathy. “This is a betrayal dressed up as sacrifice.”
Before Luna Beatrice could even open her mouth, the Alpha’s voice cut sharply through the thick silence. “That is enough, Elaine!” Alpha Efrein’s command echoed in the room, strong and absolute. His words carried the weight of authority, shaking the air with finality. “I understand that you are in pain, but that does not excuse the way you speak to us.
You will remember that we are still the Alpha and Luna of this pack, and with that comes responsibility-responsibility to the safety, peace, and unity of everyone under us. If the price of preserving that unity is for you to be cast aside, then so be it. If you cannot stand with us as family, then you will stand alone. You may leave the Beta household and live at the edge of our territory, far from your parents and your sister. But remember this, Elaine.
This is your choice. This is what you wanted.” The Alpha’s last words roared through the chamber like thunder, leaving the air heavy and suffocating. “Alpha-” Her father, Beta Richard, stepped forward, his voice breaking with worry and desperation. His eyes begged for mercy, not for himself but for his daughter.
But Alpha Efrein cut him off mercilessly. “No, Beta. Enough. I am sick of her insolence and her constant defiance. We have bent, we have yielded, we have tried to comfort her.
But she spits it all back in our faces. She believes she is the only one in pain? She is wrong. Every single one of us has suffered. We all bleed, we all grieve, but still we carry the burden forward for the sake of the pack.
And what of her? She refuses to see beyond herself. If leaving the Beta family is the only way she believes she can move forward, then I will grant her that. ” “But hear me, Elaine.” His dark eyes burned into her, unforgiving.
“You will not resign your position. You will not abandon your duty. You will continue your work here in the pack house, as is required of you. You will face every pack member, every day. You will show respect to me and to the Luna as your leaders.
From this day forward, you will be treated as any other pack member. And from this day forward… You are no longer part of the Beta family.” The room fell silent, stunned into stillness by the Alpha’s decree. Gasps broke from a few throats, and even Luna Beatrice’s composure wavered.
Richard and Lucille looked shattered, their eyes wide, their lips trembling, as though the ground had been torn away beneath their feet. But Elaine… did not falter. She stood as though she had expected this outcome all along. If this was what her pack had become-a place where her sacrifices, her pain, and her very dignity meant nothing, then why should she hold on?
They had already taken her mate, stripped her of her future, and now even her family ties were being severed. Was there truly anything left for her here? No. If this were her reality, then her decision was clear. Still, she had to be cautious.
Even if stripped of her family name, she remained valuable to them. Her role, her position, and most of all the connections she had nurtured during her years at Wolfe school-ties with other packs, alliances that Efrein desperately wanted. Those things bound her here. That was why he refused her resignation. That was why he chained her to this place with duty, not choice.
He would bleed her dry for what she could give the pack, and she knew it. Respect. That was what they demanded. Respect that had not been earned. Respect that came from fear and hierarchy, not from love or loyalty.
But fine. She would give it-for now. She would play their game, smile when she had to, and bow when required. One month. That was all she would give them.
After that, whether they gave permission or not, she would leave this pack behind forever. “Elaine, please…” Her mother’s voice broke the silence, tears streaming down her cheeks. She clutched at her daughter’s arm, her body trembling with desperation. “Don’t do this.
Just apologize. Just… just say you’re sorry to the Alpha, and this will all be over. Please, I am begging you.” Elaine turned her head slowly to face her mother.
No-she corrected herself coldly-not her mother. Not anymore. This woman was the Beta female. Loyal to her Alpha before her own child. Lucille, not Mama.
The pain that realization brought cut deeper than any blade. Her gaze returned to the Alpha, steady and unwavering. Her voice, though calm, carried the quiet strength of finality. “I will leave the Beta household immediately and take residence in the abandoned house at the edge of the territory. I will continue my work in the pack house, as you have commanded, and I will show the respect you demand, Alpha.”
She paused, letting her words hang in the heavy air before she delivered the final blow. “But from this day forward, I am no longer part of the Beta family.” With that, Elaine turned on her heel and walked out of the room. Her footsteps echoed against the stone floor, each one a reminder to everyone present that a bond had been broken-a bond that might never be repaired. And though her heart ached, her spirit no longer trembled.
For the first time, she felt a strange, cold freedom.
It had been three long weeks since that day in the Alpha’s office. Three weeks that felt like years-three weeks of humiliation, of whispered insults, of isolation that gnawed at her spirit like a hungry wolf. The moment she stepped out of the Beta home and into her new life at the edge of the territory, she ceased to be Elaine, daughter of the Beta. In the eyes of the pack, she had become something else entirely-an outcast, a warning, a walking reminder of what happened to those who defied the Alpha. The very first day she reported back to the pack house for duty, she could feel their eyes on her.
Dozens of stares that pierced into her skin, their whispers carrying across the halls like poisoned arrows. Some murmured “rejected… unwanted…” as she walked by. Others didn’t bother lowering their voices at all.
They laughed, they mocked, they cursed her under their breath, enjoying her downfall as if it were their entertainment. To them, she was not Elaine the scholar, Elaine the Beta’s daughter, or Elaine the woman who had once been celebrated for her accomplishments at Wolf School. No. She was now only the interloper, the obstacle that had stood between their beloved future Alpha Michael and his chosen Luna, Kathy. The fact that she was the mate the Moon Goddess had given him did not matter anymore.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.