Fake Heiress True Luna (Irina) novel Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Another Rejection?

Aiden’s POV

This must be a f*****g joke.

The Goddess is tricking me because there is no way that delicious strawberry scent is coming from her.

Irina…

“Mate!” Arlo insisted, pushing forward inside my mind.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. She didn’t react, not at all, which could only mean two things.

She couldn’t recognize me as her mate, or she was doing the same thing I was doing and ignoring the bond.

My fists clenched at my side as she got out of the car.

Time slowed. The world narrowed.

She was thinner. Her golden hair was dull, devoid of life, and tied back in a severe knot. The fancy dresses were replaced by a coarse, ugly uniform. But it was her. I would recognize that face anywhere. She has haunted my dreams for years. Those blue eyes that reminded me of the ocean were now filled with exhaustion; they didn’t shine like they did before.

Even if her strawberry scent was driving Arlo crazy, it was also tinged with the faint, acrid smell of cheap soap.

Looking at her now, I couldn’t see a trace of the Irina Johnson I had seen a couple of months

ago.

“GO TO HER!” Arlo ordered, but I would never do that.

He should be happy that I wasn’t rejecting her right on the spot. Perhaps if she weren’t a fraud, I would consider it. I could claim her as my Luna and try to stand her because our pups would be strong, but now I know she is only an omega.

She can’t be the Luna of my pack.

Of course, Arlo wasn’t happy with my thoughts and started snarling, telling me to go to her side and claim her as mine before everyone.

“Arlo, stop it, or else I’m going to block you,” I threatened. I had to think; I couldn’t let her get inside my mind.

Ethan spoke to her and called her ‘the maid’. I saw her flinch-just a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor. She kept her eyes down, her posture screaming submission. It was wrong. It was an ill-fitting costume on someone who had been born to command a room.

And it made me furious. This was not the mate I was promised. This was a broken doll.

Then she turned. Her blue eyes lifted, and for a heart-stopping second, they met mine.

The bond between us, the one I was trying to deny, pulled even more. I had to stop it, I had to reject her today, as soon as everyone was asleep.

“Something’s wrong…”

I didn’t need to ask Arlo what he meant.

I locked every muscle in my body. I forced my face into a mask of glacial indifference. I let my gaze travel over her, from the top of her poorly tied hair to the dust on her worn-out shoes. I made a show of it. I took in every humiliating detail of her fall from grace.

And I felt it-a dark, twisted sense of satisfaction. The princess was in rags. The spoiled heir was a lowly Omega. In its own way, the universe had agreed with my assessment of her.

It was the only emotion I would allow myself to feel.

I poured every ounce of my contempt, fury at the situation, and absolute refusal of the bond into that one word. I made it a verdict-a life sentence.

She had to understand her place, so she wouldn’t object to the rejection later. Even if she couldn’t feel the bond, I was going to break it before it even formed.

“Welcome to Shadow Pack, Omega.”

Her face paled. I saw the shock and hurt and then the swift, desperate burying of both behind a mask of empty acceptance. Good. Let her know her place here. It was nowhere near me.

Inside, Arlo was a raging storm of grief and betrayal. You are a fool! A cruel, heartless fool!

The one who thought her tears would work here.

I turned on my heel without another word, the dismissal absolute. I was being rude, but thankfully, I had the power to be like that. My pack was above Blue Moon, and they all knew

I felt Ethan step forward, his easy-going demeanor taking over as he began to usher them inside. “Right this way. We’ve put you in the east wing, lovely views of the mountains…”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I strode back into the mansion, the heavy door closing behind me with a definitive thud that echoed in the vast, silent entrance hall. The moment I was alone, the mask slipped. I leaned back against the cold stone wall, dragging a hand down my face. The headache was now a full-blown migraine, a direct result of Arlo’s relentless, furious pacing.

“You humiliated her!” he roared, the sound echoing in the confines of my skull. “She is our mate! She is hurting, and you poured salt in the wound! You are no Alpha! You are a coward!”

“She is an Omega from a disgraced bloodline,” I gritted out, pushing off the wall and heading for my study. I needed a drink. I needed a f*****g war to fight-anything to drown out the screaming in my head and the phantom scent of strawberries and despair that clung to my senses. “She is not Luna material. My pack would never accept her. It would be seen as the

ultimate weakness.”

“Since when do you care what others think?” Arlo challenged, his fury a hot brand. “You are Aiden Keaton! You make the rules! The pack follows! She is strong-I can feel it buried under all that pain. Stronger than that simpering fool Serim brought. Stronger than you are right now!”

“That’s enough,” I sharled, slamming the door to my study behind me. I went straight for the decanter of whiskey on the sideboard, pouring a generous measure into a crystal glass. The liquid burned a path down my throat, but it did nothing to quell the storm inside.

I couldn’t reject her. Not yet. The thought was there, clear and logical. Sever the bond before it could fully form, before it could weaken me. But Arlo’s reaction… it was too volatile. A forced rejection now, against his will, could break something in me-in us. It could shatter the perfect control I held over my wolf, a risk I couldn’t take. My strength and authority were built on the unity between man and beast.

I had to maintain control. I had to be smarter than this… this feeling.

A plan, cold and ruthless, began to form in my mind. I would allow her to stay. I would watch her. I would let her prove every foul thing I had ever thought about her. Let her show her true, weak, manipulative colors in front of everyone. Let the entire Gathering see the lowly Omega she truly was.

And when she inevitably failed and proved herself to be the unworthy fraud I knew her to be, I would reject her. Publicly. Absolutely. Arlo would have no choice but to accept it. The pack would applaud it. It would be a clean, surgical removal of a problem.

The satisfaction of that future moment was the only thing that calmed the raging in my blood.

I tossed back the rest of the whiskey, the burn a pale imitation of the fire Irina Johnson had ignited in me.

“Watch her, Ethan, 1 mind linked my bars, tha uden atau aust caur Fly and de every word she says, I want to know it ai