Rejected Luna Rises

I stood in the crowded pack hall, my heart pounding against my ribs as Robert's eyes fluttered open for the first time in ten years. A decade of waiting, hoping, praying to the Moon Goddess—all for this moment. My fingers trembled as I gripped his hand, watching the recognition slowly bloom in his gaze.

"He's awake!" someone shouted, and the hall erupted in cheers.

Robert's body tensed beneath the sheets, muscles contracting in that familiar way I'd memorized over thirty years of marriage. The shift was coming. After ten long years, his wolf was returning.

"Everyone back," I commanded, my voice hoarse from disuse. The pack members—who had long since stopped listening to me as their Luna—surprisingly obeyed, creating space around the bed.

I stepped back too, watching as my mate's body contorted, bones cracking, skin stretching. The sound was beautiful to my ears after so many silent years of stillness. His wolf emerged with a powerful howl that shook the windows of the pack house, a magnificent dark creature that had once made my own Luna wolf whimper with desire.

But something was wrong. As Robert's wolf turned its amber eyes toward me, I felt... nothing. No rush of connection, no flood of emotion through our bond. Just emptiness where warmth should be.

"Robert?" I whispered, reaching out with both my hand and my mind.

His wolf stared at me, unblinking. Then he turned away, padding toward Michael and Jessica, who stood beaming at the foot of the bed. My son placed his hand on his father's fur with a triumphant smile.

"The Alpha has returned," Michael announced, his voice thick with pride. "The Silver Ridge Pack is whole again."

The crowd roared their approval, but I remained frozen, a ghost at my own celebration. My Luna wolf, dormant for so long, stirred uneasily within me.

Something was very wrong.

---

Three days later, I moved silently through the morning routine I'd performed thousands of times. The medicine tray balanced perfectly in my hands—muscle memory from a decade of care. Robert was sitting up in bed, scrolling through his phone, catching up on ten years of technological advances.

"Your morning medication," I said softly, setting the tray beside him.

He barely glanced up. "Just leave it."

I hesitated, unused to this coldness. For ten years, I'd talked to him while he slept, describing pack events, reading books aloud, maintaining one-sided conversations in hopes that somewhere in his darkness, he could hear me.

Now that he could actually respond, he had nothing to say to me.

I turned to leave when I heard the soft padding of footsteps in the hallway. Amber Rodriguez, our young pack healer, appeared in the doorway, her copper hair gleaming in the morning light.

"Alpha Robert," she said, her voice musical with deference. "I've brought the herbal tincture we discussed."

Robert's face transformed, a smile breaking across features that had remained stone-cold for me. "Perfect timing. Come in, Amber."

I stood there, suddenly invisible, as