Rejected by My Alpha Now He Replaced Me with a Copycat Luna novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I found a town called Duston.

Small. Quiet. The kind of place where no one asked questions.

Perfect.

I paid three months’ rent in cash for a room above Jack’s Bar. Told the owner I needed work.

He hired me on the spot.

“We need someone who can handle themselves,” Joe said, nodding at the scar on my wrist-the one the silver wolf tattoo didn’t quite cover.

I grabbed a rag. Started wiping down the bar like I’d been doing it my whole life.

Three weeks in, I was still there. Still breathing.

Still Raven Reyes-the name on the fake ID I’d bought at the airport.

Nights blurred together. Cheap beer. Country music. Drunks who thought a bartender owed them a smile.

I kept my head down. My hand close to the switchblade in my boot.

My wolf paced restlessly in my head. She missed the pack bond. Missed the warmth.

I’d learned the hard way that bonds only broke you in the end.

Then they walked in.

Five men. Broad shoulders. Sharp eyes.

The tallest one-blond, with a smirk that could cut glass-leaned against the bar. His scent hit me like a punch: pine and rain, wild and untamed.

“Whiskey neat,” he said, his gaze flicking to my scar, then my eyes. “You new around here, Raven?”

I slid the glass toward him. “Just passing through.”

He laughed. Low. Rough. “Duston’s not the kind of town people just pass through. You running from something?”

My wolf snarled. I kept my voice flat. “Everyone’s running from something, cowboy. What’s your excuse?”

His friends circled closer. One with ink covering his arms. Another with eyes like ice. Twin brothers who looked like they could kill with a

glance. A quiet one with glasses who watched me like he was solving a puzzle.

For a second, I tensed. Ready to run. Ready to grab my duffel and vanish.

But then the blond one-Dexter, he later told me-grinned and raised his glass.

“Fair

o Duston, Raven. Hope you’re ready to stay.”

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cat the others.

vere sharp. Curious. But not cruel.

Rejected by My Alpha. Now He Replaced Me with a Copycat Luna?

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Chapter 10

Not like Ronan’s. Not like Elise’s.

For the first time in years, I didn’t feel the urge to run.

I raised my glass. Cheap beer clinking against his whiskey.

“We’ll see.”

The neon sign outside Jack’s buzzed like an angry hornet, flickering between OPEN and OPE before settling on PEN.

The ceiling fan overhead spun slow, like it couldn’t decide whether to circulate air or just drop on someone’s head.

Duston, Kansas.

The kind of town where cows outnumber people, and people outnumber brain cells after last call.

I’d rolled in three weeks ago with a fake ID-Raven Reyes-and a story about being a drifter looking for honest work.

Honest work.

Right.

But Duston was perfect for disappearing.

I wiped down the bar with a rag that had seen better days-probably back in the Reagan years-and tried not to think about the germs staging a mutiny on its surface. My fingers brushed the switchblade in my boot. Old habit. Some things you don’t unlearn, even in a town where the biggest drama is someone stealing the sheriff’s hat.

The door creaked open. Sheriff Grady walked in, boots scuffing against the worn wood like he owned the place. In a way, he kinda did. Duston was small enough that the law and the local drunks were on a first-name basis.

“Afternoon, Sheriff,” I said, sliding a coaster his way. “The usual?”

Grady grunted. Duston-speak for “Yes, and I’m too tired to talk.”

I poured him a double of the cheap stuff. If there was one thing I’d learned running, it was how to read a man’s mood by the way he sighed.

The scars on my face itched when the whiskey fumes got thick. Not a real itch. More like a memory. A reminder that didn’t fade, no matter how many states I put between me and the bastard who’d left them there.

I could still hear his voice.

“My daughter doesn’t cower,” he’d snarled, backhanding me hard enough to split my lip. “You’ll learn to fight, or you’ll learn to bleed.”

Td

both.

ks in Duston were polite enough not to stare. Or if they did, they waited until my back was turned.

ut then there were the ones who didn’t.

Like the two assholes at table four, nursing their third round of Bud Lights and thinking-wrongly-that I couldn’t hear them over the jukebox.

“Shame about the face,” one muttered, voice slurred. “Bet she’s got a hell of a body under that apron.”

His buddy snorted. “Just turn her around. Problem solved.”

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Rejected by My Alpha, Now He Replaced Me with a Copycat Luna?

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Chapter 10

The glass I was polishing cracked in my hand.

Not enough to shatter. Just a sharp snap, stress fractures spreading through the cheap tumbler.

I set it down. Took a slow breath through my nose. Counted to five.

One. The scent of their sweat, sour with alcohol.

Two. The thud of their heartbeats, lazy and unafraid.

Three. The creak of the barstool as Joe shifted, his knee protesting as he turned to give them a look.

Four. The low growl building in my chest-one I forced back down.

Five.

I exhaled.

Then I grabbed a fresh bottle of Jack and walked over to their table.

“Gentlemen,” I said, sweet as poison, setting the bottle down between them with a thunk.

“Looks like you’re running low. On manners.”

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Rejected by My Alpha, Now He Replaced Me with a Copycat Luna?

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