Rejected By My Alpha Mate

The Warning

Mia didn't sleep that night.

Damian's words looped endlessly in her mind, the last time I claimed a mate, she died within the year, turning over and over until she'd convinced herself of a dozen different, worse explanations.

A curse. An enemy. Something about the bond itself that made mates disposable, breakable, temporary.

By morning, she'd made up her mind. She needed answers, and Lena was the only person who might actually give her some.

She found her exactly where she expected, in the pack's training yard, sparring half-heartedly with another wolf while clearly waiting for Mia to show up. Lena dismissed her partner the second she spotted her, jogging over with none of yesterday's caution.

"You look like you didn't sleep."

"Tell me about the last mate," Mia said, skipping straight past pleasantries. "The one who died."

Lena's easy expression vanished. She glanced around the training yard, quieter this morning, but not empty, and pulled Mia toward the tree line, out of easy earshot.

"You shouldn't ask about her. Not here."

"I don't care. Damian all but told me she's the reason he rejected me. I deserve to know why."

Lena exhaled slowly, weighing something. "Her name was Elena. Three years ago. She wasn't from our pack, a rogue wolf he found and claimed almost immediately, no hesitation, nothing like what happened with you."

She hesitated. "Within six months of the claiming, she started getting sick. Wasting away, like something was draining her from the inside. The pack healers couldn't explain it. By the ninth month she was bedridden.

She died a few weeks before the year mark."

Mia's stomach turned. "And they think it was connected to the bond?"

"Damian thinks so. He's never said it outright, but after she died he changed completely, stopped courting, stopped even considering another mate, became obsessed with pack law about rejection instead. Then you show up, and the second the bond activated, he panicked." Lena's voice softened. "I think he genuinely believes that claiming a mate is what kills them. That rejecting you was the only way to protect you."

"But rejection isn't working. The bond's getting stronger, not weaker."

"I know." Lena's jaw tightened. "Which means whatever's actually happening, it isn't the simple curse he thinks it is. There's something else going on, something none of us understand yet."

A twig snapped somewhere behind them.

Both women spun, but no one was there, just the shifting shadows of the tree line and the wind moving through the branches. Still, the hair on the back of Mia's neck prickled, an instinct she didn't yet have the experience to name but trusted anyway.

"We should go back," Lena said quietly, already scanning the trees.

They'd barely taken two steps when a low growl rumbled from the underbrush, not playful, not pack-familiar. A stranger's growl.

A wolf emerged from the treeline, larger than any Mia had seen, fur a mottled gray-black, eyes a sickly yellow that held none of the warmth she'd come to associate with her own pack. It wasn't one of theirs.

A rogue, or worse, a scout from another territory.

Its eyes locked onto Mia specifically, ignoring Lena entirely, and something about that focus made the growing pull in her chest twist into something closer to alarm.

"Run," Lena hissed, already shifting, fur rippling across her skin in a blur of motion. "Now, Mia..."

But the rogue wolf was already moving, faster than anything should be able to move, cutting the distance between them in a heartbeat. Mia stumbled back, adrenaline flooding her veins, the human part of her screaming that she had no way to defend herself, no training, no claws, nothing....

A blur of dark fur slammed into the rogue from the side with bone-cracking force, sending both wolves tumbling into the underbrush in a snarling tangle of teeth and fury. Mia caught one glimpse of familiar amber eyes flashing through brown fur before the fight rolled out of sight entirely, the sounds of it echoing through the trees, snarls, a yelp of pain, silence.

Then Damian emerged alone, breathing hard, blood matting the fur along his shoulder, shifting back into human form as he stumbled toward her.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was rough, urgent, all pretense of distance gone.

"I'm fine," Mia managed. "You're bleeding..."

"It's nothing." He caught her by the shoulders anyway, checking her over with a thoroughness that betrayed exactly how much the earlier wall between them had been a lie.

Up close, the pull in her chest roared to life, so intense it nearly buckled her knees. From the way his breath caught, he felt it too.

"That wolf wasn't random," he said grimly, glancing back at the trees. "It came for you specifically."

"Why would anyone want me?"

Damian's expression darkened, some old fear resurfacing behind his eyes. "I don't know yet. But I'm not leaving you unprotected again. Whatever's happening, the bond, the attack, it's connected. I can feel it."

For the first time since the rejection, he didn't pull away.