# Chapter 3: The Rejection
Kael's hand closed around Lyra's throat—not to kill, but to lift her to her feet, to display her to the thousands who watched with bated breath.
Lyra's hope fractured.
The bond sang between them, a golden thread of impossible recognition that pulled at something deep in her chest. Mate. Mine. Ours. The words whispered through her blood like a promise from the Moon Goddess herself.
But his eyes—those cold, ice-blue eyes—held nothing but disgust.
"No," she whispered, the word broken. "Please—"
His grip tightened, cutting off her air. The Conclave had fallen utterly silent. Thousands of Lycans held their breath as the Alpha King touched an Omega, lifting her like she weighed nothing, like she was nothing.
"Kael, no!" Marcus's shout cut through the silence, desperate and raw.
But Kael's Alpha Voice rose like a tidal wave, crushing all dissent beneath its weight. The command to silence rippled across the assembled crowd, forcing every wolf—even the strongest Alphas—to swallow their words.
Lyra dangled from his grip, her toes scraping marble, chains rattling. Through the haze of oxygen deprivation, she saw Lady Seraphina rise from the throne, her beautiful face twisted with vicious satisfaction.
She knows, Lyra realized with dawning horror. She knows what he's going to do.
Kael's voice rang out across the Conclave grounds, cold and absolute.
"The Goddess has made an error."
Gasps rippled through the crowd. To question the Moon Goddess's will was blasphemy—but if anyone could commit such sacrilege and survive, it was the King of Alphas.
"This weak, packless Dreg," he continued, each word a dagger, "is not fit to stand at my side."
The bond screamed at Lyra to fight, to beg, to submit—anything but this. Her wolf clawed at her insides, howling in anguish as instinct warred with the reality of rejection.
She tried to pull away, but his grip was iron.
"I, King Kael of the Red Moon Pack," he pronounced, his voice carrying the weight of ancient ritual, "reject this weak, packless Dreg as my fated mate and my Queen."
The words hit Lyra like a physical blow.
Something inside her chest tore.
Not metaphorically. Not emotionally.
Literally ripped apart, as if Kael had reached into her ribcage and shredded her soul with his bare hands.
She couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. The pain was everywhere and nowhere, a white-hot agony that consumed thought, consumed self, consumed everything but the awareness that she was being unmade.
The crowd erupted.
"STRENGTH IS ABSOLUTE!" they chanted, fists pounding against armor, feet stamping the ground in thunderous approval. "STRENGTH IS ABSOLUTE!"
Kael released her.
Lyra crumpled to the marble like a broken doll, her chains clattering. She tried to curl into herself, but her body wouldn't obey. Every nerve ending burned. The severed bond felt like her soul was being dragged behind a horse, torn to shreds against stone.
Above her, Kael staggered.
His hand pressed to his chest where an unexpected lance of pain shot through him—sharp, wrong, agonizing. He forced himself to stand tall, jaw clenched, refusing to show weakness before his court.
It's temporary, he told himself. The pain will pass.
But it didn't feel temporary. It felt like something vital had been cut away.
"Kael—" Marcus was beside him in an instant, his face pale with horror. "Do you know what you've done? The bond cannot be—"
"Silence." Kael's snarl cut through Marcus's words. He straightened, forcing iron into his spine despite the wrongness spreading through his chest like poison. "It is done."
Lady Seraphina glided to his side, her movements predatory and triumphant. She took his arm possessively, her touch cold compared to the phantom heat still burning where Lyra's scent had invaded his senses.
"The King has chosen strength over sentiment!" Seraphina proclaimed loudly, her voice carrying across the cheering masses. "Let no one question his wisdom!"
The Alphas roared approval. The Betas echoed the chant. Even the Omegas in the shadows whispered prayers of gratitude that it wasn't them bleeding on the marble.
On the ground, Lyra writhed.
She couldn't form words. Couldn't think past the agony. Distantly, she heard boots approaching, felt hands—gentler than they should be—lifting her.
"I've got you," a familiar voice whispered. Mira. The older Omega from the holding pen, her weathered face creased with grief. "Hold on. Just hold on."
Another set of hands helped lift Lyra's limp body. Together, they began dragging her toward the stairs, away from the dais, away from the king who had destroyed her.
Lyra's vision blurred. Tears mixed with something else—blood? No. Silver. Silver light, flickering at the edges of her sight.
The crowd's jeering followed her like a physical weight.
"Weak!"
"Pathetic!"
"The King was right to reject such filth!"
Each word was a stone added to the crushing weight on her chest.
Kael watched her removal with forced indifference, but his jaw clenched tighter with each step the servants took. The pain in his chest wasn't fading. If anything, it was intensifying—a slow, creeping wrongness that wrapped around his ribs like thorned vines.
He ignored it. He had made his choice. He was the Alpha King, and he did not bend.
In the crowd, hidden among the common wolves, an ancient woman turned her blind eyes toward the broken Omega being carried away. Elder Elara's lips moved soundlessly, whispering words in a language older than the packs themselves.
"When the King of Strength forsakes his fated heart," she murmured, "the Moon shall weep."
Beside her, a Beta with a soldier's posture and exile's eyes watched King Kael with barely concealed fury. Finn's hands clenched into fists, his wolf snarling beneath his skin.
He had sworn never to kneel to another Alpha.
But as the broken Omega disappeared into the shadows of the fortress, something told him his oath was about to change.
The Conclave returned to its festivities. Wine flowed. Alphas boasted of their territories. Lady Seraphina held court at Kael's side, radiant in her victory.
But beneath the marble dais, in the cold darkness of the holding pen, Lyra's body convulsed with agony.
And deep within her shattered soul, something ancient stirred.
Something that had been waiting.
Something that remembered what it meant to be a goddess.