Rejected, Reborn, and Ruthless: A Lunas Revenge Chapter 07

Rejected, Reborn, and Ruthless: A Lunas Revenge Chapter 07 – The Whole Territory Is Watching

I didn’t answer him.

I did something much better.

I listed all six pieces of raid steel on the Realm Exchange at midnight, no reserve, thirty-minute auctions, under the

seller name HOLLOW.

By 12:04 a.m., the Exchange forums had lost their minds.

who is HOLLOW

that’s pre-war Stonehide steel. that’s from the Grey Cairn. nobody has cracked the Grey Cairn since 1806

it’s a hoax

it is NOT a hoax I bid on the vambraces and the authentication came back clean

six pieces. SIX. that’s a full cairn clear. what pack did this??

By 12:31, I’d made 2.4 million.

By 1:00 a.m., three separate Alphas had messaged the seller account offering to buy HOLLOW’s contract outright.

By 2:00 a.m., someone had posted grainy drone footage of a small dark-haired woman on foot outrunning five Stonehides in a shrinking circle, and the internet had decided she was a myth, a Kaldrenn spy, or a god.

I wired nine hundred thousand to the Pits at 2:15 a.m.

At 2:16, I burned Rhys’s contract in an ashtray in a motel outside Grey Hollow, and we watched it curl to nothing together.

“You’re free,” I said. “As of now. Legally, spiritually, and every other way. No bond. No oath. Nothing holding you.”

He looked at the ashes for a long moment.

Then he crossed the room, went down on one knee in front of my chair, and took my hand in both of his ruined ones.

“Wren Calloway,” he said. “I’ve been someone’s property since I was fifteen. I know exactly what it’s worth, what you just did, and exactly what it cost you.” His thumb moved once across my knuckles. “So understand me. I’m not staying because you bought me. I’m staying because you freed me and I’ve decided to spend it on you.”

I have been rejected in front of two hundred people. I have been stabbed by my own sister.

Nothing has ever gutted me like that.

“Get up,” I whispered, “before I do something stupid.”

He looked up at me through those storm-grey lashes.

“Define stupid.”

The news broke at 6 a.m., and it wasn’t about me.

ASCENSION TRIALS: FIRST RANKINGS RELEASED.

Every century, when the fog line thins, the Moon opens the Trials – and every pack in every realm throws its best into

the pit to claw for territory. Rankings mean land. Land means resources. Resources mean who’s standing when the

wars come.

I already knew what the board would say. I’d watched it happen once.

Kaldrenn- Bloodmoor Pack.
Kaldrenn Ironfen Pack.
Vashka
–

House Morrow.

4-9. Kaldrenn, Vashka, Kaldrenn, Vashka…

Solvaine – my realm, my home, my forty thousand dead – placed nothing in the top hundred. Not one pack. Not one

name.

The forums filled with Kaldrenn wolves laughing at us before breakfast.

solvaine packs are bookkeepers with fur

they’ll surrender before the first snow

save your energy boys, they’ll open the gates for us

–

And the worst part – the part that made me put my fist through a motel wall was Solvaine’s own people agreeing.

honestly? they’re right.

why even compete. it’s rigged.

I’m withdrawing my pack. It’s not worth the casualties.

I know how this ends. I lived it. This is exactly how it starts not with an invasion, but with a whole country being

talked out of believing it can win, twelve months in advance, by people getting paid to say it.

I stared at that leaderboard until my eyes burned.

Then I opened the Trials registration page.

PACK NAME:

Rhys read over my shoulder. “You need a pack of at least two to register.”

“I have two.”

He went very still. “Wren-”

I typed it in.

PACK NAME: HOLLOW.

ALPHA: WREN CALLOWAY.

REALM: SOLVAINE.

ENTRIES: 2.

And then, because the Trials were regional and the Silverpine grounds hosted our whole province, I hit submit and

knew exactly whose ring I’d be walking into in eleven days.

My phone buzzed again.

Cassie: the elders are summoning you, freak. Damien says if you don’t come home he’ll declare you rogue.

I typed back one word.

Good.