"Reject her!"

"She is not fit to be our future Luna!"

"Even her family loathes her!"

I stare at the crowd in front of me, the crowd that keeps growing by seconds…they all had this look of outrage in their eyes, like they would like to throw me into the woodpecker that was recently acquired by the Alpha a week ago.

They want me to suffer excruciating pain.

Look at them!

They are waiting for me to go through the mind numbing pain that comes with having a mate reject me, aren't they?

I never thought I would one day fear for my life at the hands of my own pack but here I am, chained up like a commoner!

I was their Beta's daughter! I am Beta Blood!

"You don't understand. What happened yesterday wasn't my fault. Let me explain" I say over and over again to them but it falls on deaf ears.

I see Luna walking towards me even before I see her husband, Alpha Julian Carsten.

She looks like she has been crying for a very long time.

I turn to her, hoping that underneath her grief, she would remember that I am Juno Olympia Rodriguez…Hoping that she would remember that she is my mother's best friend, that I am her little Juno.

"Auntie India…" I hardly finished uttering her name when I felt the sting of her slap across my face.

"You left him there, Juno"

I can taste the saltiness of my own tears but it doesn't bother me as much as Luna India's.

"You left my six year old son with that monster because of what?! You stupid pride?!"

Pride?

Did she say pride?

What pride?

"Pride?" I whispered to India. "What pride? His captors wanted me to…" my voice trails off.

I couldn't say it out loud no matter how much I wanted to.

"Liam!" India yells, her eyes still fixed on me like a polka dot.

I didn't even know Lee was here until his mother yelled his name and he magically appeared before us.

"Yes, Mother" Liam Carsten says out loud in this voice that always made people look at him. It's why he never speaks.

Lee is deaf.

"Lee" I signed in American sign language (ASL) but he kept his gaze fixed on everything but me.

"Liam, look at me" I yelled again. "Lee!"

I look at Liam, hoping that the boy I have been in love with even before I realized what love was would come to my defense but all he did was look at me.

"Liam!" I yelled out loud.

He could read lips, he heard me.

"They want me to reject you, Juno" he told me in ASL.

"They can't force us to reject each other. You can say no" I signed back. "Say No, Lee"

"You should have done it" He told me.

I froze.

It worn off very quickly.

"Lee!" I scream out loud in anguish. "You don't mean that"

"Yes, I do" he insisted.

If he meant it, why couldn't he hold my gaze. Why is his head bowed in shame?

"No, you don't"

"Yes, I do"

He looked at me. And I saw it.

He meant it.

"You can't. You can't mean that. You love me, so you can't mean that. They wanted to do horrible things to me, Lee. They wanted me to get on my knees and…and…" my voice fades away in my hopelessness but he looks at me like he is a clueless headless chicken, so I say it out loud for the very first time.

"They called me a whore! They wanted me to be their whore!" I said in ASL as tears ran down my face in defeat.

Liam winced and looked away briefly.

Lee looks defeated.

He looks conflicted…like he is stuck.

But he is Liam Carsten, he likes banana favoured ice cream and s'mores and he has a wicked sense of humor and he loves me to hell and back...he will see reason.

"I love Bryer, you know I do Liam but what they asked of me…I couldn't. I just couldn't"

"My brother lost his arm, Jun…if it could have been prevented…"

I blink in confusion. "Did you hear me? They wanted me to suck…"

"I heard you, Juno!" He yelled out loud too before he started talking in sign language. "I am saying that you should have" He yells at me.

I stagger a little, the weight of his words weighing on me heavily.

"Juno…" he moved closer to steady me but I slapped his hand away.

"Juno…"

"Don't touch me!" I scream in his face and slap away his helping hand.

"What do you want me to say?! My heart is breaking! I'm gonna lose the love of My life over something that five minutes of up and down could have stopped, don't you bloody get it?!"

"Screw you!" I scream again in his face this time and in my human voice, too shocked to comprehend what just happened, jerking forward to strike his blasphemous mouth but was held back by half my pack.

Lee blinked and tears ran down his face. He looked like he was in pain.

"You are breaking my heart, Junni"

I blink defiantly.

"That's okay" I murmured out loud, tears running down my cheek. "You broke mine first"

I bite down a shiver.

What a waste!

Six years of friendship and four years of dating down the drain!

"Get on with it, Liam Carsten! Let's give our pack what they came here for"

Liam moves even closer to me. We are in tears. We are both in pain.

We are pissed at each other too…me rightfully so.

"Juno…" he came forward and I took a step back.

"Do it or I will" I threatened.

He takes a step back. His posture straightened and he does it.

"I, Liam Carsten hereby reject Juno Rodriguez as my mate. I sever all the bond between us…it's over, Juno"

It was like a sharp stab.

The pain knocked me on my arse.

Author.

Drop a word for Liam Carsten.