THE ALPHA'S REJECTED MATE

EPISODE 1 - THE HOWL Lena Vale had learned to read the forest by ear a long time ago. The rustle of leaves against her window. Birds before sunrise. The occasional crack of a branch when something wandered too close to the house. The sound in her dream was different. A howl rolled through the dark, low enough that she felt it in her chest before she heard it. She ran, though she couldn't have said what from — only that stopping would be a mistake. The forest went on forever, silver under a full moon, bare branches crossing overhead like fingers laced together. Mist curled low between the trees. Something followed her. Not footsteps — breathing, heavy and slow, closing in no matter how hard she pushed. Then she saw him. A figure stood in the moonlight, tall and still, his face lost in shadow except for his eyes. Gold. They watched her like they already knew her. He stepped closer. "Run, Lena." He didn't say it loudly. He didn't have to. She'd heard that voice almost every night for months. She tried to move and her feet wouldn't listen. "You're running out of time." His eyes flared brighter, and Lena screamed herself awake. She sat up fast, one hand pressed to her chest, and for a few seconds all she could do was breathe. Her room was dark. The clock read 2:17 a.m. She wiped her forehead. "Again," she muttered. Six months of the same forest in her sleep. Sometimes the stranger, sometimes just the howl. Tonight was different — this time he'd known her name. She reached for the water glass by her bed and heard a scratching sound at the window. She went still. It came again — scratch, scratch — and she turned slowly toward the curtains. Silence. She made herself get up and cross the room. When she pulled the curtain back, the yard looked empty in the moonlight. Then she saw the ground beneath the window. A footprint. Not a shoe. Something bigger, unsettlingly close to the shape of a paw. A knock came at the door. "Lena?" Her mother. Lena opened it to find Mara in the hallway, paler than usual. "You screamed." "Bad dream." Mara's eyes drifted to the window, then back. "What did you dream about?" "The forest." Her mother's face barely moved, but her shoulders tightened. "Again?" "You say that like you've been counting." "I have." The answer came too fast. Mara stepped inside, shut the door, and sat on the edge of the bed. Neither of them spoke for a moment. "Your birthday's tomorrow." "Today, technically." A tired smile. "Eighteen." "Don't look so worried." "I'm not worried." "You are." Eighteen years had been long enough for Lena to memorize every one of her mother's expressions — annoyed, tired, amused, lying. Right now, she was scared. "What aren't you telling me?" "There are things I meant to tell you when you were older." "I am older." "Not old enough." Lena laughed without much humor in it. "I'm old enough to vote, to live my own life — but not old enough to know why you look terrified every time I bring up my father." Mara went still. Her father had always been the one subject that wasn't allowed in their house — no photos, no stories, no relatives. Just one line, whenever Lena asked: *He left before you were born.* It had never quite added up. "Did he actually leave?" Lena asked. Mara looked at her a long moment. "No." The word came out so quiet she almost missed it. "What?" Mara walked to the window. "He didn't leave because he wanted to." "Then what happened?" "He was part of something dangerous." "Dangerous how?" "Your father wasn't like other people." "What does that mean?" "It means you need to stay away from that forest." "You've told me that before." "I'm telling you again. Because tomorrow night, something's going to happen. I don't know exactly when, and I don't know how much control you'll have over it. But when it starts, I need you to remember what I'm about to tell you." Lena's heart picked up. "What starts?" Something close to grief crossed her mother's face. "Your awakening." Before Lena could ask what that meant, a crash came from downstairs. Glass shattered. Mara's face lost every bit of color it had left. Someone was in the house. Mara grabbed her wrist. "If you hear me tell you to run, you run. You don't stop, you don't look for me, you don't wait. Promise me." Lena stared at her mother's shaking hands. She'd never once seen her look helpless. "I promise." Mara hurried out. Lena counted two seconds before voices drifted up from downstairs. "Where is she?" "There's no one here." "You've hidden her long enough." A second voice joined the first. "She turned eighteen tonight. We felt the shift." "You have no right to be in my home." A bitter laugh. "We've given you eighteen years. Don't mistake patience for mercy." Lena crept to the top of the stairs, knowing she'd just promised not to — but something in those voices made staying put impossible. Through the railing she counted three men in dark clothes she didn't recognize. Their faces meant nothing. Their eyes did. One tilted his head, like he was listening, and looked straight at the staircase. Lena ducked back. "You brought someone with you," he said. Mara didn't answer. "She's here." Mara moved to block the stairs. "Leave." "You know we can't do that." "You don't understand what you're doing." "We understand exactly what we're doing." A step closer. "She's the last living descendant of the Vale line. If her wolf wakes up before we find out what she inherited, every pack in the north will come looking for her." Her wolf? Lena backed away from the railing, and something inside her twisted, hard. Pain shot through her stomach, hot and sharp, and she grabbed the wall to stay upright. A second wave hit behind the first, and her vision blurred. Below, Mara looked up. For one long second, neither of them moved. Then Mara shouted, "Run!" Lena bolted back to her room, grabbed her jacket, and went out the window. She hit the grass hard and kept moving. Shouting broke out behind her, and underneath it, something that sounded far too much like a growl. She didn't look back. The trees swallowed her within seconds, branches snagging at her sleeves as she shoved deeper into the dark. She had no plan, only the fact that the men in her house had talked about her like she wasn't entirely human. Like she belonged to something else. *Your awakening.* She stumbled, another jolt of pain tearing through her, and caught herself against a tree, palm pressed to her stomach. Her skin felt like it was on fire. Then, all at once, it stopped. The forest went silent. Lena lifted her head and found someone standing ahead of her in the dark - tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black, moonlight cutting sharp lines across his face. Dark hair fell over his forehead. His eyes stopped her cold: gold, the exact same gold from her dreams. He studied her, his expression shifting by the second - shock, recognition, something close to fear. He came closer, slow. "You shouldn't be here." The voice was the one from her dream, word for word. "You," she said. "You've heard my voice." "Every night." For the first time, he looked genuinely thrown. "Who are you?" "Lena Vale." He went still. "Vale?" "Yes." He glanced up at the sky, then back at her. "What did your mother tell you?" "Not enough. Apparently everyone in the world knows something about me except me." "My name is Adrian Blackwood." A pause. "I'm the Alpha of this territory." That meant nothing to Lena, and she was about to say so when a sharp pain shot through her wrist and cut the thought off. She gasped as a silver mark bloomed under her skin, a crescent moon ringed by thin lines. Adrian's whole posture changed. "No." "What?" He stepped closer, and she held her arm out without meaning to. The color drained from his face. "Where did that come from?" "It just appeared." His eyes met hers, and for a moment he said nothing. When he finally spoke, it was barely a whisper. "That's not possible." "What isn't?" He looked past her into the trees, something in his face hardening. "We need to go." "Why?" "Because you've been found." A howl sounded, far off, then another answering it. Adrian stepped in front of her. "Stay close." "You're the man from my dreams." He didn't turn around. "I know." Her stomach dropped. "You knew?" "I've been looking for you." "Why?" He glanced back, gold eyes meeting hers. "Because you're my mate." Lena couldn't get a word out. The term meant nothing to her and yet the moment he said it, something in her answered anyway, a warmth spreading through her chest she hadn't asked for. Adrian's jaw went tight, like he felt it too. Then the forest erupted with howls. Shadows shifted between the trunks, one pair of glowing eyes, then another, then more. Lena moved closer to him without thinking. "Who are they?" His voice went cold. "The reason your mother spent eighteen years hiding you." He reached for her hand, and this time she let him take it. "Whatever happens," he said quietly, "don't run from me." Lena stared into the dark as the eyes multiplied among the trees, and understood, all at once, that her nightmares had never been dreams. They had been warnings.