Chapter 2: The Banishment

Raiden’s POV

"Do you have any last words, Calla?"

My own voice sounded foreign to me. Cold. Unyielding. The voice of an Alpha delivering justice.

And my own shaking hands hanging limp at my sides. My pounding heart threatened to shatter my ribs.

The woman standing before me—Calla, my mate, my Luna—trembling on unsteady legs, wrists bound in thick iron chains. Chains that were not needed. She was not resisting. She had not resisted since they had drugged her into the clearing, accused of treason against our pack.

Treason.

That single word felt as bitter as ash in my mouth.

Calla pushed her head back, ears numbed, amber eyes vacant and dark of the inner fire that once raged my soul. Blood distorted her cheek, a nasty contrast to silvery moonlight flooding down over her face.

"You believe that?" she growled out, voice rough but unbreakable.

My fingers tightened into fists. I wanted to tell her no. I wanted to tell her that this was not reasonable and that I did not wish to do this. That I could not.

But the evidence was undeniable.

I had seen it myself—the letters smuggled secretly to our enemies, the clandestine meetings on the border. Warriors slain in ambush, trap set where she and I alone were aware.

And, of course—the final betrayal.

My Beta, Dorian's dead body, is on the floor of the council room. The killing knife is still in Calla's hand.

My gut churned with remembered pain, the memories still fresh.

How could she betray me like this?

"You were my mate," I hurled at her, my words cracking. "I would have given you everything, Calla. My life. My soul. My pack. And you—" I pressed my hand against the lump swelling in my throat. "You betrayed us."

A sound was torn from her lips, but no speech.

"Why?" I growled, hating the craven tremble in my voice. "Why betray me?"

Her lips moved to shape words, but none were spoken.

My wolf came alive to a raging fury, irritated. He disliked this. He wouldn't tolerate it. The bond of mate—although severed—still pattered softly against the edges of my mind, protesting what was happening.

Had she only told, only shared a reason with me? Then, maybe, perhaps, I might have warred for her.

She did not.

She simply stood there before me, gazing at me with those empty eyes as if already resigned to her fate.

Coward.

I clenched my teeth. "I, Alpha Raiden Storm of the Silver Moon Pack, thusly exile you, Calla, for crimes against the pack. You are hereby stripped of your title, your rights, and your status amongst us, starting from this day forward."

A murmur ran through the group of wolves, ones who were relieved and ones who were worried.

I dismissed them.

"The second you cross our borders, you'll be considered rogue," I went on. "Any of my pack members, whoever lays eyes on your face again, has my permission to kill you in sight."

Some muttering. Some gasps.

Calla was the last one to have anything to say. Her lips tensed as though she would smile but couldn't quite. "Death would be merciful, don't you think?"

I ruffled.

She stepped forward quietly, chains on her wrists jingling. Guards to either side of her tensed, but I raised a hand to stop them.

Calla's eyes were on my face, searching for something—recognition, remorse, anything. "Tell me, Raiden," she breathed, "if I dropped to your feet and pleaded now, would you let me live?"

My heart wrenched in my chest.

No. I wouldn't lose.

"You had your choice, Calla." I struggled to get it out over the bulge of blockage in my throat. "Now live with it."

Her lips parted a bit as if she'd intended something else.

For a split second, something flickered in her gaze—hurt, betrayal, something dangerously close to heartbreak.

And then it was gone.

She stood tiptoe so that she might set her feet securely apart. The chains clinked. "Then I hope you live with yours, Alpha," she whispered.

I could not help but look away.

The guards advanced on either side of her once more, taking hold of each of her arms so that they might escort her to the border. My wolf annihilated me, howling at me to just get it over with, to claim her, to—

"No." I resisted.

She had done something wrong.

She was no longer mine.

The pack that had formed gave way for Calla to be guided through the middle of it, some of them growling, some snarling, others scrambling out from about her.

I was standing on the edge of the pack, folding my arms and sporting a chilly smile that rested at the crests of my lips.

I was too tired to speak to her.

I simply watched as the guards reached the edge, hesitating just on the cusp of our borders.

This was it.

The end.

One of them shoved her forward. "Go," he growled.

Calla hesitated.

Not from fear.

But because she recognized, as I did, that once she had passed that line, there would be no turning back.

The bond, if tenuous, would be completely severed.

She turned her head, regarding me again.

I had been breathing in silence.

Then, with a quiet determination, she proceeded.

The moment her foot crossed the line, some concealed wall of connection appeared to splinter and break between us. A tearing, ripping agony sliced across my chest—flash, instantaneous, blinding, gone as quickly as it started.

And then nothing.

The bond was broken.

Calla didn't even blink. Didn't even look back.

She just turned and left.

Slipping back into the shadows.

I gasped in a shuddering breath.

It was done.

And yet, spinning and walking back to the pack, gazing at the faces of my wolves, their relieved, happy faces, I couldn't shake the one feeling tearing at my core.

I had won.

So why did I feel that I had lost everything?

I sat in my office that evening alone, the smell of rain and blood hanging heavy in the air. The weight of my decision weighed on me like a rock.

I tightened my hold on the goblet of whiskey sitting on my desk, something to take the sharpness away.

A gentle tap echoed through the room.

I exhaled hard. "Come in."

The door swung open as she pushed it, Lysandra coming in with a yellow hank of hair knotted around her shoulder, eyes flashing in the candlelight darkness.

Her smile was—bittersweet, triumphant.

"That was right, Alpha," she caught her breath and stepped inside.

I gazed at her.

For no reason whatsoever, the view of her smile, the quiet look in her eyes, shifted something inside of me.

Something was wrong.

But before I could even read it, she laid a hand on my arm, warm as its fire. "Now," she whispered, "you can now move on."

I glanced over her shoulder, past the window.

Somewhere out yonder trees, beyond the border, Calla waited. Alone. Exiled.

And for the first time that night, a troublesome notion wormed its way into my mind.

Had I done something wrong?