The Alpha Who Let His Luna Die novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Only Fruit
Elora collapses as the sacred tree gives one fruit, and Dorian hands it to Rhea; Elora rejects him before the pack.
The moonfruit tree had bloomed once in thirty years, and it chose the night I was dying.
I lay on a litter at the foot of the tree with my hands cupped over my belly.
Seven months along, and my daughter had not kicked since sundown.
The whole Stonehollow pack stood in a ring around us, three hundred wolves holding their breath.
The healer had told them what the silver in my blood was doing to me.
She had also told them the only cure was the fruit.
One fruit.
It hung from the lowest branch, round and pale as a pearl, glowing a little in the dark.
My mate Dorian stood under it with his hand already raised.
He was the Alpha, so the tree would only give itself to him.
"Take it," I whispered.
I could hardly get the words out.
My lungs had been filling with something heavy for four months.
He didn't look at me.
His fingers closed on the fruit, and it came free with a sound like a snapped twig.
The pack let out a breath together.
I tried to sit up.
My arms shook and gave out.
Dorian turned around with the fruit held against his chest.
His eyes went across the ring of faces and stopped on Rhea.
Rhea Whitcombe was his beta, and she was coughing into a handkerchief.
She had been coughing for two weeks.
Her red hair was stuck to her forehead, and the handkerchief had gone dark.
She looked so small standing there, with all eyes on her.
Dorian walked past my litter.
He walked past me close enough that his boot brushed the blanket.
I said his name.
He kept walking.
"Dorian," I said, louder, and it came out as a cough that tasted of metal.
He stopped in front of Rhea and put the fruit in her hand.
"Eat," he said.
His voice was rough.
Rhea stared at the fruit.
Then she lifted her eyes to mine across the grass, and I saw it.
She was not surprised.
She was not even sorry.
The corner of her mouth moved, very slightly.
"Dorian, I can't," she said softly. "Elora needs it more."
"Eat it," he said again.
Nobody in the ring spoke.
An old man near the front shifted his feet, and a woman put her hand over her mouth.
Not one of them looked at me for long.
I understood what I was watching.
My husband had stood under a tree that bloomed once in thirty years, and he had picked.
He had picked her.
My daughter turned inside me, one weak push against my ribs.
Something in my chest went very quiet and very clear.
I had spent three years being the luna who understood.
The one who waited, who forgave, who made tea for Rhea when Dorian ran late.
I put both hands on the litter and pushed.
It took everything I had left to get my feet under me.
Two of the women moved to help, and I shook my head.
I stood up in front of the pack with my belly out and my knees locked.
"Dorian Stroud," I said.
He turned.
For the first time that night he looked at me directly, and his face was gray.
"Elora, sit down," he said. "Please. You don't understand."
"Then explain it."
He opened his mouth.
His eyes slid sideways to Rhea, and he closed it again.
That was the whole answer.
I nodded once.
The old words came up out of me easily, because I had heard them at other people's rejections, and I had never thought they would be mine.
"I, Elora Tolbert, daughter of the Stonehollow healers, reject you as my mate and my Alpha."
A sound went through the crowd like wind in dry grass.
"I give back your name. I give back your mark. I give back the bond the Moon put on us."
The bite scar on my neck split open and bled hot down my collar.
My wolf screamed inside me.
Dorian's face broke.
He took one step toward me, and his hand came up.
"Elora, don't."
"You had a whole minute," I said. "You could have said a word."
Rhea was still holding the fruit.
Dorian looked at it.
He looked at me.
He did not take it back.
Rhea lifted it to her mouth and bit down, and the pale skin split with a soft wet crack.
The glow slid down her throat.
Color came back into her face right where all three hundred of us could see it.
And my mate stood there and watched her heal, and said nothing at all.
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