Aria's POV
I wake up to the sound of my phone buzzing like an angry hornet.
My head feels like someone hit it with a hammer. My chest aches with every breath—a deep, terrible pain where the mate bond used to be. For one blissful second, I think maybe it was all a nightmare.
Then I see my mother's face.
Elena is sitting in the chair beside my bed, and she looks ten years older than yesterday. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying. When she sees me awake, she lets out a sob that breaks something inside me all over again.
"Baby," she whispers, reaching for my hand. "You've been unconscious for six hours."
Six hours. I blink at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom—the same ceiling I stared at when I was a little girl dreaming about finding my mate someday. The fairy lights I hung when I was fifteen still twinkle above me, mocking me with their cheerful glow.
My phone buzzes again. And again. And again.
"Don't look at it," Mom says quickly, but I'm already reaching for it.
The screen is flooded with notifications. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.
I open the first message. It's from someone I went to school with: OMG I can't believe Damien rejected you at the altar! That's so brutal!
The second: You must be SO embarrassed. Everyone's talking about it.
The third: I always knew you weren't good enough for him tbh.
My hands start shaking. I scroll through more messages—some are sympathetic, but most are cruel. People I thought were friends are gossiping about me like I'm a TV show they're watching.
"Aria, stop." Mom tries to take the phone, but I pull away.
I open social media and immediately wish I hadn't.
The top trending topic is AltarRejection.
There are photos. So many photos. Someone caught the exact moment Damien said those words. My face is frozen in shock, mouth open, eyes wide. I look pathetic. Broken. Weak, just like he said.
Another photo shows me collapsed on the altar steps, my white dress spread around me, my face buried in my hands. The caption reads: When you're too weak to be Luna with a bunch of laughing emojis.
"They were recording," I whisper. My voice sounds dead. "The whole time. Everyone had their phones out."
"Sweetheart, please put it down—"
But I can't stop. I click on a video someone posted. It's the whole rejection, filmed from the front row. Crystal clear audio. I watch myself beg Damien not to do this. Watch myself reach for him while he steps away like I'm diseased.
The comments are worse than the photos.
She's so desperate lol
Damien dodged a bullet. She's crying like a baby
I heard he's been sleeping with Celeste for months. Smart upgrade
That last one makes me want to throw up.
"It's everywhere," Mom says quietly. "The pack news sites, the supernatural networks, even human social media. Someone leaked it to the press."
Of course they did. A public rejection of an Alpha's mate during the actual wedding ceremony? That's never happened before. We're making history. The worst kind.
My wolf stirs inside me—or tries to. But she barely moves. It's like she's wrapped in chains, unable to reach the surface. I try to shift, just to feel her, to know she's still there.
Nothing happens.
Panic claws up my throat. "Mom, I can't—my wolf—"
"I know, baby." Mom's crying again. "The pack doctor came while you were unconscious. He said... he said the rejection trauma broke your connection to your wolf. You might not be able to shift for a while. Maybe... maybe not ever."
The room spins. I'm going to be sick.
Wolves who can't shift are called broken. They're pitied. Avoided. Treated like they're half-alive. And I'm already the girl who got rejected at her own wedding. Now I'm going to be the broken, rejected girl.
"This can't be happening," I whisper.
But it is. And it gets worse.
Because through the shattered remains of the bond—the pieces Damien didn't completely sever—I can still feel him. His emotions bleed into mine like poison in my bloodstream. Right now, he's feeling... happy. Excited. Satisfied.
The pain of it doubles me over. I clutch my chest, gasping.
"What's wrong?" Mom grabs my shoulders. "Aria, talk to me!"
"The bond," I choke out. "It's still there. Broken, but still there. I can feel him, and he's—he's happy, Mom. He's happy he did this to me."
Mom's face goes pale. "That's not possible. A rejection should sever the bond completely."
"Well, it didn't!" I'm shouting now, all the pain turning into anger. "He broke it wrong, or I'm too weak to let go, or—I don't know! But it's there, and it hurts, and I can't make it stop!"
My phone buzzes with a new notification. Against my better judgment, I look.
It's a post from Damien's official pack account.
My blood turns to ice.
The photo shows Damien and Celeste together, his arm around her waist, both of them smiling at the camera. They're dressed casually, like they just took a cute couple photo. Like he didn't destroy me six hours ago.
The caption reads: Looking forward to new beginnings with someone who truly understands what it means to be Luna. Thank you all for your support during this transition.
Transition. Like I'm a phase he's moving past. Like our six years together were just a mistake he's correcting.
And Celeste. My best friend. She's wearing his pack colors. Standing in his house. Looking at him like he hung the moon.
"How long?" I whisper. "How long were they—"
I don't finish the question because another notification pops up. This time it's an invitation.
A formal, embossed digital invitation to an engagement party.
Damien Silvercrest and Celeste Winters request your presence...
The date is three weeks from now.
Three weeks. He's waited six hours since destroying me to announce he's engaged to her. My best friend. The girl who braided my hair and promised she'd never betray me.
Something inside me snaps.
Not the bond—that's already broken. Something deeper. The part of me that was still hoping this was fixable. That maybe Damien would realize he made a mistake. That maybe I could win him back if I just tried harder, became stronger, became better.
That hopeful, stupid part of me dies right there in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by fairy lights and memories of a girl who believed in happy endings.
"Aria?" Mom's voice is scared now. "What are you thinking? You have that look—"
"I'm thinking," I say slowly, my voice eerily calm, "that I need to break this bond. Completely. Forever."
"The doctors said it might fade with time—"
"I don't have time." I meet her eyes, and whatever she sees in my face makes her step back. "Every second I'm connected to him is torture. Feeling his happiness while I'm dying inside? No. I'm done."
"What are you planning?"
I don't answer. Because the idea forming in my head is dangerous. Forbidden. The kind of thing that could kill me.
But right now, death sounds better than living like this.
My phone buzzes one more time. Another message, from a number I don't recognize.
I know how to break the bond. Meet me at the old library tomorrow at midnight. Come alone. —L
My heart stops.
L. There's only one person I know with that initial who would send a message like this.
Lyra. The rogue wolf who doesn't follow pack rules. The girl who knows things she shouldn't. The one who trades in forbidden magic and dangerous secrets.
"Who is it?" Mom asks.
I delete the message before she can see it. "Nobody. Just more gossip."
But my mind is racing. Tomorrow at midnight. The old library—the abandoned one on the edge of pack territory where nobody goes anymore.
If Lyra says she knows how to break the bond, she's talking about dark magic. The kind that's illegal for a reason.
I should ignore the message. Stay safe. Let time heal me like the doctors said.
But through the broken bond, I feel Damien laugh at something Celeste said, and the pain is so sharp I see stars.
No.
I'm not waiting for time to heal me.
I'm going to that library.
And I'm going to break this bond myself—even if it breaks me in the process.