The Neglected Luna's Ultimate Rejection

EVELYN'S POV:

My vision swam back into focus with the smell of gasoline and wet earth. Rain lashed against the cracked windshield of my Mercedes, the car tilted at a sickening angle in a ditch. The world was a blur of green and gray, spinning.

A sharp pain shot up my leg when I tried to move it. I hissed, tasting blood on my tongue. My ankle was definitely broken. The bone felt like it was grinding against itself.

The other car, a black, unmarked sedan that had been tailgating me for miles, was gone. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold rain crept down my spine. It felt intentional. The way it had nudged my rear bumper on the curve, sending me spinning off the rain-slicked road... Rogues? The thought made the air in my lungs freeze.

My hand trembled as I fished my phone from my purse on the passenger floor. The screen was a spiderweb of cracks, but it lit up. One bar of service. A miracle.

My thumb hovered over the contacts. My fingers automatically went to the top of the list, to the name that made my heart ache just to see it: Dorian. My mate. My Alpha. For three years, he had been my mate in name only. The Moon Goddess must have had a cruel sense of humor when she bound my soul to a man who looked at me like I was a piece of furniture he'd inherited.

I pressed call. The rational part of my brain screamed that he wouldn't care, but the desperate, hopeful part-the part that still felt the thrum of the mate-bond-won out.

The phone rang twice before his deep, impatient voice cut through the static. "Evelyn. I'm busy."

No 'hello', no warmth. Just a statement of fact. My presence was an interruption. Tears welled in my eyes, hot and shameful, mixing with the cold rain dripping from my hair. "Dorian, I've been in an accident. My car... it's wrecked. I think my leg is broken." My voice was a pathetic whisper, even to my own ears.

There was a pause on the line. For a single, stupid second, my heart leaped. I allowed myself to hope. I imagined his Alpha instincts kicking in, the protective fury, the worry that was a mate's right.

Instead, I heard a female voice in the background, sweet and cloying. "Dorian, honey, is everything okay? Leo is getting fussy."

Sloane. Of course, it was Sloane.

Dorian's voice softened to a low murmur, a tone he had never once used with me. "It's nothing, sweetheart. Just a moment."

The casual endearment was a punch to the gut. He was back on the line with me, his voice hardened again, impatience dripping from every word. "Where are you?"

I described the road, the old oak tree split by lightning, my voice hollow. "I think... I think it might have been Rogues, Dorian. They ran me off the road."

"Don't be dramatic, Evelyn," he scoffed. The dismissal was like a physical slap, knocking the air from my lungs. "Send me your location. I'll have the pack warriors pick you up."

"You're not coming?" The words were torn from me, small and wounded.

"I can't," he said flatly, and the finality in his tone was absolute. "I have to pick up Sloane and Leo. Her car is in the shop."

A mundane excuse. A simple errand that was more important than his mate, bleeding in a ditch after a potential attack. The mate-bond, a once-warm tether in my soul, felt like it was being drenched in ice water. The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the agony in my chest.

"I see," I said. My voice was suddenly clear and cold. The tears stopped. The pathetic hope died, and something new, something hard and brittle, took its place.

"Good. Don't make a scene when they arrive," he commanded, the Alpha tone leaving no room for argument. And then he hung up.

I stared at the dead screen, the silence in the car broken only by the relentless drumming of the rain. He didn't even ask if I was okay. A low, guttural sob escaped me, more animal than human. My inner wolf, a creature he had ignored for three years, whimpered in my mind, sharing my pain.

My fingers clenched. The phone was a lifeline, but not to him. Not anymore. I scrolled down my contact list, past his name, to the one I should have called first. Hanna.

She picked up on the first ring. "Evie? What's wrong? I can feel your panic through the pack link!"

My resolve shattered. I told her everything, the words tumbling out between sobs. The crash, the leg, the call to Dorian.

Hanna was silent for a moment, and I could practically feel her fury vibrating through the phone. "That son of a bitch," she growled. The voice of a Gamma warrior, the pack's enforcer, through and through. "He left you there? For HER?"

"He's sending warriors," I whispered.

"Damn right he is, but I'm coming first. I'm five minutes from your location. I'll rip those Rogues a new one if they're still sniffing around. And then," she added, her voice dangerously low, "I'm going to have a word with our Alpha."

A flicker of warmth spread through my chest. Friendship. That, at least, was real.

"Just... just get here, Hanna," I pleaded.

After hanging up, I leaned my head back against the seat, the adrenaline fading, leaving only a vast, empty ache. I looked at my reflection in the darkened rearview mirror. A pale, tear-streaked face. The Luna of the Carlisle pack, bleeding in a ditch while her Alpha played house with another woman.

The humiliation burned hotter than any physical pain. This couldn't be my life.

A pair of headlights cut through the rain. Hanna's beat-up truck roared to a stop on the road above me. My rescuer. But the wound Dorian inflicted tonight... I knew, with chilling certainty, that it would never heal.