My Luna Mother Ruined Me For Her Favorite—So I Chose The Rogue King Chapter 02
Back at the pack house, my mother called me into her study. Her tone, for once, was gentle.
“Evelyn, you were smart enough not to fight Celeste for a mate today. You did well.”
The words drove through my heart a second time.
She had traded my humiliation for Celeste’s glory—and she was pleased with the bargain.
“Mom, do you have any idea what those words did to me?” My voice trembled. “Every Council pack will remember me as the joke whose own mother stood up and called her reckless, coarse, and unworthy of being a Luna. Who is ever going to choose me now?”
Her face went cold. Her palm cracked against the desk.
“Why are you still this selfish?”
“Celeste has no mother. No one to fall back on. Her greatest fear is being abandoned. If you take the Crown Prince’s Luna position from her, she’ll spend the rest of her life in your shadow.”
“You have everything. Why must you fight her for the one thing she might still have?”
My throat burned. I looked down at myself.
I lived in the room Celeste hadn’t wanted. I wore the clothes Celeste had grown bored of. I ate only what Celeste liked to eat.
What exactly did I have?
What my mother didn’t know was this: from the day I was born, I could hear the voice beneath her voice.
I used to think it was a blood-link—something rare and sacred, a bond only shared between mother and daughter. Because in those early years, I was in it, too.
On border patrols, she’d wonder if I’d eaten enough. Watching another wolf pup stumble in training, she’d wonder if I’d fall like that someday, muddy and bruised.
Back then, I knew—without a doubt—she loved me.
Then Celeste came.
Because Celeste was pitiful, I couldn’t touch what Celeste liked.
When we both fell sick, Celeste was tended to first.
Every year, the moment my father’s gifts arrived from the border, her people were already on their way to collect them—every last one—and pass them to Celeste.
Every time, I told myself the same thing: Celeste was pitiful, and my mother had to be seen as fair.
Until the day of my First Shift.
Every wolf who endures a First Shift knows the truth of it. Your bones twist out of place, one by one. Your skin stretches from the inside as another body tears its way out of you. The pain crushes your human mind down into nothing.
At Celeste’s First Shift, my mother abandoned her mission—risking her command—and raced back to the pack house to sit with her through the night.
She stroked her hair, over and over, her voice soft.
“I’m right here, Celeste. I’m not going anywhere. I’m proud of you.”
At my First Shift, I waited all night. All I got was a letter.
One line. No warmth.
“The border situation has escalated. I can’t leave. Don’t make me feel guilty for doing my duty.”
My mother’s voice pulled me back into the study.
“You know I’ve never played favorites, Evelyn. I’ve chosen a good mate for you.”
She slid a file across the desk.
“A patrol wolf. Common bloodline. He won’t drag you into pack politics. He is the best mate you could hope for.”
The best you could hope for.
I looked at the file and almost laughed out loud.
What she’d given Celeste was the crown of a Queen Luna—the position every Council pack bowed to. And me—the only pure-blooded Alpha’s daughter of the Blackwood Pack, her own flesh and blood—should count herself lucky to be handed off to a patrol wolf.
“No. I won’t take him as my mate.”
I shoved the file back across the desk.
“Father is still at the border. Without his word, you don’t get to decide this alone.”
That was what broke her.
Her palm slammed across my face. I staggered back into the bookshelf, my cheek burning.
“I’ll send the chosen mate registration to the Council myself. Once it’s filed, it’s binding. As long as your father doesn’t object in time, it will pass.”
Tears spilled over. I shoved the door open and ran back to my room.
Nora took one look at my swollen face and pressed a cold cloth to it.
“How could she hit you? You’re her daughter—”
The tears came harder.
Maybe in my mother’s heart, Celeste was her daughter.
And I was nothing.
Once the swelling faded, Nora picked up an envelope from the table and handed it to me.
“Seraphina had it sent. She said it was for you and no one else.”
I opened it. Inside was an ice-blue wolf-head brooch—the sigil of the Rogue King of the Northern Wastes.
A handwritten note was tucked behind it.
“My mate. Wait for me. —Rowan”
I closed my fingers around the brooch.
For the next several days, the entire pack house buzzed with preparations for Celeste’s bonding ceremony.
Nora stood at the window, red-faced with rage.
“The Luna emptied the private vault for Celeste. Every piece in it should have gone to you.”
Once, that would have destroyed me.
Now I barely felt it.
A knock at the door. My mother’s attendant.
“Miss Evelyn. The Luna wants to see you.”
I had barely stepped into her room when a teacup grazed past my head and shattered against the wall.
My mother roared at me:
“Evelyn. Apologize to Celeste. Now.”