Rejected by My Alpha, Claimed by the Alpha King

I knew the dress did not fit. It was borrowed from Mira, the head cook, and it pulled tight across my shoulders every time I breathed. But standing at the edge of the ceremony clearing, with the whole Silvermist Pack watching the moon rise, I did not care. Tonight, none of that was going to matter anymore. Tonight, Dorian Vale was going to claim me. I had counted the stores for the feast myself. Fourteen barrels of salt pork, nine sacks of barley flour, two casks of lamp oil for the torches, and one jar of the honey already light, because Dorian had been at the honey bread again and thought I did not count that too. I counted everything at Silvermist. It was the only work in that house with my name on it, even if nobody said my name when they ate. We had known since we were sixteen. Not officially, the mate bond only snaps into place when both wolves are of age, and my wolf... well. My wolf had never come. But Dorian used to sneak into the kitchens after training, steal the honey bread straight off my tray, and tell me it did not matter. "A bond isn't a wolf, Wren," he used to say. "It's a choice. And I choose you." I believed him. That was my first mistake. The drums started. Alpha Garrick stepped into the circle of torches in his black ceremonial coat, his voice rolling over the clearing. "Tonight, my son takes a Luna. Tonight, Silvermist takes its future." Everyone cheered. I pressed my hands together so hard my nails dug into my palms. My heart was beating so loud I was sure the wolves nearest me could hear it. Dorian walked into the circle. He looked like every story I had ever told myself at night when the kitchen work was done and my back ached and the other girls were asleep. Tall. Gold hair pushed back. The Alpha heir's mark already dark on his collarbone. He scanned the crowd once. And his eyes passed over me like I was furniture. Something cold slid down my spine. "Dorian?" I whispered. He did not look at me again. He looked at his father. Garrick gave him a small, sharp nod, the kind a man gives before a battle. "My fated mate," Dorian said, loud enough for the whole pack, "was revealed to me this morning." Gasps. Smiles. People craned their necks, looking for the lucky girl. I stepped forward, my borrowed dress catching on my knees, my whole body shaking with joy and terror. "And I reject her." The clearing went silent. He turned then. Finally. He looked straight at me, and there was nothing in his face that I recognized. No kitchen thief. No boy who chose me. "Wren Calder," he said. "Wolfless. Parentless. A servant in my father's house. The Moon Goddess made a mistake, and I will not pay for it with my pack's future." Someone laughed. Just one person at first, near the back. Then another. "I, Dorian Vale, heir of Silvermist, reject you as my mate and Luna." The pain hit me in the chest like a clawed hand closing around my heart and squeezing. I dropped to my knees in the dirt. In the borrowed white dress. In front of three hundred wolves. The bond, the thing I had waited four years for, the thing I had built every dream on, tore inside me, and I screamed. I could not help it. It felt like dying. People say a rejection hurts. People are liars. It does not hurt. It unmakes you. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Garrick's voice, pleased and smooth. "A wise Alpha puts his pack first. Sable Moreau, step forward." Sable came into the circle in a dress of silver silk that fit her like water. Her father owned half the trading posts on the southern border. Her wolf was strong. Her smile, when she looked down at me on my knees, was small and perfect and satisfied, like she had been waiting for this exact moment for a very long time. She probably had. Dorian took her hands. "I choose Sable Moreau as my Luna." The pack roared. I stayed on my knees because I could not stand. Nobody helped me up. Mira, who had lent me the dress, stared at the ground like I was contagious. Maybe I was. Rejected mates usually are. It was Dorian who finally crouched in front of me, close enough that only I could hear him. "I did you a kindness," he said quietly. "You would have drowned as Luna, Wren. Go back to the kitchens. Forget tonight. That's the best life you get." He stood up. He offered Sable his arm. They walked away together through the torches, and my pack, the only family, the only home I had ever had, parted for them like water. I got up on my own. My legs shook. The white dress was brown with dirt. Every face I looked at turned away, except one. Alpha Garrick was watching me. And he was not smiling like the others. He was watching me the way a man watches a fire he thinks he put out, carefully. Like he was making sure. That look scared me more than the rejection. I did not know why. Not yet. "By pack law," Garrick called out, and the clearing quieted, "a rejected mate who is not claimed by any wolf before moonset is a burden Silvermist will not carry. Wren Calder, you have until the moon sets to leave our lands." Banished. He was not sending me back to the kitchens. He was throwing me to the rogues. I looked at Dorian one last time. My mate. My choice, he used to say. He was kissing Sable's hand. So I ran.