Page 40 of Rejected By My Shadow Alpha
"Hmmm…" I typed. "That must've been hard. Especially after all these years."
"It was," she wrote. "Still is. Seeing him again feels like being haunted while wide awake." There was another lull. Then came more. "He's my fated mate. The same one who rejected me to punish my bloodline."
I stopped breathing. It must have been hard for her to see me again. I felt the stab of regret and pain in my gut.
I sent a shocked emoji. "That must've been crushing. Have you been able to talk to anyone about it? Just to feel a bit lighter?"
Her reply came after a long pause. "No. I mean, I wanted to, but I haven't been able to bring myself to trust anyone with that kind of pain." Another pause. "My herbal partner and I are close, but we've both avoided digging too deep into our pasts or why we ran to Littleton. We feel like it's safer that way."
I stared at the screen, my chest tight. Then I typed slowly: "You could talk to me if it helps. No pressure. Just if it'll ease the weight a little."
She didn't respond right away, but I saw the dots flicker. Then fade. Then flicker again. "I've spent years trying to heal from that night, and now here he is, breathing again in my world. I keep waiting to wake up from it." A single crying emoji.
I felt something press deep into my chest. Her words slammed into me, sharp and unfiltered. I buried my face in my hands. This was agony. I was both the sanctuary she turned to and the storm that destroyed her.
I typed, then deleted. Typed again. Deleted. Finally, I settled on: "I'm so sorry to hear all of this. It must have been hard for you." Then I added, "That's a lot to carry, Moonleaf, and if I'm honest, I wasn't sure you'd even tell me this much."
Her reply was quiet and tentative: "Neither was I, but you've been kind. I don't know why, but it's easier to say things to you."
I hovered. Coward. My fingers trembled. Then I added another line: "You must hate him now—the alpha."
It was the closest I could get to asking what I really wanted to know. She didn't reply right away. I imagined her staring at the screen, debating whether I was worth the truth. The dots flickered.
"I want to hate him," she wrote. "But I don't know how to stop this ache. It's like my bones remember him, even when my heart is breaking."
I stared, unmoving. A low groan slipped past my throat before I could stop it. Goddess. Her words scorched through me, raw, unfiltered, and aching, and all I could think was: Me too. My body remembered her like a fire that it never forgot how to burn for—the curve of her mouth, the softness of her breath, and the way her soul felt like home even in silence. She still ached for me, and I was drowning in my own hunger for her.
"I keep telling myself he's not worth it," she went on. "That I'm stronger now, but the moment I saw him, everythingshattered and realigned at once. Anger. Longing. Grief. They all showed up like ghosts I can't banish. I hate that I still want him."
I read her message three times, my chest tight. She still wanted me. After everything. After the rejection, the silence, and the fake death. I wasn't worth a fraction of it. I should have stopped there. I should have said something kind and closed the chat, but I needed to know.
"I can't imagine the weight you're carrying right now." I paused, typing the next question, deleting it twice before sending. "Is the child his?"
The moment I hit send, guilt roared up my spine. What the hell was I doing? The dots didn't appear. Seconds turned into a full minute. My heart thumped like war drums. Then, finally, I saw typing. It disappeared again, and then I saw typing again. Another pause. At last, her reply dropped.
"Why are you asking that?"
I froze. She wasn't ready to say it. My chest thudded. I had pushed too hard. I typed: "Because you sound like someone who's been carrying too much alone, and sometimes just saying things out loud helps lighten the load."
This time, the silence stretched longer. Then finally: "I didn't mean to say that much earlier," she wrote. "You caught me in a moment. I've never even said those words out loud."
I waited, my breath stuck in my throat.
"I wasn't going to tell anyone," she continued. "Not even my partner, but she has a sharp mind and has known already."
My screen blurred for a second. She was trusting me, the one who hurt her.
"But yes." A beat. "She is. The child…she's his." Then, after a pause, cold, sharp like ice, she added: "But he doesn't know, and he never will. That part of me died the night he marked me and walked away."
The air fled my lungs. Liora was my child.
Then, as if she had to bleed it out before it buried her alive, another message: "I wish I could rip this bond out of me and erase the way his scent torments me, but it's worse now, Wolfsbane. He's the father of my child. The one who abandoned me. I cannot trust him with my child, so he must never know. I'd rather die than let him know."
I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. Her words weren't just confessions. They were shackles and scars, and I had given her every single one.
I pressed my palm to my chest, as if I could slow the storm behind my ribs. How the hell will I fix this? Liora was my child, and I had abandoned her when she needed me the most. My heart thundered in my ears, and suddenly I couldn't sit still.
I pushed up from my chair and stepped into the hallway. The walls felt too narrow and the silence too loud. I needed to see her, just for a moment. Maybe I could explain. Maybe I could ask for another chance to…
