Unwanted Rejection

Episode 5

Rejected

Gabriella's POV

My heart thundered like war drums as I stood against the Beta—Martins, if the rumors were true. His eyes, cold and calculating, studied me as if I were a particularly difficult math problem.

Tell your Alpha that the one at the masquerade was me. My voice emerged more steady than I had expected. "I'm his mate—not my sister."

The laugh that escaped him was not cruel — it was genuinely amused, and somehow that stung worse. "Oh, honey. Have any idea how many women try this same stunt every month?

“I’m not some delusional fangirl!” I snapped, catching us both off guard with my unexpected ire. “What would I have to gain by going into enemy territory and lying? A quicker death?"

His eyebrow lifted just a bit — the first c***k in his professional mask. "Fair point. Not the wisest survival technique, huh?”

“Listen,” I lowered my voice, “I know this sounds crazy. Scandalous failed mating daughter claiming she was mated to the most powerful Alpha in the region? I wouldn't believe me either. But — ” I tugged the collar of my shirt down to expose the silver crescent birthmark on my shoulder, “ — ask him about this. He saw it. He touched it."

A flicker of something crossed Martins’ eyes — recognition, uncertainty? He scrutinized the mark for a long moment.

"Wait here," he said finally. “And for the love of Moon, do not touch anything. “The security in this place is... over the top.”

"Thank you," I breathed.

He paused at the door. “Just so you know — if you’re lying, you’d better hope rejection is all you face.”

Abandoned in the grand waiting room, I dragged a finger across a marble side table, admiring the furniture whose worth was greater than everything I owned. The Blood Moon pack was true to its ghastly reputation for prosperous ruthlessness. I had heard how Nicklaus had taken their area from not only rich to filthy rich, but filthy rich and ruthless, coming through for them by savage business tactics and political alliances.

My phone buzzed with a message from Jane: *“Hi Gabby, I miss you already. You okay? Need backup?" *

I smiled despite everything. Jane—the only true friend I had in Silver Moon territory. The only one, who didn't treat me like a defective wolf or ært.

“Miss you too,” I typed back. *"How's Steve? And still hopelessly in love with you? * I paused, then continued: *”I’m OK. Just a little clarification that emmm. DON’T tell anyone where I am.” *

My finger hovered over send as the door swung open. I shoved the phone in my pocket, heart leaping — but it was just Martins.

One glance at his face said it all.

"He's not coming, is he?" My voice sounded hollow.

“The Alpha is… busy with business.” Martins sounded professional, but had a look in his eyes that was almost... pity? “He asks you to leave at once,”

The room appeared to tilt to the side. "He won't even see me? After what we shared?"

“Miss Silver Moon, I’ve been ordered to escort you out. “Please don’t make this hard.”

“Wait—” Desperation clawed at my throat. The question is, “Did you tell him about the birthmark? Did you tell him I was at the masquerade?

“I relayed your exact message word for word.” His voice softened a fraction. “Sometimes a kindness is a rejection. Better a clean break than false hope.

"Kindness?" I laughed bitterly. “You think it’s nice to reject someone without even looking them in the eyes? Without even checking to see if they’re telling the truth?”

That the Alpha’s word is law. “Now are you going to walk out with dignity or do I need to call security?”

The one thing I had left — pride — gave me some backbone. "I'll walk."

Just as we were near the exit, my attention was drawn to a commotion by the gates. A procession of sleek black SUVs passed through, ceremonial flags waving.

“I had to curse,” Martins said. "The Silver Moon delegation. Early." He turned to me, eyes sharp. “How convenient you just got here before them.”

"What? I didn't—"

“If this was some Silver Moon scheme—”

"It's not!" I protested. "I came alone. No one knows I'm here."

His eyes squinted, scrutinizing me once more. "Wait here. Don't move."

The instant he walked toward the convoy, I decided. I couldn’t leave — not like this, not without talking to Nicklaus. I saw a group of maids running to the main house, arms full of drink and food trays.

Perfect.

I ducked into a service entrance, snagging a uniform from an unguarded laundry cart. The jacket was oversized, the skirt was too short, but this would have to do. My heart racing, I followed a queue of maids bearing drinks into what looked to be a meeting room.

And then I saw him.

Nicklaus.

Even sitting down, he commanded the room. Broad shoulders, sharp jaw, those ice-blue eyes that had haunted my dreams. The memory of his hands on my body, his dropped whispers in the dark, hit me like a corporeal blow.

As I walked up with a tray of drinks, our eyes met for a moment — and nothing. No recognition. No spark. Just the pro forma dismissal of a servant.

Had I imagined everything? The bond, the way my wolf had called out mate the instant we made contact?

My hands shook as I set a glass before him and for one breathless moment, his fingers grazed mine. My heart stopped.

His nostrils flared slightly.

“You — you stay,” he ordered suddenly. "Everyone else, out."

The other servers ran away, but I was left with the most feared Alpha in the whole region. My mouth went desert-dry.

"Who are you?" His voice was quietly menacing, like the hiss of a knife unlimbering from its scabbard.

Swallowing hard, I squared my shoulders. No more hiding. “I am Gabriella Silver Moon, Daughter of Alpha Aiden. I raised my chin. "And I am your mate."

“His face showed nothing, but in those blue depths something dangerous stirred.” “Oh, the little lying inbred thing that won’t die. I thought I was clear that you weren’t welcome here.”

“If I am lying, why not I am rejected in formal. “Look me in the eyes and say the words.” Inspired by desperation, I stepped a little closer. "You can't, can you? Because your wolf knows who I am.”

“My wolf” — he said it like it was a name on a genetic list — “is perfectly in sync with the female I picked to breed — your sister.”

“So then why’d you let me f–k you in your masquerade? The words poured out of me before I could catch them. “Why did you scent marked me, make love to me ‘till dawn, whisper that you’d found your ‘forever’ in my ear?

Something changed in his face — the tiniest flash of confusion.

“You’re not even denying it,” I said. "You know it was me."

“What I know,” he said, with dangerous precision, “is that Silver Moon pack sent a girl known to throw herself all over powerful men to wreck a crucial alliance.

My palm met his cheek before I could think otherwise. A second later, skin on skin c***k echoed through the room.

The world froze. I’d just slapped the Blood Moon Alpha. The man known as the Butcher. I was dead.

His eyes burned electric blue, his wolf dancing beneath the skin. His voice had deepened to a growl when he spoke. "You dare?"

"Yes, I dare!" Tears burned my eyes. “I dare because the man who held me that night would never talk to me like this. He was tender and sweet and gazed at me like I was something rare. What happened to him? Or was it all just a lie?"

For a heartbeat, uncertainty crossed his face. Then it hardened into stone.

“Even if you were my mate—which you’re not—I would never take a useless Omega as my Luna.” His words cut like glass. “I am refusing you, Gabriella Silver Moon. Get out of my territory now, before I forget my manners altogether.”

A pain unlike anything I’d ever felt tore through my chest — a physical, visceral agony that brought me to my knees. The mate bond shattering. So it had been really happening after all.

And he had just destroyed it.

"Get. Out." Each word was a blade.

Somehow, I found my feet. Somehow, I walked — not ran — out of that room, my head held high despite the tears rolling down my cheeks. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me broken.

Outside, the sky had turned ominously dark, thunder rumbling over the mountains. Perfect. The weather was even against me.

I limped away from the Blood Moon compound with a jangle of new pain with every step. It started to rain, fast turning into a downpour to match my despondency.

My phone kept buzzing — Jane, calling me repeatedly. But what could I tell her? That I’d been correct about my being the Alpha’s mate, but wrong in thinking that mattered?

Lightning zipped overhead, and I flinched violently. I’d HATED storms since childhood, when I got stuck in a flooding creek during a thunderstorm and my family searched for me frantically. The start of a pattern — Gabriella always needing saving, Gabriella the weight.

Well, not anymore.

I’d endured nineteen years of being the pack’s disappointment. The girl who couldn't shift. The liability. I would survive this too.

Lightning hit again, too close, the thunder instant and deafening. I screamed, stumbling on my contorted ankle. Rain pounded my face, blending with tears I could no longer tell apart.

"Why?" I howled at the sky, at fate, at the Moon Goddess herself. “Why create a mate for me who would deny me? Was I born just to suffer? Just to be the punch line of everyone?”

Only the howling wind answered.

Hours later, delirious with fever and shivering violently, I collapsed against a tree trunk. My phone had died. My body was in on it now, each breath rattling out against the cold coming up through my bones.

And so this was how Gabriella Silver Moon’s story ended. Not with some heroic struggle or peaceful old age, but alone in the rain, unloved and alone.

I shut my eyes, too tired to resist anymore.

Then I heard it — an engine, headlights slicing through the downpour. A black smooth car glided to a stop next to me and the passenger-side window rolled down.

“Oh well oh well,” said a smooth voice. "What have we here? A little wolf, lost and alone in the big bad woods?”

“My God.” I squinted through rain-blurred vision and saw a face far too beautiful to be human, eyes that glowed red in the blackness.

Nightwalker. Vampire.

“You’re on the wrong side of the border, little wolf,” he said, showing fangs that might have been a smile or a threat. “Although I must tell you, you smell… interesting.” He inhaled deeply. "A different kind of wolves.”

I should have been terrified. Instead I was laughing — a ruptured, hysterical sound. "Of course I do. I'm the defective one."

He c****d his head and scrutinized me like an interesting specimen. "Defective? Or...” his eyes tightened, “...something else altogether?”

"Does it matter?" I met his gaze, past caring what happened next. "I'm half-dead anyway. You might as well finish the job.”

To my surprise, he threw his head back and laughed — a deep, musical sound. "Oh, I like you. What spirit, even at the end." He opened the passenger door. "Get in."

"Why?" I asked suspiciously despite my desperate state. “So you can bleed me out somewhere more civilized?”

“If I desired your death, little wolf, you’d be dead already.” His smile was all predator. “No, I’m going to give you something better than death.”

"What's that?"

His eyes sparkled with unholy delight. "Revenge."

And that one word echoed through me and thawed the places that had froze inside. Revenge. In a world that had never wanted me. Only up against a mate that had dumped me like rubbish.

“And how much would that cost me?” There was always a price, I said.

“Nothing you haven’t already lost.” He extended a pale hand. "Come, Gabriella Silver Moon. Michaels: "Let me show you what you were made to be.

How did he know my name?

I paused for no more than a split second before letting go of his hand.

He pulled me into the car’s warmth and I caught a glimpse of myself in the window — pale, soaked through, eyes burning with something I couldn’t recall ever seeing there before.

Power.

"My name is Viktor," the vampire said as we drove away from everything I'd ever known. "And you, my dear, are about to become the most valuable piece on the chessboard."

I di

dn't understand what he meant. But as we passed the border between territories, I felt something strange inside me stir—something that had been sleeping for nineteen years.

And it was hungry.