Page 68 of Rejected By My Shadow Alpha
I stood, trembling. "No. I don't need to try again." I looked toward the front door. "I know where they are now, and I know someone who can take me there."
I clenched my fists. Alpha Alfred had taken my mate and my daughter like he had taken everything I had left in this world in the past, but now, I would strike back with no warning.
The game had changed.
Chapter 30
Ruby
I paced the length of the room for what felt like the hundredth time, bare feet brushing against the cold marble. My hands trembled, and I kept wringing them like I could strangle the panic out of me. The gilded wallpaper, the antique furniture, the familiar scent of sandalwood from my old sheets, it all felt like a cage masquerading as home.
I was back in the prison I once escaped.
Hearing Drew's voice in my head had been the first relief I'd felt in hours since our kidnapping. I'd nearly fallen to my knees when I felt his presence, warm and steady through the bond. He was alive. Even now, my heart clung to that moment like a lifeline. He was coming. I had to believe that, and knowing that became the rope I clung to in this dark sea of madness.
The door clicked and creaked open.
I spun around just as the two guards from before stepped in, emotionless and mechanical. Wordlessly, they approached. I lifted my chin, steadying my breath. They grabbed my armsanyway, dragging me forward. I didn't resist. I was done wasting energy on fights I couldn't win. This is not the time.
I needed to see Liora. I needed to know if she was okay. They led me through winding corridors lined with towering portraits of Cornerstone ancestors, their painted eyes full of disappointment. My heart pounded as we stopped at a steel-reinforced door. One of the guards keyed in a code.
The door clicked open to a cold, white room. I was led inside, and my breath caught. I saw her.
Liora.
She was strapped into a metal chair, thick cuffs around her small wrists and ankles, wires crawling across her temple, her chest, and her ankles. Tubes ran from her arms into a machine I didn't recognize. It thrummed like a living thing, pulsing with power. She was unconscious or asleep. Her silver lashes fluttered slightly.
"Liora!" I screamed and moved to run toward her, but the guards yanked me back and shoved me into another chair, directly facing her.
"No…don't do this!" I cried, yanking at the cuffs. "What have you done to her? Let me go!"
Then I saw my father standing across from us in the room, like this was just another routine activity. His expression was calm, his hands folded, and there was a ghost of pride in his eyes as if he was already celebrating victory. Then, beside my child, standing in her crisp, unbothered poise, was someone I never imagined seeing here…
Lena.
My stomach twisted violently. My eyes widened, disbelieving. "You," I breathed. "You're the traitor?" The same Lena who had pleaded with me to let Drew heal my child? She had followed him to my house. I had expected a young, angrywolf to be the mole, not this calm, older wolf with a charming personality. Who would have thought?
My father gave a small, mocking smile. "Why do you look so surprised, Ruby? Did you think your precious Drew outwitted me for this long without help?"
Lena didn't flinch. She merely nodded, cold and collected. "Hi, Ruby. This is me unmasked." She said with a dry chuckle.
I stared at her, shaking my head slowly. So, it was her after all, the one behind the attacks on my child, the one in the clownish mask. "Why, Lena? You fought beside Drew. He trusted you. Why betray your own pack?"
"My own pack?" she snapped, her mask of composure finally cracking. "They betrayed me first."
She turned slightly, her eyes narrowing with a sharp, haunted glint. "No one gave more to Lunaris than I did. I was the most loyal and the most dedicated. I stood by the alpha's side for decades. We grew up together. I trained with him, bled with him, built that pack with him…" Her voice faltered, a tremor breaking through her carefully guarded tone.
"It was supposed to be us," she whispered. "For years, I thought he loved me. Everyone loved us, and then your mother showed up…" she sneered, the word bitter on her tongue. "This girl from Germany who'd never lived a day in Lunaris. She didn't grow up among us, didn't earn our trust, but one look…that's all it took. One look and suddenly, the mate bond was enough to erase everything he and I had."
Lena's expression twisted with pain and regret, maybe even heartbreak. "He made her Luna within a year, just like that, after twenty-two years of loyalty. He didn't even look back. I begged him to reconsider. My Uncle, my only surviving guardian, was the only one who understood, but he, too, asked me to accept fate's verdict. The elders ignored me and accepted her." She letout a low, humorless laugh. "They all betrayed me. I became a cautionary tale, the one everyone pitied."
Then her gaze turned cold again, steel-hard. "So, when my alpha chose a girl he barely knew over me, and the whole pack stood behind it like nothing had been lost… that day, they lost my loyalty."
My blood went cold. "You mean my mother?"
She nodded.
I blinked. "But fate chose them, they were fated mates. Why was that so hard for you two to accept?" I challenged them
