THE REJECTED BLOOD BOND

CHAPTER 4

Three weeks later, the silence in Julian’s life had become an absolute torment.

He had successfully stabilized the stock, crushing Sterling’s short-selling attempt with a brutal display of financial dominance that left two Chicago shell companies in ruins. But the victory felt hollow.

The corporate triumph did nothing to soothe the rot in his chest.

The rejection backlash was supposed to fade, but instead, it was mutating. Julian found himself staring at the empty desk in the reception ante-room for hours after the staff had gone home.

He had hired three different replacements in twenty days. He had fired them all. One didn't format the briefs correctly; another talked too much; the third looked at him with an annoying, submissive terror that made him want to rip the doors off their hinges.

None of them were Elena.

"You're losing your mind," Marcus said, entering the office late on a Tuesday evening. He found Julian sitting in the dark, the only light coming from the gray New York rain washing over the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"I am fine," Julian rasped. His voice sounded like it had been dragged through gravel. He hadn't slept more than two hours a night since the night of the rejection.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Elena’s amber eyes hardening from grief into absolute, cold defiance.

"You aren't fine. Your pack aura is leaking so badly that the lower-ranking enforcers are refusing to come up to the executive floor," Marcus said, tossing a manila folder onto the desk. "I did what you wouldn't let yourself do. I tracked her."

Julian’s head snapped up, his gold eyes instantly igniting in the darkness. "I told you to leave her out of this."

"She’s an unaligned Omega in a city that’s about to go to war, Julian.

Leaving her alone is a death sentence for her if our enemies find her first," Marcus snapped. "She didn't leave the state.

She’s still in New York. She took a job at a small, human-run accounting firm in Queens. No pack protection, no supernatural security. Just a girl and a computer."

Julian’s hand moved toward the folder, his fingers hovering over the paper. The urge to grab it, to memorize her new address, to drive down there and drag her back to his tower was so overwhelming it made his chest ache with a violent, possessive throb.

"She doesn't want me," Julian whispered, the admission costing him every ounce of his Alpha pride. "She looked at me like I was nothing before she walked out."

"She looked at you like you were a fool, because you were," Marcus said, turning toward the exit. "But you're still the Alpha. And if you don't secure your variables soon, the Silvercrest Pack is going to use her to tear your crown off your head."