Beyond Beta's Rejection

(Louise’s POV)

***Three Months Ago***

I screamed as the o****m ripped through me, and I transcended into complete bliss, my whole body alive with the fires of passion. I looked down at Tommy as I continued to ride him, not wanting this perfect amazing moment to ever end. Tommy’s hands held my h**s in a firm grip as he guided me over and over. I could tell he was lost in his own ecstasy too. Eventually, I collapsed onto his chest, panting and sweating and happy. Tommy’s arms circled me, and he growled contentedly into my ear.

“f**k me baby, that was amazing!” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

“Don’t call me baby,” I responded automatically, and he chuckled. The truth was I liked when he called me that. I liked the idea of being his. I didn’t just like it. I loved it. I was so unbelievably in love with Tommy. Despite the last ten years of pain and misery, he was always a beautiful, strong shining light in everything.

A single tear slipped down my cheek onto his chest, and he lifted his head to look at me. He wiped away the trail that it left behind. I smiled sadly, and he kissed my head.

“Can you stay tonight?” he asked, and I shook my head.

“Damien is being really annoying lately,” I scowled. “He keeps going on about spies or something like that,” Tommy scowled at that but didn’t push. He knew that things at the pack house were a mess. Something had gone wrong in the pack businesses, and tension was high.

Damien was fully aware of where I was. Our marriage was a horror show right from the beginning. I never wanted to marry him. I would have broken the forced mate bond long before now if it wasn’t for him threatening that he would have both Tommy and my brother Alex killed straight away. I knew he would, too. I could see it in his eyes when he said it. My husband was unhinged, but he was nothing compared to his best friend and Beta Colton. I feared the day when they took over this pathetic excuse for a pack.

The pair were immature and maniacal and had way too much power to go with it. But Colton was something else entirely. After we managed to get Harper to safety, he had lost it big time. He had put Alex in the hospital and killed several of the warriors who he blamed for not getting to her in time. Of course, he knew that Tommy and I were a part of her escape, and he paid me back by telling my father that I was sleeping with Tommy. My father had gone mental at that and demanded I stop seeing him. It got worse when he found out that Tommy was my fated mate.

He told me right there, not two days after Harper had gone, I would be mating with Damien. I had refused, of course, but they kept me locked in my room, and the next I knew, it was announced that we were to be mated. That was when the first threat came. My own father saying that he would kill his own son while he lay in a coma was one of the coldest things I had seen. But it was nothing on him holding me down while I screamed as Damien completed the mating ceremony, shattering my bond with Tommy. The weeks that followed were just as bad as I was introduced to the perverse nature of the people I had lived with my whole life.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

I knew what had happened with Harper and half expected it when Colton began to join us in the bedroom. But the hate that Colton had for me for helping Harper leave him was so evident in his actions, and I would often have to spend days in bed recovering from it as Damien would tell me that it would be alright. He never once lifted a finger against his friend.

Colton had somewhat calmed down in his anger after a while, but there was a more sinister thing about him. He kept saying he would bide his time until his mate returned, and he knew she would come back soon. I prayed to the moon goddess every night that I would never see my best friend again because if I did then, I couldn’t even imagine what Colton would do to her.

It was three years into this nightmare that I finally snapped. Damien watched as Colton worked himself inside me, not knowing that I had gotten my hand on a steak knife from the kitchen. I slipped my hand under the pillow and felt for the handle. I closed my fingers around the hilt and pulled it out with every intention of sinking it into Colton’s throat. But Damien had realised and jumped in the way, and the blade went into his arm instead. They were both furious, and I ended up beaten and locked in a cell overnight. The next morning my father, Alpha Daniel, and Beta Eric all visited me in the cell, and my father added to the bruises that were already decorating my now weakened body.

The Alpha declared that I needed to be conditioned to the role of a Luna and learn my place. I told them that I would kill them all in their sleep if they ever let me out to just put me out of my misery. Of course, they didn’t. But our Luna, Alice, had suggested that the appearance mattered, and as long as the pack believed that we were a strong unit, it didn’t matter what happened in reality. Negotiations had started there. There would be no more sharing with Colton, but I would agree to produce an heir for Damien and attend all the functions and events as the dutiful future Luna. In return, I would be afforded some freedom, although I knew I was being followed everywhere I went.

The first place I went when they let me leave was Tommy’s. I hoped to the goddess that he hadn’t left the pack or moved on to another mate. It was selfish of me to want him to wait for me, but I was ready to be selfish. I knocked on Tommy’s door, and when he opened it, I threw myself into his arms in tears. Things got better after that, and after his initial outburst of murderous rage, I was able to calm him down. Despite our shattered bond, it was still there, in pieces, at the bottom of my heart. Over the next seven years, we slowly rebuilt our bond. We spent occasional nights together where we could, and Tommy helped me deal with and heal from what I had suffered.

I still wasn’t fully healed, and living in the house, sleeping in the bed with some of the worst monsters I have ever known, was still wearing on my soul. But Damien and I had slipped into a weekly arrangement in the interest of producing this heir, while I added the hope that I would never fall pregnant to him to my list of prayers to the moon goddess.

Tommy squeezed me in his arms, bringing me back to the present, and I sighed. I glanced at the clock on his bedside table and g*****d. It was just after 5 pm, and I had to be at the laughable pack family dinner by 6 pm. I climbed out of bed and the warm embrace of my lover and hunted around for my clothes. I could feel Tommy’s eyes on me as I moved about the room.

“It’s rude to stare,” I said as I looked over my shoulder with a coy smile, and he grinned.

“Can’t help it, baby, when a piece of heaven is walking around my room, I have no choice but to worship,” I rolled my eyes at the cheesy line, but my heart fluttered a little too.

“You have dinner tonight, right?” he asked. He had long since been banned from the pack dinner after several threats against Damien. I was shocked that he hadn’t been dragged off to the cells or banished with the stuff Tommy did. He always said they wouldn’t do the first and couldn’t do the second. Not while his i***t brother continued to turn his back on the family name. I asked what he meant, but he just smiled.

“So it’s minimal warriors on duty then?” Tommy asked, and I looked at him puzzled.

“What are you up to?” I asked, and he shrugged.

“Absolutely nothing, baby. Are you sure you can’t miss the dinner?” I shook my head. It was part of the agreement that I put a united face on at the pack events. I didn’t also add that tonight was the night I spent with Damien. He knew it happened but didn’t want to know when. Thankfully our bond was still fragile enough that he didn’t feel it, or if he did, he never said it.

I leaned in to k**s him before leaving and heading up to the pack house. I got there just as the first pack member was approaching, and Damien caught hold of my arm as soon as I walked into the building.

“You are late!” he hissed as he pushed me up towards the main hall, “and you stink of that mutt” I glanced at my phone.

“I have fifteen minutes,” I declared, and he growled at me. He was even worse today, and I decided not to push my luck as we made our way up to the main table. I sat down next to Alice, and she smiled at me. Her hand reached under the table, and she squeezed mine ever so gently. I smiled at her in return, grateful for the saving grace she had been during these years.

We were just beginning the first course not half an hour later when the main hall doors flew open, and many unknown wolves flooded into the room. In the centre of them, looking like the very essence of dominant Alpha, stood a man in a black suit with a redshirt. He smiled as he watched all of us, his eyes finally landing on Alpha Daniel.

“Alpha Daniel Chambers, I Alpha Elias Owens challenge you to the ownership of the Midnight Moon pack.”