Rejected By My Alpha, Claimed By The Alpha King

The mate bond hits me like a fist to the chest. One second I’m standing at the back of the crowd with a tray of silver goblets, invisible like always. The next, the whole world narrows to one man on the other side of the ceremonial fire. Ryder Morrow. Future Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack. And he’s staring straight at me. Mate. He smells like cedar smoke and rain. It feels like coming home after twenty-one years of being cold. The tray slips from my fingers. Silver goblets crash onto the stone. Wine splashes across the hem of Celeste Hart’s white dress. The music stops. Two hundred wolves turn to look at me. “You clumsy little—” Celeste starts. “Quiet.” Ryder’s voice. Low. Rough. Celeste shuts her mouth so fast her teeth click. He’s walking toward me. He has never once looked at me. He’s looking now. His eyes are grey as storm clouds, and something wild is happening in them. He stops a foot away from me. “You,” he breathes. “Me,” I whisper. I’m a wolfless omega in a borrowed dress, and the Moon Goddess has just tied me to the most powerful man in the pack. For one second — one single, stupid second — I let myself believe it. Then Ryder’s eyes flick past me. Toward the high table. Toward his father. Alpha Marcus Morrow hasn’t moved. But I see his jaw tighten. I see Ryder see it. And I watch the wildness in Ryder’s eyes die. “No,” I say, before he’s even spoken. “Ryder. Please. Not here.” When he speaks again, every wolf in the clearing can hear. “I, Ryder Morrow, heir to the Alpha seat of Silvercrest…” No. “…reject you, Wren Calloway…” No, no, no— “…as my mate and as my Luna.” The pain is instant. It’s not a bruise. It’s not a burn. It’s like someone has reached inside my chest, wrapped their hand around the thread that just appeared there — that shining, beautiful thread that tied me to him — and started dragging it out through my ribs. I gasp. My knees buckle. Nobody catches me. I hit the stone on all fours, palms in spilled wine. And then I hear it. Laughter. It starts with Celeste. A bright, delighted little giggle. Then her friends. Then the young warriors by the fire. Then the whole clearing is laughing, two hundred voices ringing off the trees, while I kneel in the dirt in front of the man the Goddess made for me. “Did she actually think—” “The kitchen girl? With Ryder?” “She doesn’t even have a wolf.” My face burns. My eyes burn. Everything burns. I look up at him. I need him to look at me. I need him to see what he’s doing. He doesn’t. He’s staring at a point somewhere over my head, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumps in his cheek. “You have to accept it,” Celeste says sweetly, gliding to his side. She slides her arm through his. “It’s the law, Wren. Say the words, and we can all get back to the party.” Ryder doesn’t pull away from her. That hurts worse than the rejection. “Ryder,” I whisper. “Look at me.” His throat moves. He doesn’t look. Alpha Marcus rises from the high table. The laughter dies instantly. “My son has made his choice,” he announces. “At the next full moon, Ryder takes the Alpha seat — with Celeste Hart at his side as Luna.” The clearing explodes with cheers. Celeste beams. She rises on her toes and kisses Ryder’s cheek, right there, right in front of me — and her eyes slide down to mine while she does it. Mine, that look says. He was always going to be mine. “Accept the rejection, girl,” Marcus says. And now he’s looking at me with something I’ve never seen on his face before. Not contempt. Not boredom. Satisfaction. Like this is exactly what he wanted. I get to my feet. My legs are shaking. My dress is soaked in wine. There are tears on my face that I can’t stop, and I hate it, I hate it, I hate that they can all see me cry. But I lift my chin. My mother taught me that. I was three when she died, but I still remember her voice. Chin up, little moon. Never let them see you break. “I, Wren Calloway,” I say — and my voice cracks, but I keep going — “accept your rejection, Ryder Morrow.” The thread snaps. The pain is so huge it whites out the world. I hear someone scream and realise, distantly, that it’s me. I hear Ryder make a sound too — a choked, broken grunt — but I’m already falling, the ground rushing up to meet me. My head hits stone. Everything goes dark and muffled and far away. And then, in the silence inside my own skull, someone speaks. A voice I have never heard before. A voice that has been waiting twenty-one years. Get up, Wren. My eyes fly open. Get up, the voice snarls. They’re going to kill you tonight.