Rejected by an Alpha

Chapter 9. THE BREAKING POINT

The smoke led Elara to a small clearing by nightfall. Her legs felt like they were made of lead, and every breath she took felt heavy, like the air was getting thicker. She kept herself behind the rock and looked out carefully.

Three men sat around a small, sputtering fire. They didn’t look like clean, disciplined warriors from the Silver Shield. These men were rough. Their clothes were a mix of dirty leather and mismatched furs, and their scent was a messy jumble of unwashed skin and woodsmoke.

"I'm telling you, I smelled it," one of them said, tossing a bone into the fire. "A female. Fresh. Somewhere near the creek."

"Probably just some stray Omega who got kicked out for being useless," another one laughed, leaning back against a log. "If we find her, we keep her. I’m tired of doing my own cooking."

Elara’s blood ran cold. She gripped the handle of her small paring knife so hard the wood bit into her palm. Her first instinct was to run, to slip back into the darkness of the trees and find another way around. But as she tried to shift her weight, her foot slipped.

The sound of a single dry branch snapping was like a gunshot in the quiet woods.

The three men were on their feet in a second. They didn't even need to shift; their movements were predatory and fast.

"Well, well," the largest one said, his eyes scanning the shadows until they landed on the boulder. "Looks like dinner came to us."

Elara didn't wait. She scrambled out from behind the rock and began to run. She didn't have a plan,panicked , she just needed to get away. But she was weak from hunger, and the fever from the afternoon was still humming in her ears.

She only made it twenty yards before a heavy weight slammed into her back, knocking her face-first into the dirt.

"Gotcha, little bird," a voice hissed in her ear.

A hand tangled in her hair, yanking her head back. Elara cried out, her fingers clawing in the dirt. She was rolled onto her back, and the large man from the fire was pinning her down, his knees on her biceps.

"Let me go!" Elara screamed. She tried to bring her knife up, but the man easily slapped it out of her hand. It disappeared into the dark undergrowth.

"Look at those eyes," the man said, smiling down at her. You’re tougher than I expected for someone so small.

His two friends caught up, standing over them and laughing. "She’s a pretty one, isn't she? Maybe we don't make her cook just yet."

The man pinning her down reached for the collar of her dress.

In that moment, something inside Elara didn't just snap, it exploded.

It wasn't the fear that took over; it was a sudden, violent wave of white-hot rage. She thought of Kael, of the Elders, of every person who had ever looked at her like she was nothing. She thought of the unfairness of it all, dying in the dirt because a man decided she wasn't valuable enough to love.

"I said... get off me!" she roared.

A sound like a thunderclap echoed through the clearing.

A shockwave of pure, silver energy erupted from Elara’s body. It didn't just push the man off her; it launched him. He was thrown twenty feet into the air, his body crashing through the branches of a pine tree before he hit the ground with a sickening thud.

The other two men fell back suddenly, crashing into the campfire they had built. The fire flared up in surprise, its flames turning violet for just a second, then slowly dying down until only glowing embers remained.

Elara rose to her feet. The weakness that had weighed her down was gone. Instead, she felt strong, as if fire was burning inside her. Her skin buzzed with energy, and the silver lines in her arms shone so brightly that they lit up the trees nearby.

"What are you?" one of the men gasped, scrambling backward on his hands and knees. His face was pale, his eyes wide with genuine terror. "You're a witch! You're a monster!"

Elara didn't answer. She couldn't. Her mind was a storm of noise. She looked at her hands, which were shaking and covered in a faint, shining mist. She felt like if she reached out, she could level the entire forest.

The two men didn't wait for her to move. They grabbed their unconscious friend by the arms and dragged him into the darkness, running as if a demon were at their heels.

Elara stood alone in the clearing. The silence that followed was piercing. The adrenaline began to drain out of her, and the weight of what she had just done hit her like a physical blow.

"What did I do?" she whispered.

She looked at the tree where the man had landed. The bark was scorched, as if it had been struck by lightning. The grass around her feet was blackened and dead.

She wasn't an Omega. She wasn't even a regular wolf. She was a weapon.

"Kael was right," she said, her voice trembling. "I am a mistake."