Rejected by My Alpha, Chosen by His Father

I should have known better. Everyone in Blackwood Pack knew Ryder was out of my league. The daughters of warriors and elders had been chasing him since he turned eighteen. Girls prettier than me, stronger than me, with better bloodlines and better fathers and better everything. But my wolf wouldn’t listen to logic. For three years, she had been pulling toward him. Every time he walked into a room, every time I heard his voice from down the hall, she would press against my chest like she was trying to get out. I kept pushing her back down. Kept telling her she was wrong. Tonight was supposed to prove one of us right. The Mate Ceremony happened every year on the night of the full moon. The elders performed the old rites, the Moon Goddess did her part, and bonds were revealed. Simple as that. Some years, nothing happened. Some years, three or four couples found each other. This year, I was convinced it would be us. I put on the white dress. I fixed my hair. My mother watched me from the doorway of our small cottage and didn’t say a word. Not good luck. Not you, look beautiful. Nothing. She just watched me with that expression she’d had since my father died, the one that looked like she was waiting for the next bad thing. I walked out before her silence could infect me. The clearing was already packed when I arrived. Nearly the whole pack, shoulder to shoulder under a sky so clear the moon looked close enough to touch. Torches burned along the edges. Kids sat on their parents’ shoulders to see better. The air buzzed with that specific energy that only happens when wolves are gathered, and something real is about to occur. I found a gap near the middle and stood there with my hands clasped in front of me, trying to look like I wasn’t terrified. Then Ryder walked in, and I forgot to pretend. He came through the crowd, and people just moved. Nobody told them to. They just did. He was twenty-five, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, with green eyes that always looked like they were calculating something. He was going to be a great Alpha. Everyone said so. His father, the Alpha King, had been grooming him for it since he could walk. He scanned the clearing, the way he always did, checking everything, owning the space without trying. His eyes passed right over me. The elder called groups forward one at a time. When my name was called, my legs went cold. I walked into the circle, and the moonlight hit my skin, and my wolf lunged so hard I nearly stumbled. Ryder stepped in from the other side. He looked at me. Really looked at me, maybe for the first time, and something crossed his face. I don’t know how to describe it. Not warmth. More like confusion. Like he’d expected something and gotten something else instead. The crowd went quiet. Then someone laughed. Light footsteps behind him. A familiar perfume that half the pack recognised because she wore too much of it. Selene Graves walked out of the crowd like she owned the ceremony and wrapped both hands around Ryder’s arm. She was beautiful. She’d always been beautiful. Sharp-featured, dark-haired, with a smile she aimed like she knew exactly what it did to people. She had grown up in a neighbouring pack, and she had been circling Ryder for two years. Everyone knew it. Everyone pretended not to. She said something in his ear. He didn’t move away from her. My wolf went quiet. Not calm. Quiet. The kind of quiet that comes before pain. I stood in the middle of that circle, the moonlight on my face, and I waited. Maybe he would step forward. Maybe the bond was stronger than whatever she’d said to him. Maybe the Moon Goddess would not let this happen. Ryder straightened up. He looked at me, and there was nothing behind his eyes. No confusion anymore. No hesitation. “I, Alpha Ryder Blackwood, reject Aria Winters as my mate.” Flat voice. Easy. It cost him nothing. The crowd erupted. Gasps, whispers, someone actually crying, though I didn’t know who. The bond inside my chest didn’t just break. It tore. Like something with roots being ripped out of the ground. I felt it in my teeth. In my spine. In every single part of me at once. My knees hit the dirt. Somebody grabbed my arm. I still don’t know who. I was looking up at Ryder, and he was already turning away, already letting Selene pull him back toward the crowd, already done with me before I’d even hit the ground. The last thing I saw clearly was her face over his shoulder. She was smiling at me.