Page 31 of Rejected by My Shadow Alpha (Mate to the Fallen #1)

Ruby

I paced the length of the room for what felt like the hundredth time, bare feet brushing against the cold marble.

My hands trembled, and I kept wringing them like I could strangle the panic out of me.

The gilded wallpaper, the antique furniture, the familiar scent of sandalwood from my old sheets, it all felt like a cage masquerading as home.

I was back in the prison I once escaped.

Hearing Drew's voice in my head had been the first relief I'd felt in hours since our kidnapping.

I'd nearly fallen to my knees when I felt his presence, warm and steady through the bond.

He was alive. Even now, my heart clung to that moment like a lifeline.

He was coming. I had to believe that, and knowing that became the rope I clung to in this dark sea of madness.

The door clicked and creaked open.

I spun around just as the two guards from before stepped in, emotionless and mechanical. Wordlessly, they approached. I lifted my chin, steadying my breath. They grabbed my arms anyway, dragging me forward. I didn't resist. I was done wasting energy on fights I couldn't win. This is not the time.

I needed to see Liora. I needed to know if she was okay. They led me through winding corridors lined with towering portraits of Cornerstone ancestors, their painted eyes full of disappointment. My heart pounded as we stopped at a steel-reinforced door. One of the guards keyed in a code.

The door clicked open to a cold, white room. I was led inside, and my breath caught. I saw her.

Liora.

She was strapped into a metal chair, thick cuffs around her small wrists and ankles, wires crawling across her temple, her chest, and her ankles.

Tubes ran from her arms into a machine I didn't recognize.

It thrummed like a living thing, pulsing with power.

She was unconscious or asleep. Her silver lashes fluttered slightly.

"Liora!" I screamed and moved to run toward her, but the guards yanked me back and shoved me into another chair, directly facing her.

"No…don't do this!" I cried, yanking at the cuffs. "What have you done to her? Let me go!"

Then I saw my father standing across from us in the room, like this was just another routine activity.

His expression was calm, his hands folded, and there was a ghost of pride in his eyes as if he was already celebrating victory.

Then, beside my child, standing in her crisp, unbothered poise, was someone I never imagined seeing here…

Lena.

My stomach twisted violently. My eyes widened, disbelieving.

"You," I breathed. "You're the traitor?" The same Lena who had pleaded with me to let Drew heal my child?

She had followed him to my house. I had expected a young, angry wolf to be the mole, not this calm, older wolf with a charming personality. Who would have thought?

My father gave a small, mocking smile. "Why do you look so surprised, Ruby? Did you think your precious Drew outwitted me for this long without help?"

Lena didn't flinch. She merely nodded, cold and collected. "Hi, Ruby. This is me unmasked." She said with a dry chuckle.

I stared at her, shaking my head slowly. So, it was her after all, the one behind the attacks on my child, the one in the clownish mask. "Why, Lena? You fought beside Drew. He trusted you. Why betray your own pack?"

"My own pack?" she snapped, her mask of composure finally cracking. "They betrayed me first."

She turned slightly, her eyes narrowing with a sharp, haunted glint.

"No one gave more to Lunaris than I did.

I was the most loyal and the most dedicated.

I stood by the alpha's side for decades.

We grew up together. I trained with him, bled with him, built that pack with him…

" Her voice faltered, a tremor breaking through her carefully guarded tone.

"It was supposed to be us," she whispered.

"For years, I thought he loved me. Everyone loved us, and then your mother showed up…

" she sneered, the word bitter on her tongue.

"This girl from Germany who'd never lived a day in Lunaris.

She didn't grow up among us, didn't earn our trust, but one look…

that's all it took. One look and suddenly, the mate bond was enough to erase everything he and I had. "

Lena's expression twisted with pain and regret, maybe even heartbreak.

"He made her Luna within a year, just like that, after twenty-two years of loyalty.

He didn't even look back. I begged him to reconsider.

My Uncle, my only surviving guardian, was the only one who understood, but he, too, asked me to accept fate's verdict.

The elders ignored me and accepted her." She let out a low, humorless laugh.

"They all betrayed me. I became a cautionary tale, the one everyone pitied. "

Then her gaze turned cold again, steel-hard. "So, when my alpha chose a girl he barely knew over me, and the whole pack stood behind it like nothing had been lost… that day, they lost my loyalty."

My blood went cold. "You mean my mother?"

She nodded.

I blinked. "But fate chose them, they were fated mates. Why was that so hard for you two to accept?" I challenged them

Lena's jaw clenched. "That cursed bond. One look was all it took.

She was his, and he was hers. Nothing else mattered.

" She looked away, as if hiding the sting still lingering after all these years.

"She told Alfred that she didn't betray, she simply followed the bond, but in doing so, she destroyed me. "

My father sighed, his expression cold. "And so, Lena and I found a common ground in our betrayal.

Her heart was broken, and mine was furious.

Lunaris had wealth, territory, and loyalty that the Council envied.

It was a simple equation. I offered the others a taste of what Lunaris owned in exchange for looking the other way. "

I stared at him, disgust clawing up my throat. "You used her to get your hands on Lunaris' wealth," I whispered, turning to Lena.

Lena's eyes cut to him, filled with the sharpness of something long buried.

"Don't flatter yourself, Ruby. I knew exactly what I was getting into," she said, her voice was cold, but there was a tremble beneath it.

"The plan was to dismantle Lunaris, to take control, not to slaughter them, not to murder him. "

She stepped toward Alfred, rage flashing in her eyes like lightning cracking the sky. "You killed him, Alfred. That wasn't part of the deal."

My father didn't flinch. "As long as Betty was alive, there was no way I'd let him live," he said, his voice like frost. "She made her choice, so he had to go."

I felt the breath leave my lungs.

Lena stared at him like he was something foul that had crawled out of the grave.

"You cold, calculating bastard," she hissed.

"You killed the only man I ever loved, and you kept yours.

You let Betty live locked in your mansion to satisfy your sexual fantasies while you ripped mine away like he was nothing. "

Her voice cracked then, but she didn't stop. "You used me, and I let you. I thought I could control the fire, but you burned down everything." Her fists trembled at her sides. "He was good, you know. He would have spared you, but you made sure there was no mercy left."

Alfred's jaw tensed, but he said nothing.

"And now you want to do the same to her child?" Lena spat, her voice lower now but filled with venom. "You still don't see the cost, do you?"

"Enough!" My father snapped, his eyes cold and hard. "All of that is in the past now. We are here now, Lena, you and I. Let's wrap this up and go our separate ways. He is dead, and so is Betty. We both lost them, okay? This bickering will get us nowhere now."

A silence fell, one that stung and crackled with all the things left unsaid.

"I left New York after that," Lena continued, her voice thinner now, pain bleeding through.

"There was nothing left for me, nothing but ghosts.

I'd lost everything." Her gaze flicked to my father, bitter and scornful.

"But the Goddess didn't let it end there.

She took Betty from you. She made you pay. "

I shook my head slowly, sick to my stomach. "You hated each other and still, you banded together to destroy an entire pack." It didn't make sense.

Lena's laugh was short and humorless. "We didn't need to like each other. We just needed a shared enemy, and the entire Lunaris was our common enemy."

She walked over to the chest and let her hand hover above it, her expression cooling again. "But Alfred paid for his recklessness. He didn't realize the chest was blood-sealed and only an alpha of Lunaris blood could open it. When he killed the alpha, the key died with him."

"And the whole plan crumbled," I said, oddly satisfied that their smooth schemes were frustrated for years.

"Yes. Until Drew returned seven years ago, claws full of vengeance, and just like that, the game reset," she said softly, almost to herself.

"Back then, he didn't know who Drew really was.

He thought he was just another rogue wolf who survived the purge, a stray with nothing to lose.

He had no idea Drew was the heir, the alpha's nephew.

He believed he'd wiped out the bloodline when he burned Lunaris to the ground. "

My stomach turned. "So, when did he find out?"

"The night I saw Drew alive, some months ago, when I moved to the safe house," Lena said quietly. "That was when I called Alfred. I told him the alpha of Lunaris had survived, the same one who died in the car crash, and that he was the only one who could open the chest."