Not yours to reject
It just sits there under my feet, solid and unforgiving, while two hundred people I've known my whole life watch the boy I was promised to reject me in front of all of them.
Somebody laughs. Then somebody else. It spreads through the hall like a fever.
My mate bond, the one the Moon Goddess herself stitched into my chest before I was even born, snaps clean in half. It doesn't feel like heartbreak. It feels like someone reached into my ribs and yanked something out by the root.
I don't cry. I refuse to give them that.
Dean's already turning away, already laughing with his friends like he didn't just gut me in front of the whole pack. Like I'm nothing more than an inconvenience he's finally fr