The Rejected Mate

Chapter 7

By evening, the story had already started to rot.

Not the real one. The useful one.

Amara hid in the patrol shed longer than necessary, rearranging route charts that didn’t need it.

“Enough,” Jace said from the doorway. “You’re making the paper nervous. Food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Your scent says otherwise.” He jerked his chin toward the house. “Come on.”

The main hall buzzed when they slipped in. Long tables packed, extra benches wedged in. Silverpine and Blackridge were unevenly mixed—Gideon near Elias and Lysander, Lyra with a knot of younger warriors, a few unfamiliar faces watching everything with cool interest.

Rowan sat at the high table opposite Lysander, center seat, an empty chair at his right. From here, he was all composed lines and shadow. If not for the bond humming under her skin, Amara could’ve pretended he was just another visiting Alpha.

She dropped onto a bench near the guards’ end. Tamsin squeezed in beside her.

“You missed it,” Tamsin hissed. “Their gamma almost dropped roast in Lysander’s lap.”

“Tragic,” Amara said, reaching for bread more to have something in her hands than from hunger. “Did we live?”

“Barely.” Tamsin grinned, then leaned closer. “So? You saw him up close. Is he—”

“He looks like an Alpha,” Amara cut in. “Eat.”

Farther down, a young guard said, just loud enough, “Heard some Silverpine wolf already tried to throw herself at him.”

The words knifed through nearby talk. Heads tilted.

“Who?” someone asked.

The guard shrugged, pleased. “Dunno. Jana in the kitchen heard he had to shut some she‑wolf down near the guest rooms. Said she was babbling about bonds.”

Quick, sharp laughter.

Amara’s stomach went cold.

Tamsin glanced at her. “That’s stupid,” she muttered, but her eyes were on the faces turning toward the story.

“Who told you that?” Amara asked.

The guard blinked. “Huh?”

“That story. Who actually saw it?”

He shifted. “Everyone’s talking. Jana heard—”

“So no one who was there,” Amara said. “Just a game of ‘I heard.’”

He bristled. “I’m just repeating. You don’t have to bite my head off.”

“Maybe don’t turn one of your own into a joke in front of a visiting pack when you don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, sharper than she meant.

“Hey.” Lyra’s voice cut across the table.

Amara hadn’t realized the Blackridge gamma was that close. Lyra lounged with her arm over a chair, dark eyes amused but not soft.

“She’s right,” Lyra said, nodding at Amara. “You want to gossip, at least get decent sources. Otherwise you just sound like pups.”

The guard flushed and bent over his plate. Conversation slowly rose again, though the air at their end stayed tight.

Amara forced herself to chew. The food might as well have been paper.

At some point Gideon came by to swap a few low words with Elias about shared patrols. His gaze brushed over Amara, paused.

“West routes look solid,” he said. “Appreciate the detail.”

“Just doing my job,” she replied.

“That already puts you ahead of more wolves than I like to admit,” he said, and moved on.

Rowan never once looked her way. The bond stayed a low, relentless ache.

As soon as plates were mostly empty and benches began to scrape back, Amara slipped out a side door into the cooler dark.

Outside, the night was a relief. Crickets, pine, the faint swing of lanterns in the trees. She leaned against the wall, tipped her head back, shut her eyes.

Footsteps crunched on gravel.

“If you’re here to ask if he’s handsome up close,” she said without opening her eyes, “I’m going to throw you into the next ravine I patrol past.”

A soft laugh. Nira’s scent—herbs, clean soap, antiseptic—wrapped around her as the healer came to lean beside her.

“Please,” Nira said. “If I wanted dramatic fantasies, I’d stay in the infirmary. Someone actually swooned earlier.”

Amara cracked one eye. “You heard the story?”

“About the tragic she‑wolf who flung herself at the big bad Alpha and got gently rejected?” Nira’s mouth twisted. “Yes. Impressive how fast trash travels.”

“It’s not trash that someone talked to him,” Amara said before she could stop herself.

Nira stilled. “Amara.”

“I didn’t throw myself at him,” Amara added quickly. “I wasn’t… that.”

Nira studied her face, then her scent. Healer‑mode. Her expression shifted.

“Oh,” she said quietly.

Amara looked away, jaw tight.

“You feeling any bond‑shock?” Nira asked, practical. “Head racing, chest tight, worse when he’s close or when he’s not?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” Amara said. “It’s real. He felt it. He just…” Her voice scraped. “He’s got a mating arranged that half the valley’s hanging hopes on. He’s not breaking it for a border wolf from the wrong pack.”

Nira snorted softly. “Idiot.”

“He thinks he’s protecting his pack,” Amara said. “Maybe he is.”

“Still an i***t,” Nira said. “For the record? Your system smells like real bond stress. You’re not imagining this.”

Something in Amara’s chest unclenched—not the hurt, but the doubt.

“Good,” she said hoarsely. “At least if this wrecks me, it’s not over a hallucination.”

Nira’s shoulder brushed hers. “It’s not going to wreck you.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know you,” Nira said. “You do patrols with a sprained ankle and call it ‘annoying.’ You bend. You don’t snap.”

Inside, someone started music again, a low thump through the wall.

“I’m not going to run around defending him,” Amara said. “He made his choice. But I’m not letting them turn me into some pathetic punchline, either.”

“Rip their version apart before it takes root,” Nira agreed.

Amara looked up at the strip of sky over the trees. The bond hummed, sore and stubborn.

“Tomorrow I walk his escort,” she said. “I keep his people safe. I do my job.”

“And after that?” Nira asked.

Amara swallowed. “After that, I learn how to live in the same world as my mate while he pretends I’m just a name on a patrol sheet.”