Amnesia Erased Luna's Pain and Love novel Chapter 5

As soon as Florence spoke, the room fell into utter silence.

Every werewolf in the hall stared wide-eyed, stunned.

Florence—the one who had once loved her Alpha so deeply she'd rather die than leave him—just claimed she didn't love him anymore?

All eyes turned to their Luna in disbelief. Everyone except Baldwin. His face remained cold, expressionless, like a frozen lake untouched by wind.

"How many times are you going to play this game of hard-to-get?" he said, his voice low and laced with disdain. "I told you—no matter what you had done, it's useless.

"I don't love you. I just don't," he said flatly.

The words landed like a slap, crushing what little dignity Florence had left. Baldwin's tone carried no trace of affection, only mockery.

The crowd slowly recovered from the shock, whispers spreading like wildfire.

"So that's what this is—just a ploy for attention. Almost had me fooled."

"Honestly, she should be grateful. At least the Alpha accepted her. She got to be Luna of our pack—that's something most she-wolves would kill for."

"Exactly. Besides, alpha's power is fully stabilized now. Even if he ends their bond, it won't affect him. The fact he hasn't done it yet shows how generous he's been."

"Sigh, alpha is such a responsible man. I swear, if it were me, I would've kicked that shameless omega out ages ago and gone back to the one I truly loved."

Florence clenched her fists so tightly her nails cut into her palms, but she couldn't feel a thing.

She opened her mouth, wanting to repeat that this wasn't a game; she truly no longer loved him.

That her wolf had given up, too. That she had finally let go of Baldwin.

But before she could speak, Martin's voice cut in, sharp and cold, "We apologize, everyone. Clearly, we failed in raising our daughter properly. To think she'd disgrace our name by stealing—"

He waved his hand and issued a command to the bodyguards. "Take her to the Ice Prison. Let her spend the night there and cool off."

Florence's eyes widened. She shot up. "I didn't steal anything!"

But no one was listening. No one cared that she was Luna.

Maybe to them, she never truly had been—not a real Luna, not when their alpha had never accepted her.

Two betas stormed in and grabbed her wrists roughly. She struggled hard, but a searing pain shot through her neck—

A metal rod struck her. She stumbled backward, vision swimming in black.

In the last moment before she lost consciousness, she met Baldwin's eyes.

He stood still, watching from afar, not even a flicker of emotion in his gaze. Like she was nothing more than a nuisance. A problem to be erased.

Florence woke to a biting, unbearable cold.

Her lashes were crusted with frost. Every breath puffed out in clouds of white. Her limbs were so numb they felt carved from ice, and even her blood seemed to have stopped flowing.

This was the Ice Prison—built specifically to punish wolves. The temperature was set at -22°F. Normally, one could shift into wolf form to resist the chill. But Florence couldn't. Her wolf, shattered by heartbreak, had sealed itself away.

"I can't die here!"

She forced her frozen body to move, driven by sheer instinct to survive. Her wolf let out a faint, broken growl inside her. "I have to live."

The potion to break the mate bond—she was so close to getting it.

She needed to leave. To walk away from the pack that treated her like nothing.

Soon, she'll be able to start over.

She deliberately turned on speakerphone to make sure Florence could hear everything.

"Ursa? Where'd you go?"

It was Baldwin's voice.

Low, gentle—so gentle it hurt. Florence had never heard him speak like that.

"I feel dizzy," Ursa said softly, her voice immediately turning delicate, like a pup needing comfort. "I'm in the lounge."

"Stay there. I'm coming right now."

The line went dead. Silence returned to the Ice Prison.

Florence lay still, Baldwin's tender voice echoing in her mind. Slowly, she closed her eyes. Somehow, she remembered, suddenly, the entries she used to write in her diary.

Its pages now yellowed, the ink blurred with tears, her despair recorded in the journal.

She'd written about how Baldwin had once rented a rooftop restaurant just so Ursa could see snow on her Rite of Passage, while he'd never once remembered Florence's birthday.

She'd written about how he skipped council meetings to stay by Ursa's hospital bed but didn't even look at Florence the time she tried to end her life.

She'd written about the way his coldness in his eyes melted like snow when he looked at Ursa and turned icy and distant the moment they met hers.

For years, Florence had watched them from the shadows. A pitiful voyeur to someone else's love story.

But now ... Now she didn't love him anymore.

And her wolf had finally broken free.

The realization made her lips twitch into a bitter smile as everything faded to black.