The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: Crown of Thorns Chapter 02

The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: Crown of Thorns Chapter 02

My breath came in ragged pulls, each one scraping my ribs like broken glass. Damien Volkov. The name alone made

my wolf stir-not with fear. With something older. Something I had buried so deep I thought it was dead

“Damien… it’s Sera.”

Silence. Not empty silence-the kind that breathes. The kind that calculates.

“Sera.” He said my name like he was turning a coin in his fingers, examining both sides. “Eight years and you call me

from what sounds like a grave.”

“Please.” My voice cracked apart. “It’s Lily. My daughter. Kael rejected me and he’s keeping her. He gave her to his

mistress. She’s only four-she doesn’t understand-Damien, please, I’m begging you-”

A low sound came through the line. Not a laugh. Something between amusement and contempt.

“So,” he said, “the woman who chose a lesser Alpha over me now needs the wolf she threw away.”

The past hit me like a wall of water.

Eight years ago, before the mating ceremony, before Kael’s pack swallowed my future whole-there had been Damien and me. Two young wolves running through the Blackwood Forest at midnight, drunk on moonlight and the electric pull of something that felt bigger than fate. He was nobody then-a packless rogue with blood on his knuckles and fire in his eyes. His wolf was enormous, terrifying, a beast that made even born Alphas step back. But his name carried

nothing. No territory. No wealth. No alliance.

I remembered the night my father dragged me from Damien’s arms and told me the truth: marry Kael Thornwood or

watch the Volkov family be hunted down and slaughtered. Every last one. Damien’s mother. His younger sister. The

pack of strays he’d gathered and tried to protect. My father would burn them all to secure the Blood Moon alliance.

I remembered Damien on his knees in the rain, gripping my hands, his wolf surging beneath his skin. “Run with me. I’ll

protect you. I’ll protect all of us.”

I remembered choosing survival. I remembered telling him he was nothing-a rogue, a stray, a wolf without a future. I

remembered ripping the braided leather cord he’d woven for me-our bonding promise-and throwing it into the mud.

He picked it up. He didn’t cry. Wolves don’t cry.

But his eyes broke.

“You remember that night, don’t you?” Damien said now, his voice controlled like a blade held perfectly still. “You chose safety. You chose a cage with golden bars. You told me I smelled like dirt and blood.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“And now you’re calling because the cage has teeth.”

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“Yes I had no pride left. Pride was a luxury for wolves who still had their children. “I’ll give you anything. Everything

My body. My servitude. My life. Whatever you want-just bring my daughter home.”

The silence stretched so long I thought the call had dropped.

Then: “You’ll belong to me. Completely. No conditions. No escape. You understand what that means, Sera?”

My wolf whimpered inside me-not with fear, but with something that felt terrifyingly like recognition. Like coming

home.

“Yes,” I breathed. “I understand.”

“Then it’s done. My wolves will find Lily. And when they do-you’re mine. Every breath. Every scar. Everything Kael

threw away.”

The line went dead.

I pressed the phone to my chest and sobbed in the dark, the sound swallowed by stone walls that didn’t care.

Six hours later, the iron door groaned open. One of Kael’s enforcers threw a bundle of clothes at my feet.

“Alpha says get out. Cross the border by dawn or we hunt you down.”

I stumbled into the night, barefoot, half-broken, the exile mark burning on my wrist like a brand. Rain soaked through

me instantly. I made it to the tree line before my phone buzzed.

A message from an unknown number.

A location. A hospital name. A room number.

And below it, three words:

She’s safe. -D

My knees hit the mud.