Rejected by My Alpha Now He Replaced Me with a Copycat Luna novel Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Raven’s POV

“Ezra,” I croaked.

“Hurt you.”

Pain-the good and the bad kind-swirled within me. “You did.”

It wouldn’t help to lie to him now. His wolf would know it, and so would mine. We needed straight talk. Honesty. Even if those truths hurt.

Fur rippled over Ezra’s arms, but I didn’t let go.

“Hate myself for hurting you.”

I moved in closer, straightening but not letting go of Ezra’s hands. “I don’t want that. I don’t hate you.”

“It’d be easier if you did.”

“Do you hate me?” The question tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it. I hadn’t realized that it was the question I needed the answer to more than anything. Was there a chance they could all see past my lineage to who I truly was?

Ezra’s face transformed, softened. His free hand lifted, and his knuckles, cold from the icy water, skimmed down my scar. “I could never hate you. You made me feel again.”

Tears gathered in my eyes. “But you don’t want to feel.”

“I didn’t,” he admitted. “It was too much. I had to turn it off or it would have drowned me.”

I knew that feeling. The mounting overwhelmingness of agony. I’d turned it off in the pit. In the torture sessions with my father and his men. It was the only option sometimes.

Ezra gripped my fingers tighter and seemed to be at war with something. “My older sister. She was the last kind touch I had before you. I held her hand as she struggled to live. I held her hand when she couldn’t. I held her hand for hours after she went cold, the life slipping from her

veins.”

And my father, my pack, had done that.

Ezra’s POV

I’d never said the words aloud. Asher understood because he’d been the one to find us strewn across the kitchen floor like the trash Shadowpine thought we were. He was the only one who knew everything I’d lost, But Raven needed to know, too.

“They tortured us for sport. My parents, My sister, We watched as they killed our father first. Then our mother. But they played with my sister and me. Sick. Twisted. And I couldn’t protect her,”

Tears spilled out of Raven’s turquoise eyes, tracking down her cheeks.

Pain for me. For my family.

“All they wanted was money, territory. And they didn’t give a damn who they had to end to get it. No honor. Never challenged our alpha. Instead, they snuck in during the dead of night when they knew half our enforcers were away on a training mission.”

Raven gripped my fingers so tightly that I lost all blood flow. But it didn’t matter. I had to get it out.

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

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It’s why he’s so angry now.”

“Because of what my father did,” Raven whispered.

“Your father. Not you.” I saw now what I hadn’t been able to in the shock of the moment when we found out where Raven had come from.

She struggled to swallow, to get words out. “He’s a monster.”

And she’d had to live with him for half her life.

“He doesn’t care about anyone but himself,” she spat. “Only making himself feel bigger, better than everyone around him. Forcing the

submission of everyone in his orbit. It’s never out of respect. Only fear.”

“Even you.” It wasn’t a question because I’d seen Raven’s body. Saw all the ways she’d been broken. Maybe she was just like me.

A sadness swept into Raven’s expression. And more than that-defeat. “He always seems to win. Gets exactly what he wants.”

Fiery tendrils of anger surged along every vein and nerve ending. “He didn’t. Not with you. Not with me. We’re still alive. Breathing. Free of his

clutches.”

Those sad eyes lifted to mine. “Are we?”

There was such pain in those two words. Her vulnerable truth.

“I’ve been running every moment since I escaped.” Raven roughly tugged a hand through her tangle of dark-brown hair. “Every time I thought I could be safe, he blew my refuge sky-high. He still haunts my nightmares. And I’m still afraid of the dark.”

“Raven-”

“I’m tired.” Raven cut me off as her shoulders slumped. “I’m so damn tired.”.

I moved in, just the tiniest bit closer. “So maybe it’s time to stop running.”

“It’s the only way I know how to stay alive.”

Fucking hell.

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