Chapter 4

Alessia POV:

Santino's rage, fueled by Damien's defiance, boiled over. He saw my protector, not my pain. He saw a challenge to his authority, not the destruction of his mate's soul.

"You dare bring this chaos into my house?" he roared.

And then he did the one thing that is forbidden. The one law the Moon Goddess herself holds sacred.

He struck his mate.

His hand cracked against my cheek in a sharp, stinging slap. The force of it snapped my head to the side. At the same time, he unleashed the full, brutal force of his Alpha's Command-a psychic sledgehammer meant to shatter my will.

*You will be silent! You will obey!*

My body seized, paralyzed by the Command. The side of my face burned with a white-hot fire. But inside, in the core of my being, a strange and terrifying calm descended. The pain was distant, as if it were happening to someone else.

And then, something snapped.

The White Wolf blood within me didn't just boil; it ignited. A torrent of pure, silver-white energy surged through my veins, a power so immense and primal it shattered Santino's Alpha Command like brittle glass. I felt the psychic chains fall away, and for the first time, I heard my own inner wolf.

It wasn't a growl. It was a roar that shook the foundations of my soul.

Slowly, I rose to my feet. My movements were fluid, deliberate. I looked at Santino, my eyes empty, ancient.

I uncurled my bleeding fingers and let the broken shards of the moonstone fall to the floor at his feet.

A final offering to a dead love.

I took a deep breath. The air in the room seemed to crackle with energy. Then, in a voice that was unnervingly clear and steady, I spoke the words that would end our world.

"I, Alessia Bianchi, reject you, Santino Moretti, as my mate."

The moment the words left my lips, an invisible shockwave erupted from my very soul. The Mate bond, the sacred link that had tied us together, snapped. The sound was a silent scream in my mind, a physical agony so intense it buckled my knees. I gasped, clutching my chest as if my heart had been physically ripped from it.

Across the room, Santino let out a choked, inhuman cry and collapsed to his knees. I could feel his Alpha wolf, his very essence, howling in the abyss where our bond used to be. I could feel its despair, its agony at being torn from its other half. We shared the pain of the severing, but his was the torment of the one left behind.

Valentina's face, for a split second, showed shock, then a flash of pure, unadulterated triumph. She quickly schooled her features into a mask of concern as she rushed to Santino's side.

A stunned silence fell over the pack members who had gathered in the hall. A Luna rejecting her Alpha was an event of cataclysmic proportions. It was a fundamental betrayal of the pack's structure, a challenge to the Moon Goddess herself.

But as the searing pain of the rejection coursed through me, it was met by the rising tide of my awakened power. I felt the White Wolf's energy coalesce around me, a faint, silvery aura shimmering in the air.

Damien was instantly at my side, his strong arm supporting me, keeping me from falling.

"Alessia," he whispered, his voice thick with a mixture of horror and fierce loyalty.

Santino scrambled to his feet, his face a mask of disbelief and panic. "No," he breathed, lunging for me. "You can't."

Damien blocked his path.

"I am your Alpha! I command you to take it back!"

His Alpha's Command washed over me, but this time, it was like a gentle breeze against a mountain. It had no power over me. Not anymore.

I looked at him, my gaze as cold and distant as a dying star.

"You severed our bond the moment you raised your hand to me," I said, my voice flat and hollow.

Just then, a force of immense power slammed into my mind. It was not an attack, but an arrival. A Mind-Link so powerful it dwarfed Santino's.

*My daughter. I am coming!*

It was my father. Alpha Marcello Bianchi. The Lion of the White Wolf Pack.

A wave of relief and a burning desire for vengeance washed over me. The game had changed.

Santino's parents, Eleanor and Alpha Moretti Senior, burst into the room, drawn by the commotion.

"What is the meaning of this madness?" Eleanor shrieked, her eyes blazing at me. "How dare you cause such a scene!"

I straightened my shoulders, pulling away from Damien's support. I stood on my own, filled with a new, chilling strength. I met my former mother-in-law's furious gaze without flinching.

"Your son," I announced, my voice ringing with clarity, "used his Alpha's Command to strike his Luna. He has defiled the sacred bond given to us by the Goddess."

Without another word, I turned my back on them all. On the shattered necklace. On the broken man who was once my world. On the ruins of my life.

With Damien at my side, I walked out of the Alpha House. My back was straight, my head held high.

I was no longer a fading Luna.

I was a queen walking from the ashes of her fallen kingdom, ready to build a new one forged in vengeance.