Chapter 7
473words
During the first full moon after my banishment, the Moon Goddess didn't appear.
The priest knelt at the sacred altar all night, begging for her presence.
The Goddess remained silent.
The next morning, the first pup died.
Then another. And another.
Within a week, ten pups were dead, and panic gripped the territory.
Karl summoned the priest, fury and fear in his eyes.
"What the hell is happening?"
After performing divination, the priest's face drained of color.
"Alpha... I've seen the truth..."
"What truth?" Karl growled.
"Former Luna Ella..." the priest's voice trembled, "She wasn't just any Luna. She was the Moon Goddess's Chosen One."
"The mark of the Chosen only reveals itself after a mate bond is broken. That's why I couldn't detect it before..."
"Only she can bring lasting protection to our pack."
"By banishing her, you banished the Goddess's favor."
The blood drained from Karl's face.
"No... that's impossible..."
"Alpha, it's true." The priest fell to his knees. "We've made a terrible mistake..."
Karl staggered backward. He refused to believe it. His dreams of dominating the Western Territories crumbled before his eyes. How could he rule if his pack was dying?
"Find her!" he roared. "Find her now!"
"Bring her back to me!"
Guards scoured the wilderness for a month.
They found nothing.
The pack's situation deteriorated rapidly. Cub mortality reached sixty percent. Adult wolves began falling ill with mysterious ailments.
Game vanished from their hunting grounds. Neighboring packs began testing their borders, sensing weakness.
Lily was useless as Luna.
Just an ordinary Omega, powerless to help a pack abandoned by the Goddess herself.
Pack members began to whisper.
"She's nothing like our former Luna."
"We never suffered like this when Ella was here."
Lily, humiliated and enraged, ordered anyone caught gossiping to be publicly whipped.
The pack fractured further.
The Council of Elders called an emergency meeting.
The Grand Elder fixed Karl with a hard stare.
"Alpha, we must find Ella and bring her back. Our survival depends on it."
"I'm trying!" Karl slammed his fist on the table.
"Try harder!" Another elder jumped to his feet. "My grandson died yesterday! That's three from my bloodline alone!"
"This disaster is on your head!"
"You should never have banished her!"
Karl absorbed their accusations in silence.
They were right. This was his doing.
He had destroyed his pack with his own hands.
Karl's nights filled with nightmares—Ella's screams as he removed her mark, her pleading eyes before the ceremony, her broken body in the snow.
He'd wake gasping, drenched in cold sweat.
Lily slept beside him, but her presence brought no comfort.
His thoughts always returned to Ella.
That gentle, selfless Omega.
The Luna who had sacrificed everything for a pack that gave her nothing in return.
And he had thrown her away.
