Rejected By The Mate

My Daily Bread

Luna

The descent from the grand foyer to the servants' kitchen was a journey from one world into another.

Upstairs, the air was a weapon. It was sharp, smelling of expensive pine wax and the terrifyingly clean, ozonic scent of high-ranking shifters. It was the scent of those who occupied the light—the ones who were born to lead, born to shift, and born to dominate.

Down here, the atmosphere was a thick, humid soup. It was the smell of boiling fat, woodsmoke, and the heavy, metallic tang of unwashed copper. The walls were weeping with the condensation of a hundred years of labor, the stones absorbing the soot of a thousand fires.

I leaned against the soot-stained wall just inside the heavy oak door. My breath hitched in shallow, uneven intervals.

My hands were a map of my own misery. They were trembling—partly from the agonizing physical exertion of scrubbing the marble floors on my hands and knees, and partly from the lingering, numbing cold of the lye-heavy water that had soaked through my sleeves.

I was a Valeraine by blood, but a ghost by trade.

In a world where every girl of my lineage should have been vibrating with the restless energy of a budding predator, I was a hollow vessel. My sister, Mia, was a sun. She radiated the heat of her inner wolf, her skin constantly glowing with the supernatural power of our ancestors.

But I? I was a candle left to burn in a drafty, abandoned room. I was flickering, guttering, and nearly extinguished by the sheer, crushing effort of existing in a body that felt like a prison.

The kitchen was the pulsing heart of the manor, but for me, it was a place of strategic scavenging.

The head cook, Martha, moved with the violent efficiency of a soldier. Her cleaver thudded against the wooden island with the regularity of a funeral drum. Thud. Thud. Thud. She was carving through thick, bleeding cuts of venison intended for my father’s table. She didn't look at me. No one did. To the staff, I was a visible reminder that even the most powerful bloodlines could produce a failure.

The rich, savory scent of the roasting meat hit me with the force of a physical blow.

My stomach cramped so violently it felt like a claw was raking the inside of my ribs. The hunger was a living thing inside me, a parasite that chewed on my resolve. I hadn't eaten since the previous night. My last meal had been a dry heel of bread that had scraped the roof of my mouth until it bled.

I retreated into the deepest shadows by the flour bins, my head bowed low. This was the posture of the defective. This was the silent language of the Mute.

"Over there, Mute," Martha grunted.

She didn't spare me a glance. She simply gestured with a blood-smeared blade toward a chipped wooden bowl sitting on the very edge of the prep station, near the slop bucket.

I moved toward it with footsteps that made no sound.

The bowl contained the trimmings: stringy bits of gristle, greyish lumps of cold fat, and a few bruised, wilted vegetables. Beside it lay a jagged crust of bread, soaked through with the overflow of grease from the roasting pans.

This was my daily bread. The scraps of a life I was entitled to by blood, but excluded from by fate.

I took the bowl to a rickety wooden stool tucked away in the furthest, darkest corner of the kitchen. I squeezed my frame between the heavy flour sacks and a stack of firewood, trying to disappear.

I ate slowly. Experience had taught me that if I gorged myself on the greasy scraps, my stomach would rebel.

I forced myself to chew every piece of gristle until it was soft enough to slide down my aching throat. Every swallow was a chore. It was as if the silence that lived in my vocal cords had spread, making the simple act of eating feel like an internal war.

I closed my eyes. I allowed my mind to wander into a dangerous, forbidden fantasy.

In my mind, I was draped in violet silk. I was sitting at the long mahogany table upstairs. I could feel the warmth of the hearth on my face. Most of all, I imagined my mother’s hand.

In the fantasy, she didn't strike me. She didn't look at me with disgust. She leaned down and whispered how proud she was of her daughter.

The fantasy was shattered by the sharp, echoing thud of the kitchen door swinging open.

The energy in the room vanished. The clatter of pans died in the humid air. The only sound was the steady, rhythmic tap-tap-tap of expensive leather heels on the stone floor.

She was the personification of lupine elegance. Her silver-grey hair was pinned back in a bun so severe it seemed to pull the skin tight across her high, aristocratic cheekbones.

Her face was a mask of taut, unyielding perfection. Her eyes were a piercing, judgmental blue—the color of a frozen lake hiding jagged rocks beneath its surface.

She held her sapphire silk skirts up with two fingers, her expression one of profound, visceral distaste for the world below the stairs. She looked as if the very air down here might leave a permanent stain on her soul.

"Martha," she said, her voice like the chime of silver bells in a graveyard. "Is the banquet preparation on schedule? The King’s envoy expects a level of perfection that this household has always provided."

"Yes, Luna," Martha replied, her voice soft as she bowed low.

My mother’s eyes began a slow, predatory scan of the room. She wasn't looking at the food. She was looking for a blemish.

She was looking for me.

When her eyes landed on my corner, the regal indifference vanished. It was replaced by a cold, simmering disgust.

She walked toward me, each step sounding like the ticking of a clock counting down to an execution.

I stood up instantly, the wooden bowl clattering against the stool. I lowered my eyes to her shoes. They were polished to such a high sheen that I could see the distorted, pale reflection of my own face in the black leather.

I looked small. Broken. Coated in a layer of white flour dust—a literal ghost of a girl.

She leaned down. Her presence invaded my space until I could smell the mint and lavender that clung to her silk gown.

Her fingers—manicured and strong—gripped my chin.

She didn't do it gently. Her nails dug into my skin as she forced my head back, making my teeth ache with the pressure.

"Look at you," she whispered. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a vibration of pure, unadulterated rage.

"Sitting in the filth like a common cur, gorging yourself on the fat we throw to the hounds. Do you have no sense of shame? Do you possess not even a shred of the pride that flows—however thinly—through your veins?"

I remained silent. I had no choice. But inside the vault of my mind, I was screaming.

I am eating this because you gave me nothing else! I am sitting in the dirt because you treat me like a dog!

"Every time I am forced to look at you, I am reminded of the curse I am forced to carry," she hissed, her breath cold against my skin.

"A daughter who cannot shift. A girl who cannot even speak her own name. You are a disgrace to the blood that built this territory. You are a hollow shell, a biological failure that I have to hide from the world like a dirty, shameful secret."

She let go of my chin with a sharp, dismissive shove. I stumbled back, my shoulders hitting the rough burlap of the flour sacks. A fine cloud of white dust rose around me, coating my hair and my tunic like a shroud of ash.

"You are not a wolf," she continued, her voice rising in a sharp, jagged pitch. "You are a parasite. You consume the precious resources of a family you provide nothing to in return. You are a debt that can never be repaid."

The air in the kitchen was thick with the suffocating pity of the servants. They watched from the corners of their eyes as the Luna of the pack systematically dismantled the spirit of her own child.

"Tonight, when the envoys arrive for the pre-Pairing negotiations, you will stay in the cellar," she commanded. Her eyes narrowed until they were mere slits of blue ice.

"If I see so much as a shadow of you in the halls, if a single guest catches the scent of your human weakness, I will have you sent to the omega barracks permanently. Do you understand me?"

I nodded. It was a single, sharp movement of my head.

"Speak!" she suddenly screamed.

The sound echoed off the copper pots like a thunderclap.

Before I could even blink, her hand flew out in a blurred, lethal arc.

The blow struck me across the cheek with the full force of a shifter’s strength. It wasn't intended to kill, but it was delivered with enough power to crack the very air.

Crack.

My head snapped to the side with a sickening pop in my jaw. The world tilted on its axis.

The iron tang of blood immediately flooded my mouth where my teeth had sliced deep into the soft tissue of my inner cheek.

I didn't fall. Falling was a luxury I couldn't afford. I leaned heavily against the cold stone wall, my skin blooming with a sudden, throbbing heat.

The kitchen went deathly silent once more. Even the fire in the hearth seemed to dim in the presence of such unrestrained, cold-blooded wrath.

My mother stared at me for a final, agonizing moment. Her chest was heaving beneath her sapphire silk. Her eyes were wild with a mixture of hatred and a strange, twisted kind of grief.

"You can't even cry out," she whispered, her voice finally breaking the silence with a terrifying sort of disappointment. "You can't even give me the satisfaction of a scream or a plea for mercy. You are truly dead inside, aren't you?"

She turned on her heel and swept out of the kitchen, her silk skirts swishing with a predatory hiss.

The heavy door swung shut behind her with a final, echoing thud that felt like the lid of a casket closing over my head.

I stayed there for a long time, my hand pressed to my burning cheek.

The silence in the kitchen slowly returned to its frantic pace, but it was heavy now, charged with the shame of what had transpired. I felt the eyes of the servants crawling over me—some filled with cruel satisfaction, others with a relief that they weren't the target today.

I sank back down onto the stool. The hunger in my stomach was replaced by a hollow, aching void.

I was a failure. A Mute. A girl with no wolf to answer her internal cries.

I looked at my hands—red, raw, and covered in flour. They were human. They were fragile.

But as I sat there in the dark, a tiny, flickering spark of defiance ignited in the center of that void.

If being pure meant being as monstrously cruel as the woman who just left, then perhaps being a failure was the only thing keeping me human.

The heavy kitchen door hadn't even finished vibrating in its frame before the air in the room died. It wasn’t the heat from the ovens that made it hard to breathe—it was the sudden, suffocating weight of a True Alpha’s aura.

Thor Valeraine.

My father stepped into the kitchen, his massive frame casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the entire prep station. Beside him, my mother, Zara, stood like a statue of ice, her eyes still shimmering with the satisfaction of having just drawn blood from my face.

I scrambled backward, my heart hammering against my ribs. I grabbed the sleeve of Emma’s laundry apron, pulling her into the shadows of the flour sacks with me.

"The King’s scouts are already at the perimeter, Thor," my mother hissed, her voice cutting through the humid air like a serrated blade. "They are asking about the bloodlines. They are looking for the 'Valeraine Purity.' And what do we have to show them?"

She turned her head, her gaze piercing the shadows where I hid.

"We have a rodent lurking in the flour dust," she spat.

My father didn't look at me. He never did if he could help it. He stared at the head cook, Martha, who was currently trembling so hard she nearly dropped her cleaver.

"Martha, leave us," Thor commanded. His voice was a low-frequency growl that made the copper pots on the walls rattle. "Now."

The kitchen cleared in seconds. The servants scrambled out like rats fleeing a sinking ship, leaving me alone with the two people who were supposed to love me, but who only saw me as a biological debt.

"We have two years, Zara," Thor said, his voice flat and devoid of any fatherly warmth. "Two years until she turns eighteen. That is the limit of the law. We are forced to wait until then to see if God grants her a wolf, or if we can find some low-ranking fool to take her off our hands."

I felt the blood drain from my face. Two years. They weren't waiting for my birthday to celebrate my adulthood; they were counting down the seconds until my legal disposal.

"And if she stays a Mute?" my mother pressed, stepping closer to him, her sapphire silks hissing against the stone. "If she reaches eighteen and remains a human? I will not have her tarnishing Mia’s prospects. The Alpha King is looking for perfection. If he finds a defect in our direct line, he will strip us of our titles. He will hand our territory to the Silver Pack before the sun sets."

Thor finally turned his eyes toward my corner. He didn't see a daughter. He saw a ledger with a negative balance.

"If she reaches eighteen and remains a human," he said, his words falling like heavy stones, "then she is no longer a Valeraine. I will sign the papers to send her to the Northern Outpost. She can be a breeder for the low-ranks or a servant for the border guards. She will be forgotten. But until that day, we must endure the shame of her existence."

The Northern Outpost. It was a death sentence. A frozen wasteland where the "unwanteds" were sent to be used until they broke.

"Did you hear that, Luna?" my mother taunted, her voice dripping with a cruel, mocking sweetness. "Two years. Two years to find a voice, or you'll be screaming for mercy in the frozen wastes of the North. Not that anyone would hear you."

I squeezed my eyes shut, my fingers digging into the burlap of the flour sacks. I am your blood, I screamed in the vault of my mind. I am the girl you held when I was a baby! How can you talk about me like I’m trash?

But I had no voice to say it. And even if I did, they wouldn't listen.

"She cannot be here today," Thor barked, his patience snapping. "The King’s scouts have senses more acute than any wolf in this territory. They will smell the void in her. They will sense the lack of a wolf and think our bloodline has gone thin. It would be a scandal before the first toast is even poured."

He stepped toward my hiding spot, his boots clicking on the stone. Click. Click. Click. "Come out, Mute."

I stepped out into the flickering light of the hearth, my legs feeling like lead. I stood before the Alpha, my head bowed so low I could only see the intricate silver buckles on his boots.

"Look at me," he commanded.

I forced my head up. His eyes were hard, devoid of the pride he showed when he looked at Mia.

"The guests are early," he said. "They are already patrolling the grounds. I want you gone. Now. Not in the kitchen. Not in the cellar. I want you so deep in the woods that the wind doesn't carry your scent back to the manor."

"But the frost—" I tried to mouth the words, my throat working fruitlessly.

"I don't care about the cold!" he snapped, reading my desperation. "You will stay in the forest until the moon is at its zenith. If you are seen by a single visitor—if you bring one shred of embarrassment to this house today—I will not wait until you are eighteen to send you North. I will pack you into a crate tonight. Do you understand?"

I nodded, a sharp, jerky movement. The sting on my cheek from my mother's blow throbbed in rhythm with my racing heart.

"Speak!" he suddenly roared, his Alpha command slamming into me like a physical weight. "Give me one reason not to cast you out right now! One sound! One growl! Show me there is a wolf in there!"

I opened my mouth, my chest heaving, my soul reaching for a sound, any sound. But only a pathetic, wet wheeze escaped my throat.

My mother laughed—a cold, brittle sound. "See, Thor? There is nothing there. Just a hollow shell."

"Get out," Thor growled, turning his back on me as if I were already gone. "Go far. And stay silent, as you always do."

I didn't wait for another insult. I didn't wait for my mother to find another reason to strike me.

I slipped through the iron-bolted back door and into the biting evening air. It hit me like a slap, cold and sharp. The sun was a dying ember on the horizon, casting long, skeletal shadows across the yard. I didn't look back at the stone walls of the manor. I ran.

My thin leather shoes were useless against the damp earth. The thorns of the thicket tore at my tunic and my skin, but I didn't stop. I pushed through the pine and hemlock, my breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps.

Two years, the words echoed in my head with every footstep. Two years until the North. Two years until I am truly erased.

I reached a rocky outcropping deep within the forest, far from the patrol paths. I collapsed to my knees in the dirt, the ancient trees whispering above me like judges.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the dried apricot Emma had given me. It was small, shriveled, and sweet—the only kindness I had received in a day full of cruelty. I ate it slowly, the sugar momentarily stilling the tremors in my hands.

"Why?" I mouthed to the silent trees. "Why am I like this?"

But the forest offered no answers.

I looked up at the rising moon, its silver light filtering through the canopy. For the first time, I didn't pray for a wolf. I didn't pray for a voice to please my parents or a mate to save me.

I prayed for the darkness to swallow me whole. I prayed to become a shadow so that the world of purity and bloodlines could never find me again. If I was a defect, then let me be forgotten here, in the dirt where I belonged.

Then, from the direction of the manor, the first howl of the night broke the air.

It was a long, predatory call—the sound of a King’s scout marking the territory. It was followed by another, then another, a chorus of dominance that shook the very leaves on the trees.

The hunt was on. The banquet was beginning. The Alpha King was here, looking for his mate—the perfect, powerful Luna who would lead by his side.

I huddled in the dirt, the blood on my cheek drying in the cold wind. He was looking for a masterpiece. He would never find me—the broken, silent scrap of a girl hiding in the dark.

"Let them have their feast," I whispered into the wind, though no sound came out. "Let them have their purity."

I lay down on the cold moss, curling into a ball. I was the secret of the Valeraine house. I was the Mute daughter, the scavenger, the girl who didn't exist.

As the howls grew louder and the scent of woodsmoke from the manor’s great hearth drifted toward me, I realized that my father was right about one thing.

I was a void. And in this world of monsters, being a void was the only way to stay safe.

But little did I know, a void is exactly what catches the eye of a King who has seen everything else.