Chasing the rejected Luna

47: Too many words

She looked like someone I didn't wish to see but I saw her regardless. She was the same person who woke me up at night because of the screams of torment that tore through my lips from nightmares.

She was also the one who made me turn into a puddle as if it were close to a fire source. But looking at her now, from across the house by the distance that separated us, I saw someone else.

This person wouldn't be able to inflict pain on me again. Not because she looked like she had been to the seven corners of hell but because I knew she couldn't. Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

I was no longer the little girl who got scared of any little thing. I was a woman now who had evolved more than I could ever imagine. But here I was, standing face to her, eyes clashing and no fear leaking from my pores.

I was bolder now and braver. All the things said to me in the past don't matter now because they don't define me or make me what I am. I am where I stand today because of the choices I made.

Even if some of the choices made me cringe, cry, happy, I was internally grateful for the path fate had taken me. It made me into something out of my wildest imagination. I was a woman who only existed in my younger self's fantasies.

I watched with shock and something else I couldn't place a finger on as Dianne closed one step at a time. She must have been so shocked to see me as all the color drained from her face. Or was it because of what she went through? Which made me wonder what the hell happened in the pack while I was gone.

"Sophia?" She whispered, coming closer to me and I could see how sunken her eyes had gone. The lights were out now. So also as the air of arrogance that once surrounded her.

I looked away from her, unable to look into those eyes anymore. Those eyes gave me sleepless nights more than once.

"It's me. Don't you recognize me?" I forced my eyes back at her.

She gaped like she had somehow expected someone else to be standing in my place. Was I that different from the person who was nudged in her memory? I knew the answer even before she asked the question.

"You look…" she walked closer to me again, her eyes squinting as she accessed me from head to toe. Her gaze was thick and lingering.

"Different," I completed the sentence. Somehow, it made me feel good. But I questioned what actually made me feel good. If it was the way her eyes held shock or the knowledge that she was no bigger than me.

I left the pack a tiny, malnourished girl as a sold slave to one of the mightiest packs only to come back with so much difference. Not only externally but internally.

Especially on the inside. I felt different. My mind and thoughts underwent a drastic transformation all because of what I faced and what I let go of.

"Yes," she whispered, her eyes still lingering on me, but I felt it on my neck where the mate mark lay. It didn't mean anything now since the mating process wasn't complete but the scar that refused to heal left a burning reminder about the different types of people filled in this world.

"I'd like to know where Alexander is now," I shifted the conversation away from me. And that was only when her eyes came up to mine again.

But this time, they held reverence. I knew she could feel the shift in me, the power just shimmering at the base of my fingertips wanting to be unleashed. But most importantly, I knew she could feel my wolf.

She looked away from me, "He should be in his office," her hands came up her pale neck as they squeezed out of nerves.

Why was she nervous? She acted strange at the mention of Alexander. Something couldn't be wrong with him, could it? The thought of him made my heart give a mighty leap in my chest. I felt it in my throat but it came back down after I tried to look normal. I couldn't let Dianne know I had been affected just by the mere mention of the man who caused me pain.

Rejected me and bruised my weak and once fragile heart. Maybe my heart was still weak, that was why it still beat at the mention of the man who did nothing but shatter it without blinking an eye. What a stupid organ. I lamented inwardly.

"I'd go see him now," I took two steps away from where I stood, my shoulders almost brushing with hers.

I had a feeling she would crumble like the sand when placed in one's fingers if I as much brushed my shoulders against hers. She looked like someone who could be picked up in the storm.

"When you get to his office, be careful. Alexander isn't who he used to be," her words stopped me just before I could climb the little stairs leading to the pack house.

And I'm not who I used to be before either.

"Thank you. I will," I said instead and went into the house.

I noticed the outside was not different from the inside. If anything, the inside looked worse than I remembered. Was there any war? I quickly dismissed the thought as soon as it formed in my head.

Even if there was war, the pack house wouldn't be as deserted as it is right now. The house was devoid of any staff. There was no omega or guard in sight which was eerily abnormal given that the pack house was always so busy with activities, whether there was a ceremony or not.

And the cold that seeped into my pores. It was the kind of cold that came from a lack of human company in a big house. I made my deduction that the house had been empty for some time now.

I tried not to let Dianne's words get to me. But it did. What should I expect from Alexander? Would he lash out at me for coming without any prior notice? Would I catch him at his darkest hour? Or was I just overthinking everything, reading meaning to something that's supposed to be left untouched?

I got to the all too familiar room of mine. The doors were left slightly ajar. Too many memories flooded me at the sight that lay before the door. Just too many, my little bag fell off my fingers at my feet.

I knew I couldn't go in, not when my curiosity was bugging me so much about Alexander. Although I knew that reason was something I made up for not going into the room. And not because I was scared of facing my past where I was the weaker version of myself.

I was scared of the emotions that would resurface. They were the emotions I painstakingly hidden in the deepest part of my heart. But now, they fought to be out. But I won because I didn't give them the chance to consume me and leave me broken. Again.

By not giving them the chance, I have the other part of me who still clung to the hope that Alexander was in his office waiting for me with arms wide open.

I walked to his office, the soles of my shoes making soft sounds on the tile floor. The dirty tile floor and my shadows drawing long drawings on the walls covered with cobwebs.

And when I did finally reach the door of Alexander's office, I hesitated. I hesitated because of the rapid beating of my heart. I feared if Alexander was in his office like I had willed myself to believe, he would hear the sound of my heart relentlessly hitting against my ribcage.

A different woman. I sneered at the taste the sound left on my lips as I whispered them to myself. I was a different woman but not when it came to Alexander. I still yearned for him.

I still wanted his touch that ignited fires in my bones. And his eyes…

I closed my eyes as I breathed in deeply, opened my eyes, and placed my hand on the doorknob. I twisted it and entered the room, the huge breath I took being released slowly.

The room was shrouded in darkness. The windows were down. But the difference between the rest of the house and his office was the temperature of the room.

The room was hot as I felt a bead of sweat roll down my armpits to my fingers which were still placed on the doorknob. I knew part of the reason the room was hot had something to do with my

anxiety about seeing Alexander again.

Alex… like I had secretly called him in my heart.

He was here. I could smell him as shivers of pleasure ran down my spine at the smell of him. Closing the door, I stood rooted to the spot waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. And then I found him.

He was at the far end of the room, his back to me with a long cloak that covered the entire length of him. But I could recognize him anywhere. Even if my eyes didn't, my heart will always do.

He was looking through the gaps of the blind in his office that prevented light from leaking in. I wondered if he was lost in thought or if he was able to see outside through the blinds.

"I told you I don't want to be disturbed. It seems your last visit to the dungeon wasn't en…" he stopped, sniffed the air, and stiffened.

His voice was different. It was raw and sounded inhumane. Void of emotions. It lacked the warmth I got used to during my last days here.

He turned around so slowly that I knew the image would play in my head for as long as I was alive. But the scene I thought would play out got wiped out by the look in his eyes when he saw me.

There was no shock on his face like Dianne's, no emotion. Not even a muscle in his face twitched to let me know he had seen me and recognized who I was.

But he knew. He knew who I was because of the different emotions that swirled in his eyes. We locked gazes, lost in each other's eyes. For a while, there were no words said but a thousand words spoken between us.

"Why are you here?" He asked and I thought I heard wrong until his lips lifted, giving way to a deadly smirk that made my toes curl.

In dread.