Prologue
Sofia
Six years ago
Mom has been distant for weeks—barely looking at me. Definitely nottalkingto me. I haven’t seen her and Dad in the same room in ages, but I chalked it up to him being busy. As alpha, he’s had a lot on his plate since the pack was attacked a year ago. It was awful. An attack by other wolves led to several omegas being killed. I still get nightmares of feeling the bonds that connected us together being snuffed out all at once.
Ryan, my brother, has been working with him closely to try to figure out where they came from, and that left Mom and me behind. Has she been missing them, too? But couldn’t she have talked to him? Told him she was struggling? Done literallyanythingbut this?
One moment, she’s in the kitchen, pacing, ranting, her heels clicking on the tile floor. Next, she’s saying, “I can’t do this. I need to leave. I… I’m done.”
My eyes dart between my parents. My throat closes up as disbelief chokes me. I can’t understand what’s happening. My parentsmight be chosen mates, but their bond has been complete for over twenty years.
You don’t leave your mate.No one leaves their mate.
“I, Rose Rivera, luna of the Lunar Eclipse Pack, reject you, Elliot Rivera, alpha of the Lunar Eclipse Pack.”
Dad falls to his knees, clutching his chest. Screaming is coming from somewhere, but I can’t tell from where. Mom staggers back towards the door. She glances at me, holding my gaze for a beat. Long enough for me to realize the screaming is coming from me.
My vision goes blurry from the tears in my eyes, and when I can’t stand it any longer, I squeeze them shut. Hoping this is all a bad dream. That I’ll wake up and none of this will be real.
Except when I open my eyes again, the door slams shut, and she’s gone. She broke our family apart, and she didn’t even say goodbye.
I rush to my dad’s side. His eyelids flutter open and closed, his breathing comes in labored pants, and his face is a picture of pain and anguish. Tightness coils in my chest, and for a moment, I’m frozen by indecision about what to do.
I mindlink Ryan and Doc to come quickly. Dad needs their help.
Mom and Dad are both alpha wolves. The rejection will hit him harder because he was the one rejected.But he’ll be okay. Right?
He has to be okay.
Tears stream down my face. I feel so useless. My wolf howls, pain filling my heart at seeing him this way. My dad is the strongest wolf I’ve ever met, and she has torn him apart. She broke him. Like hewas nothing to her. Like he wasn’t the male she spent most of her life with. Or the father of her two children.
Time stretches on and loses all meaning. The ticking of the clock on the wall and Dad’s ragged breaths are the only things that prove time hasn’t stopped completely. I’m not sure how long it’s been when Ryan bursts through the back door—the same door Mom left through, taking my happiness and sense of safety with her.
“She rejected him,” I choke out. “She rejected him, and then she left. She just walked out.”
A sharp intake of breath is all Ryan allows himself before he bursts into action. He pushes me away and checks Dad over. When Doc arrives moments later, they lift him and carry him out together.
I sit here, frozen on the kitchen floor, knees drawn to my chest, hoodie pulled over my head. As dusk descends, the room darkens, shrouding me in shadow.
And I wait. I wait to see if my bond with my father will snap with his death. I wait for the ache in my chest to ease. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. I wait for the pain of Mom abandoning us to sting less. Yeah, that’s not happening anytime soon either.
I sit here on the floor in the kitchen of my family home that no longer feels like home at all. The wooden walls that once gave warmth now seem barren. The white-tiled floor is cold and unwelcoming under my hands. The furniture blurs in front of my watery eyes.
Nothing has been the same since they got back from an alpha meeting a couple of months ago. Mom checked out. Spendingher time on her phone instead of talking to us. The house lost its homeliness. Its love. I can’t remember the last time I walked in and smelled the scent of tamales or pozole being cooked. Even though we are culturally wolves first, Mom used to cook Mexican food to help Ryan and me connect to Dad’s heritage. But reflecting now, those familiar aromas have been gone for a while now.
Nothing feels right anymore, and I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do. So instead, nothing happens. And I wait.
I don’t hear Luca, my brother’s best friend, approach. Or maybe I did, and I didn’t care. I don’t need him to tell me it’ll be okay. None of this will ever be okay. And somehow, he understands without me ever having to say it. He doesn’t even flip on the light. He simply sits next to me on the floor, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.
“I’ve got you, Princess, whatever you need. I’ve got you.”
I breathe him in, and his warm, woodsy scent wraps around me, comforting and grounding. As if he’s an anchor to hold on to.
“She didn’t even look at me,” I say finally, my voice hoarse and raw. “She packed a bag, rejected my dad like he was nothing, and walked out. Like, he doesn’t matter. Like, I don’t matter.”
Luca doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. He just sits there, steady, as I sob into his chest. My breath comes in gasping heaves at first, but slowly it evens out again. I’m not sure how much time passes before I’m finally out of tears. But Luca stays, however long it takes. He doesn’t rush me.
