Alpha's Regret The Luna He Left Behind novel Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The days before the wedding blurred together.

The Silvercrest Pack got busy.

The ceremony. Serena’s upcoming award gala. The announcement that she would soon become Blackthorne Pack’s future Luna.

Their smiles got bigger with every passing day.

Mine got smaller.

By the night before the wedding, I couldn’t even get food down.

I sat at the table and watched everyone else eat.

Diane set down her fork and looked at me.

“Genevieve, you should stay home tomorrow. You can barely move. Once things get hectic, no one’s going to have time to watch over you.”

Father nodded along. “I found a specialist and flew him in from overseas. You can see him tomorrow instead.”

I opened my mouth.

Serena slammed her palm on the table.

“Mom. Dad.” Her voice went sharp. “Stop it. Genevieve is my sister.”

She looked at me, eyes soft and perfect. “You have to be there. I need you there.”

I smiled at her. “Of course I’m going,” I said. “My little sister’s becoming a Luna. Nothing could keep me away.”

My mother shot me a look that could’ve curdled milk.

I ignored it.

“I’ll stay in the corner the whole time,” I added. “I won’t be in anyone’s way.”

Derek snorted from across the table. “You’d better. Try anything stupid and I will not be nice about it.”

I didn’t answer him.

The next morning, I was downstairs before anyone else.

Serena came down the stairs and found me already waiting, her mouth curved.

“You’re so eager. Anyone would think you were the one becoming Luna today.”

“I had to start early,” I said. “Takes a while to wrap all these bandages.”

Something flickered in her eyes. Satisfaction, bright and ugly. She came the rest of the way down and clipped a name tag to my chest like she was tagging luggage.

When the housekeeper wheeled me into the reception hall, every head turned.

Whispers started immediately.

“Serena has an older sister? I’ve never heard her mother mention her.”

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“Look at the gap between them. That explains it.”

Is that the one who lost her wolf in the accident?”

Chen 10 y

A few guests who knew about me and Sebastian just stared with that particular kind of pity that made my skin

crawl.

Former chosen mate.

Former future Luna.

Wolfless now.

I wheeled myself into the corner I’d promised to occupy and stayed there.

Sebastian found me first. He walked over with his wine glass, swirling it slow. “You insisted on coming. So why do you look like you can’t handle it?”

I let out a short laugh. Didn’t bother explaining.

I picked up my champagne and tapped it against his glass. “Happy wedding, Sebastian.”

His jaw went tight.

He knocked my drink over.

The glass hit the floor and shattered. Heads turned.

“How long are you going to keep this up?” His chest heaved. “I’ve told you–once things settle, I’ll still take care of you. Why won’t you just believe me?”

He actually looked wounded.

Like he was the one who’d been wronged.

“If you keep acting like this,” he said, voice dropping, “I might just make this real.”

A faint Alpha pressure slipped into his voice.

Then Serena appeared at his elbow. Her hand wrapped around his arm.

“Darling.” Her voice was velvet. “The ceremony’s starting.”

He turned away from me without another word.

I sat in my corner and watched the ceremony begin.

Sebastian stood at the front and looked at Serena like she hung the sky.

“Serena,” he said. “I will love you forever.”

She kissed him.

“Me too.”

From the front row, Diane was crying, shoulders shaking, hands pressed to her face.

Derek put his arm around her. His eyes went red.

“Mom, what are you talking about? Serena is your daughter. She’s all of our pride.”

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I laughed once, soft and quiet, and turned my wheelchair toward the door.

“Genevieve.” Serena’s voice, bright and carrying, cut across the entire hall.

Every face in the room swung toward me.

I stopped, pressed the brake and turned around slow.

She stood at the front with Sebastian’s arm around her, both of them looking like something cut out of a magazine.

The Alpha heir of Blackthorne Pack.

His new Luna–to–be.

She smiled at me. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

The room went still.

I looked at them.

“I hope you two stay happy,” I said. “Forever.”

The silence that followed had weight to it.

I don’t know if it was the stiffness in my voice or the way I looked–pale and wrapped in bandages and sitting in a chair–but the room stayed quiet a beat too long.

It didn’t go over well.

After the guests cleared out, Mom and Dad cornered me near the exit.

“Was that the best you could do?” Diane’s voice had an edge like broken glass. “You embarrassed us in front of everyone. What else do you even do besides make Silvercrest look bad?”

Derek stepped in front of me. He shoved my shoulder.

I went sideways and hit the floor.

My palms scraped the tile. Pain shot up through both wrists.

Derek froze. He reached out instinctively, hand half–extended, then pulled it back.

He couldn’t do it.

Instead, he just righted my wheelchair and stepped away.

Nobody else moved.

I got myself up.

One inch at a time, I dragged myself back into that chair.

My arms shook the whole way.

There was nothing to say.

In their eyes I had never been enough.

My blessing wasn’t right.

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My face wasn’t right.

My existence wasn’t right.

Cles 14 Cm By Cherr

Even when I still had my wolf, I had been less than Serena in every way that mattered to them.

Now that my wolf was gone, I was even easier to discard.

I pushed myself toward the exit.

Near the door, Sebastian was standing with his wine glass.

Our eyes met.

He looked at me for exactly one second. Then he turned and walked away.

That was the last thing I needed from him.

That one second, then nothing.

Whatever had been holding me together quietly snapped.

I moved through the streets slow, like something that had already stopped.

When I tilted my head back, the sky above the city was full of drones, their lights weaving and blinking, slowly forming a name.

Serena.

I almost laughed out loud.

That idea had been mine.

I’d sketched it out on a napkin two years ago, talking to Sebastian about what I wanted our mating ceremony to

look like.