Rejected by my Mate, Claimed by the Lycan King

Chapter 1- Even the Goddess was wrong

AMARIS

The bucket hit the floor before I even saw who kicked it.

"Oops," Greta said, not even glancing back as she walked off, the other maids trailing behind her, giggling into their hands.

"Clean it up before Alpha Garrick see it," one of them called over her shoulder. "Unless you want him remembering your face for the wrong reasons." She threatened.

My throat tightened, but I dropped to my knees anyway and started wringing the rag before the water could spread any further, telling myself maybe Greta had a bad morning, maybe somebody yelled at her before she came down here, because surely nobody woke up and decided to be cruel on purpose. People weren't like that, not really.

"Amaris."

I looked up to find Lady Cassandra standing over me, the Beta's daughter, her nose wrinkled like the smell of cleaning vinegar personally offended her.

"You missed a spot by the east window," she said. "And when you're done with that, my room needs to be arranged again. Someone left the curtains crooked."

"Of course, my lady."

"Of course, my lady," she repeated back at me, mimicking my own voice in a singsong pitch that made the maids behind her snicker. "You know, for someone who says yes to everything, you're remarkably slow at all of it."

My face went hot and I kept my eyes down so she wouldn't see it.

"I'll have it done before the ceremony starts," I whispered and she nodded .

"See that you do." She turned on her heel, already losing interest, then glanced back over her shoulder. "And Amaris? Maybe wash before you come up. You're starting to smell like the floors you scrub."

The laughter followed her out of the room, and I pressed my lips together until they stopped trembling before finishing the spot by the window, then I climbed two flights of stairs to fix curtains that hadn't been crooked at all, and told myself none of it mattered, because tonight was different.

Tonight was the Mating Ceremony. My eighteenth birthday, or the day I'd chosen as one, since nobody had bothered telling me the real date.

"Amaris, what are you doing, still standing there?" Mira snapped from the doorway. "Guests are arriving. Get to the hall, now, and fix your face, you look like you've been crying."

"I haven't." I wiped my palms down my apron. "I'm coming."

By the time I reached the Great Hall it was already full, warriors stood in formal furs, elders bowing to each other with the kind of stiffness that took decades to learn. I grabbed a tray of drinks before anyone could yell at me for standing still.

"You. Girl." A warrior I didn't recognize snapped his fingers at me like I was a dog. "Wine, now. And try smiling, one would think there's a funeral going on instead of a ceremony."

I smiled, and it pulled at muscles in my face that didn't want to move that way, a dull ache settling behind my cheeks as I poured his wine without spilling a drop.

Then the doors at the far end opened, and the whole room shifted.

"Riker." Someone breathed it like a prayer. "The future Alpha is here."

He walked in like he already knew every eye in the room was on him, and why wouldn't they be, with warriors clapping him on the back and elders straightening up like they'd forgotten they were tired.

He laughed at something, low and warm, and my own mouth curved up to match it before I could stop it.

I'd liked him for years. Quietly. The way you like something you've already decided isn't yours to have.

"Careful," Greta muttered, passing by with her own tray. "Don't stare too long, orphan girl. He might catch you drooling."

I looked away fast, my pulse picking up in my throat, pretending to be very interested in a stack of cups.

Then it hit me, a scent that didn't belong to anyone in that room, warm and dark, cedar and something underneath it like burnt sugar, and my wolf went still inside me, then frantic, every hair on my arms lifting at once.

It pulled at something low in my chest, a thread drawing tight, and before I'd decided anything my feet were already turning toward it.

I followed it through the crowd, past shoulders and furs and the clink of cups, and when I finally looked up, Riker was already looking back at me.

For one breath his eyes went wide, his mouth parting like he meant to say something, and my chest filled so fast and so full I thought it might crack me open from the inside.

Then his face changed.

His jaw locked and his eyes went flat, then they curled with something close to disgust, and the warmth in my chest turned to ice so quickly my fingers went numb around the tray I was still holding.

I set it down slowly, my hands shaking too hard to trust them with anything breakable, and I made myself walk toward him, one step and then another, the room blurring at the edges until he was the only thing left in focus.

I was almost there when Ashley, my close friend moved, sliding in front of him before I could close the last of the distance between us.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked, her smile never reaching her eyes.

"Mate," I said, the word barely making it past the lump rising in my throat.

The room went quiet around that one word like it had teeth.

"What did she say?" Someone whispered.

"She said mate. She thinks she's his mate."

Riker's jaw worked, a muscle ticking at the side of it. "Stay where you are," he said, loud and on purpose, it was loud enough that every head in that hall turned toward me at once.

"We're mates," I said again, my voice cracking right down the middle, my eyes burning so badly I had to blink fast to keep them clear. "You felt it too. I saw your face."

"What I felt," he said, "was disgust."

Someone laughed. I didn't look to see who. My hands had curled into fists at my sides without my permission, nails biting into my palms.

"A servant," he said, looking me up and down like he was cataloguing every reason I didn't belong in that room. "An orphan nobody wanted enough to claim before now. You really thought the Goddess meant this for me?"

"She chose us," I whispered.

"Then she made a mistake." Riker snapped. "Even the Goddess gets it wrong sometimes."

"Riker, please—"

"Don't beg." His lip curled. "It's pathetic enough watching you stand there." He said just as Ashley slid her hand into his, her smile never moving. "She's just confused, that's all. Aren't you, Amaris?" She smiled.

By now my chest was caving in on itself, my throat too tight to push another word through it, and I couldn't get my mouth to work fast enough before Riker straightened, squared his shoulders to the entire watching hall, and said the words every wolf feared more than death itself, clear enough that nobody in that room could pretend they hadn't heard it.

"I, Riker Silverfang, reject you, Amaris Moonvale, as my mate and future Luna of the Moonvale Pack."