Alpha's Discarded Luna (Talia) novel Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Aires‘ POV

The room tilted. Across the table Imema was saying my name, reaching for me, her face all soft concern, and I couldn’t make myself look at her.

Cold sweat poured down my face.

The place inside me that had always connected to Talia was empty now. Not quiet. Empty.

“Aires?” Imema reached out and touched my arm. “What’s wrong? Your face looks terrible.”

Then she started coughing–violently, a bloom of red on her handkerchief. “Did I make Luna unhappy again?” She gave a weak smile. “You should go back. Someone as sick as me doesn’t deserve to keep you…”

I swallowed the scream rising in my throat and forced my muscles still.

*Liar,* Vincent snarled. *Go to her. GO.*

I shut him out.

The

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was just another one of Talia’s tricks. She’d found some

< Chapter 5

way to fake the feeling—some Cooper secret to tamper with the bond–because she wanted me to come running. She was jealous.

I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

I didn’t go home for two days.

I stayed in the Alpha’s office and told myself she needed the warning. She had to learn she couldn’t pull me by a string whenever she pleased.

But two days of that hollow ache turned the crack into a cavern, and a freezing wind blew through it without stopping.

When I finally walked back through the doors of the estate, the whole house felt wrong. The air was stagnant, as if something had drained the life out of the place.

I didn’t go to my office. I went straight to her room and threw the door open, ready to accept her apology and end this farce.

Talia sat propped against the headboard. Still pale, the burns from the fire not yet healed–but her eyes.

Her

eyes were completely different. Distant. Like she was looking at a stranger she’d already finished with.

“What did you do to the bond?” My voice echoed in the quiet3:21

Chapter 5

room.

She didn’t flinch. “I severed it. It’s gone, Aires.”

“You can’t.” I moved toward the bed. “No Omega has that kind of power-”

“I didn’t need power.” She cut me off, calm. “I just needed to understand there was nothing left worth holding on to.” She looked at me. “Let’s get a divorce. I’m done.”

Something inside me snapped.

The thought of her leaving–not sulking, not waiting in a back room for me to soften, but gone, erased from my life completely -lit a fury so bright it blinded me.

I lunged forward and caught her wrist.

“I will not divorce you. Over my dead body,” I hissed. “Or yours. Your Cooper family owes me a debt that can’t be measured in gold. Your brother killed my best friend. You helped your family bleed my pack dry. You’re going to stay and pay it back–and you’ll never finish paying in this lifetime.”

She didn’t struggle. She didn’t flinch. She looked into my eyes with a chilling, dead–eyed calm.

Then let’s tear each other apart until one of us is dead” she 3:21

< Chapter 5

said softly. “But understand this, Alpha. I will never do anything for you again. I won’t play your Luna, I won’t raise your child. I won’t even look at you if I can help it.” Her voice didn’t rise. “Keep your debt. I hope it keeps you warm at night.”

Talia’s POV

The air in Electra’s apartment smelled of lavender and open windows.

Electra moved around the room, stuffing my few things into a suitcase. Then she stopped.

“That bastard.” She hurled a pillow across the room. “Talia, how can you go back there? After everything? You almost died.”

“I have to go back, for now,” I said, my voice flat. “He refused to divorce me. But the bond is broken, Electra. He can’t reach me through it anymore. He can’t feel a thing I feel. That’s already more freedom than I’ve had in five years.”

r

Electra knelt beside my chair and took my cold hands in hers, her eyes wet. “Then let him keep his empty house,” she said fiercely. “You’re not going to disappear into that man’s shadow again. Not this time.”

“No,” I agreed quietly.

looked out the window at the city skyline. The pain

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< Chapter 5

severed bond was a dull ache now.

I had spent five years being a ghost in that house. It was time to stop haunting a life that had never wanted me.

I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t touched in five years.

“Hello? Rafael?”

‘…Talia?” The voice on the other end caught, then surged- breathless, sharp with hope. “Is that really you? Goddess. I thought you’d vanished into those mountains for good.”

Rafael was my mother’s finest student–a world–renowned pianist, and the most powerful agent in the industry. He’d watched me play since I was a child. He’d called me a once–in–a–century talent, back before traded my sheet musie

I for a marriage contract.

“I want to come back,” I said. My voice didn’t tremble. “I want to play again.”

I could hear the tears in his answer.

“Talia. I’ve been waiting five years for this call. The stage has been empty without you.” A breath. “Tell me where you are. I’ll clear my whole schedule. We are going to remind the world exactly who the queen of the keys is.”

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Chapter 5

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