Chapter 3
I stood in Eleanor's chamber, my fingers trembling as I arranged the sacred items for her passing ceremony. Though Marcus had postponed the official ritual, I couldn't bear the thought of her spirit wandering without proper guidance to the Moon Goddess. The ancestral veil—shimmering silver threads that had adorned generations of Shadowcrest Lunas—lay delicately across the ceremonial table. Beside it, the lunar chalice gleamed in the soft candlelight, its surface etched with ancient pack symbols.
*She deserves this much,* Lyra whispered inside me. *Even if no one else honors her.*
"I know," I murmured, carefully positioning the bundle of lunar herbs I'd gathered. Each item held memories—Eleanor showing me their significance, teaching me the traditions that Marcus so carelessly discarded.
The door burst open without warning. Victoria stood in the threshold, her eyes narrowing as they swept over the ceremonial display. The scent of her artificial perfume—cloying and overwhelming—flooded the room, making Lyra recoil.
"Playing Luna again?" Victoria's voice dripped with contempt as she sauntered toward the table. "How pathetic."
I stepped protectively in front of Eleanor's treasures. "These are sacred items for her passing ceremony. Please leave."
Victoria's laugh was sharp, cutting. "Sacred? They're just old trinkets from a woman who couldn't even protect herself from a few rogues." Her hand shot out, knocking the lunar chalice to the floor with a sickening clang. "Your self-indulgent drama is becoming tiresome, Aria."
Horror froze me as she deliberately swept her arm across the table, sending the ancestral veil fluttering to the ground. The lunar herbs scattered, their precious blue petals crushed beneath her heel as she ground them into the floor.
"Stop!" I lunged forward, but she was already lifting Eleanor's silver ceremonial dagger—the final piece I'd laid out.
"What will you do?" she taunted, dangling the blade before me. "Call for your mate? Oh wait—he rejected you." With a flick of her wrist, she sent the dagger clattering across the room. "Just like everyone else."
Lyra snarled inside me, her rage building as Victoria systematically destroyed each sacred item. The sound of footsteps in the hallway drew my attention—pack members gathering, drawn by the commotion. Their expressions ranged from shock to uncomfortable fascination as they witnessed Victoria's desecration.
"She's destroying Luna Eleanor's ceremonial items," someone whispered.
Another voice joined in. "This isn't right..."
The murmurs grew, a current of unease rippling through the onlookers. Victoria's smile faltered slightly as she sensed the shift in atmosphere.
Heavy footsteps silenced the whispers. Marcus appeared in the doorway, his imposing figure casting a shadow across the threshold. His eyes took in the scene—the scattered items, Victoria standing triumphantly amid the destruction, my trembling form trying to salvage what I could.
For one breathless moment, I thought he might see the truth. That he might honor his mother enough to stop this sacrilege.
Instead, his face hardened. He slammed his Alpha staff against the floor, the sound reverberating through the chamber like a crack of thunder.
"Enough!" His Alpha tone washed over the gathering, making several pack members flinch. "Once again, you sow discord in my pack, Aria."
Disbelief rendered me speechless. "I—"
"Silence!" Marcus cut me off, his eyes flashing dangerously. "You dare to taint my chosen Luna's joy with your theatrics? On the eve of her marking ceremony?"
Victoria moved to his side, pressing herself against him with practiced vulnerability. "She frightened me, Marcus. I only came to pay my respects to your mother."
The lie was so blatant, so absurd that I expected someone—anyone—to speak up. But the pack members lowered their eyes, their silence a betrayal that cut deeper than any knife.
"You have disrespected me for the last time," Marcus declared, his voice cold with finality. He turned to the gathered pack. "From this moment forward, you will ignore the rejected mate. She is nothing to this pack."
His gaze returned to me, and I saw no trace of the man who had once been my mate. Only the Alpha remained—cruel and unyielding.
"As punishment for your actions," he continued, his Alpha tone intensifying, "you are stripped of your rank. You will be moved to the omega quarters immediately."
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Even by the standards of our harsh pack, this was extreme—to demote a true mate, rejected or not, to omega status was almost unheard of.
"Marcus, please," I whispered, one final appeal to whatever remained of our bond.
He turned away, dismissing me entirely. "See that she receives only what an omega deserves," he instructed a nearby Delta. "Stale bread. Water. Nothing more."
As rough hands guided me from the room, I caught a final glimpse of Eleanor's treasures—broken, scattered, desecrated. Just like the last shreds of my dignity in this pack that had never truly been mine.
Lyra curled inside me, her presence a small comfort in the growing darkness. *This isn't over,* she promised fiercely. *Something is coming. I can feel it.*
I didn't know then how right she was—or how soon the tides would turn.
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