Chapter 31 What You Lost
ELARA
The roar of the crowd is a drug. It sings in my blood, a wild, heady music that tastes like victory. We walk away from the strength trials, and the people are chanting our name. Crescent Moon. The pack of strays. The underdogs. We are their story now.
Rhys is laughing, a deep, booming sound, clapping Anya on the back. She swats him away, but she is smiling, her eyes bright with a pride so fierce it’s a light of its own.
I need a moment. A pocket of silence in the storm. I slip away while the others are mobbed by well wishers from other small packs. I find a quiet corner behind the equipment tents, the canvas walls muffling the noise to a dull, distant thunder.
I lean against a wooden support post, my body aching in the best way. My bandaged hand throbs with a dull, steady rhythm. We won. We actually won. With our minds. With our teamwork.
“I knew I would find you hiding.”
The voice is a ghost from another life. Damon.
He steps out from between two tents, blocking my only exit. He looks different away from the arena lights. The arrogance is still there, a shield he wears like armor. But underneath, his eyes are a storm of something else. Something unsettled.
“I am not hiding,” I say. My voice is steady. Cold.
“No?” He takes a step closer. The scent of him, pine and something sharp and possessive, fouls the air. “Looked like it to me. Can’t handle the attention?”
“I can handle it just fine. I was just taking a breath before the next trial.”
“The trials.” He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “I have to admit, you have been full of surprises. The maze. The way you used my own warriors against themselves in the hunt. It was… clever.”
He says the word like he is tasting something unfamiliar. Like he is assessing a weapon he did not know he had in his arsenal.
“I was a fool, Elara,” he says, his voice dropping, taking on a softer, more intimate tone that makes my skin crawl. “I was young. Arrogant. I had the weight of the pack on my shoulders.”
I just stare at him. I say nothing. I will not make this easy for him.
“I made a mistake,” he says, the words a low confession. “A terrible one. I should never have rejected you.”
He lies, Luna snarls in my head. Her voice is a low, vicious hum. His words are hollow stones. He feels no regret. Only loss.
“You are right,” I say. “You did make a mistake.”
His face brightens. A flicker of triumph. He thinks this is a negotiation. He thinks I am waiting for an apology so I can fall back into his orbit.
He takes another step. He is too close now. He raises a hand, as if to touch my face. I flinch back before he can.
His hand drops. The frustration in his eyes is sharp, immediate. “Don’t do that,” he says, his voice losing its softness. “Don’t pretend there is nothing between us. We both feel it. The bond.”
“The scar, you mean.”
“It’s not a scar,” he insists, his voice intense. “It’s a connection. A sign from the Goddess that we belong together. She is giving us a second chance, Elara. Don’t you see? Your wolf finally came. You’re strong now. You’re what I always needed.”
And there it is. The truth. Not what he lost. But what he needs.
A cold, clean disgust washes through me. It is a welcome tide, clearing away the last lingering ghosts of pain.
“What you needed?” I repeat, my voice dangerously quiet. “You didn’t need me. You needed a winner. You needed a strong wolf to help you win your precious Games. And when I didn’t have one, you threw me away.”
“I did it for the pack!”
“You did it for yourself,” I correct him, my voice like ice. “And now you see me winning without you. You see this pack, my pack, winning the crowd. You don’t want me, Damon. You want to take back the asset you misjudged. You see a prize you discarded, and your pride can’t stand it.”
His face twists into an ugly snarl. The mask of contrition is gone. The possessive Alpha is all that is left.
“You are my mate,” he says, the words a low, guttural claim. “That bond proves it. You belong to me. Not to him. Not to this pack of rejects.”
“That bond is a memory of a wound you gave me,” I say, my voice rising, shaking with a cold, clear fury. “It is not a leash you can use to pull me back whenever you feel like it.”
I take a step toward him, closing the distance myself, claiming the space. I look him right in his shocked, golden eyes.
“You lost any right to me the day you stood in front of our family and called me a liability,” I tell him. “You lost any right to my wolf the moment you chose a game over a gift from the Goddess.”
He is speechless. He looks like I have physically struck him.
“You wanted a strong mate, Damon,” I say, my voice dropping to a final, dismissive whisper. “You should have looked harder.”
I turn my back on him. I do not wait for his answer. I do not care what it is.
I walk away, leaving him standing alone in the shadows, stunned into silence.
I step back out into the light, back toward the roar of the crowd and the sound of my pack, my family, calling my name.
He did not just lose me. He has now been told.
And I have never felt more free.