Chapter Eleven!
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CHAPTER ELEVEND
Selene
The silence in the hall felt heavier than a verdict. I stood at the center, the old stone floor beneath my feet colder than the eyes that had watched me walk away once before.
Elder Lysias took a step forward. His eyes, once hard with suspicion, now softened with something I hadn’t seen since I returned–shame.
“I owe you an apology, Princess,” he said, his voice rough like gravel but steady. “We judged with half a story… and a wounded heart. Would you allow us to hear the truth? From your lips. From the beginning.”
I nodded, my hands folded tightly in front of me, pressing down the tremble in my fingers. My voice was a whisper when I spoke. “You want the truth? Then let me take you back to the day I burned everything.“}
-0
I remember the sound of the flames the most.
Not the way the smoke stung my eyes or how my father’s voice broke as he called after me. Not even the weight of the royal sigil I dropped at his feet like ash. It was the fire. The crackling, eating, devouring sound of my life turning to smoke behind me.§
I thought I was brave then. I thought I was running into a new chapter with my mate–Damien, the one the Moon Goddess had chosen for
- me.
I chose him.
Over a crown. Over legacy. Over blood.
Ithought love would be enough.
The Shadowfang Pack welcomed me with icy politeness, their Alpha’s mate a foreign jewel they didn’t ask for. No Luna ceremony. No warm embrace. Just side–eyes, whispers, and a room in the eastern wing that felt more like a guest suite than a home.§
Damien tried at first–he did. I’ll give him that. He held my hand during dinners, stood beside me during meetings, even brought me tea when I was too sick to rise from bed.
But by the second moon, the tea stopped.}
By the third, the silence began.
I wasn’t what they expected. I wasn’t soft–spoken. I asked questions. I tried to lead. I tried to help. But Shadowfang had their own ways- and their own ideas of what a Luna should be.
Damien told me to be patient.
Then he told me to be quiet.}
“You don’t belong here yet,” he said one night, when I’d interrupted a meeting with my suggestion to strengthen the border patrols. “You don’t understand our pack. Just… stay in your lane.“>
Stay in my lane.}
i bit down my tears and wore my silence like a muzzle.
I told myself love required sacrifice.}
But sacrifice is only sacred when it’s mutual.>
I was alone. In a fortress full of wolves. No allies. No friends. Damien spent more time with his Beta than with me, and when I asked about it, he accused me of being insecure.
“Do you think everything revolves around you?” he snapped once, when I asked why he hadn’t come to our room in days. “This isn’t your father’s household. No one worships you here.“}
That night, i slept in the cold bathtub just to feel something.”
I stopped writing letters home after the fifth one went unanswered. I didn’t know he’d been intercepting them.
Every smile Damien once wore for me turned brittle. Every kiss, mechanical. Every touch, fleeting. My mate had become a stranger, and I… I was fading.
But the worst part wasn’t his coldness.”
It was what came next.
The betrayal wasn’t in a moment. It was in a slow unraveling. A shift in his scent when he returned from patrol. The softness in his tone when he spoke someone else’s name.
Elara. His brother’s Mate
I knew before he said it. Before he denied it. Before I found her scarf in his drawer, smelling of moonflower and honey.
Suh, I stayed.
Because I was Luna. Because I had nothing else. Because I still believed he’d remember the girl who gave up the world for him.”
But he didn’t remember
And then… he didn’t care.
The air in the council chamber crackled with tension. Elder Lysias leaned forward, his brows pinched. “Selene… what did he do before he
left?*E
– hranth my that tightening around the woorde “It men’s what he did to me” I whiannand “In what he did to anmanna olen ”
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11:25 AM
The air in the council chamber crackled with tension. Elder Lysias leaned forward, his brows pinched. “Selene… what did he do before he left?”
I drew in a breath, my throat tightening around the words. “It wasn’t what he did to me,” I whispered. “It was what he did to someone else.“}
The room held its breath.
And I let the memory crash in like a wave-
I was going to tell him about the news of my carrying hiz pup, but I was scared so I stood in the hallway when I heard the slap./
Her voice was muffled. Young. Fragile. I turned the corner just in time to see Damien gripping her arm, eyes wild.
She couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
“Get back to your quarters,” he barked.”
“Damien!” I stepped forward, fury rising in my chest. “What are you doing?”
He turned, and for the first time… I saw a stranger in my mate’s eyes.
“She was eavesdropping,” he snapped. “Trying to find dirt to run back to the highest. These damn Omega spies-“}
“She’s just a child,” I said, stepping between them.
And he-
“Selene!” The voice calling my name snapped me out of the memory.”
But the council hall was no longer in focus.
My ears rang with the sound of that girl’s cry.
Of Damien’s hand.
Of the moment my soul snapped in two.
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