His Rejection: Rewritten

Ch. 1 P. 3

Sable Calder was waiting outside the packhouse when we pulled up.

Of course, she was.

If Grimholt had ever decided to carve a statue honoring everything beautiful and insufferable about pack society, Sable would've volunteered to pose. Her dark hair fell in glossy waves down her back, every strand perfectly arranged despite the early hour. She wore a fitted cream dress beneath a cropped jacket and boots that probably cost more than most people's monthly food allowance...

Sable was beautiful, she knew it and importantly, she knew everyone else knew it.

She and Griffin had been dating for almost four months. I still hadn't figured out why...

When she spotted the car, she smiled until she saw me sitting in the passenger seat. The smile changed. It didn't disappear. Sable was too practiced for that.

It simply, sharpened.

She walked toward us, hips swaying with the effortless confidence of someone who had never entered a room wondering whether people wanted her there.

She stopped beside my window.

“Morning.”

I lowered my headphones.

“Morning.”

Her eyes moved over me.

Once. Then again. Surprise flashed through them.

Interesting.

She recovered before Griffin noticed, or maybe he did notice. Griffin noticed almost everything.

Sable leaned toward him.

“Baby, why is she sitting up front?”

There it was. Not Nova.

She.

Like I'd wandered into the car by accident.

Griffin's expression flattened.

“Because she's my sister.”

Sable laughed softly. “I know that. I mean, why isn't she in the back?”

“I got here first,” I said.

Her gaze flicked to me.

“I wasn't asking you.”

The air changed, a breeze swept through the yard.

I looked toward the trees.

Sable reached for the door.

“Come on, Nova. Move.”

Griffin's hand tightened around the steering wheel.

“Sable.”

“It's fine.”

I unbuckled. Griffin looked at me.

“You don't have to move.”

“I know.”

But I did anyway, not because Sable had won but because it was too early for this s**t.

I stepped from the car.

Sable's eyes immediately dropped to my clothes. Her smile vanished for real this time.

“What are you wearing?”

I looked down at myself.

“Clothes.”

Her eyes narrowed. I walked toward the back door.

“Cute,” she murmured.

I ignored her.

Then, just quietly enough that Griffin wasn't supposed to hear, she added, “Didn't know they made those jeans in desperate.”

I stopped.

There had been a time when I would've kept walking. Pretended I hadn't heard, let the insult sink somewhere deep and rot.

Maybe it was because today is my birthday.

Maybe I was simply tired.

I turned. “That's funny.”

Sable blinked.

I smiled.

“I didn't know they made personalities in pathetic, but here we are.”

Silence.

Griffin coughed suspiciously like he was hiding a laugh.

Sable's face tightened.

My wolf surged with satisfaction.

Then Sable smiled. Sweetly. Dangerously.

“There she is. Birthday confidence.”

She leaned closer.

“Let's see how long it lasts.”

A violent gust of wind tore through the yard.

Sable shrieked.

Her perfectly arranged hair whipped across her face, tangling around her mouth and eyes. Dust and leaves spiraled around her boots while the air everywhere else remained strangely calm.

I stared.

Sable fought her hair away.

“What the hell?”

Griffin looked at me.

Again. That look.

The one he'd given me when the necklace became hot.

I frowned.

He looked away immediately.

“Sable,” he said.

“What?”

“Get in the car.”

She glared at me before climbing into the passenger seat.

I opened the back door.

“Thanks for moving,” she said.

Then, quieter:

“Fatty.”

Griffin heard that one.

His eyes changed.

The hazel vanished beneath a darkness so complete it made Sable freeze.

His wolf.

“Sable.”

He didn't yell and that was worse.

“Apologize.”

“Griff, I was joking.”

“Apologize.”

She looked at me.

For a second, hatred flashed openly across her face.

“Sorry.”

I shrugged. “You should be.”

Her eyes widened.

I climbed into the back.

Maybe seventeen was going to be fun after all...

Griffin pressed the horn.

“Let's go!”

The packhouse doors opened. Emery came out first, laughing about something, with Annie tucked against his side. Juan followed with Vanessa, their fingers intertwined. Then someone stepped through the doorway behind them.

My wolf went still, not quiet. Still.

Every thought vanished from my head...

Maxon Ellis.

The future Alpha of Grimholt and the boy who had spent most of our lives making sure I never forgot exactly how little I meant in his world. He had changed over the summer.

Or maybe I had simply worked harder than usual not to look at him.

Maxon was tall enough to make the males beside him seem smaller, his body already carrying the broad, powerful build of an Alpha wolf approaching maturity. Deep brown skin contrasted with the white shirt stretched across his shoulders. His dark hair was cut short, and morning sunlight caught the hard line of his jaw as he said something to Emery.

Then his eyes lifted. Vivid brown and straight to me.

Maxon stopped walking.

The others continued for several steps before realizing he wasn't with them.

I couldn't breathe...

My wolf surged forward so violently that my fingers curled into the seat.

Not a word. A sensation.

Recognition so deep and instinctive that it terrified me.

I looked away.

No. Absolutely not.

I refused to let my wolf develop some ridiculous fascination with Maxon Ellis on my birthday.

Of all people.

Maxon had been my number-one tormentor for as long as I could remember. When Griffin was around, Maxon mostly ignored me. When Griffin wasn't? That was when Maxon became creative. He'd mocked my clothes. My weight. My intelligence. My lack of friends. My parents...

Once, when we were fourteen, he'd kept at me until I started crying. When I tried to leave, he'd followed, laughing with his friends until I couldn't catch my breath. I'd ended up in the medical center.

Maxon had found me afterward.

Not to apologize...

To make me promise I wouldn't tell Griffin what he'd done and, like an i***t, I hadn't, hoping that it would've helped spare me anymore torment, but it didn't. I had spent years trying to understand why Maxon hated me.

Eventually, I stopped caring, or told myself I had.

I kept my eyes on the music player in my hands. The screen flickered. Static crawled across it and then every electronic light inside the car blinked off.

“What the hell?” Griffin muttered.

The stereo restarted. My music player came back on.

I stared at it.

Outside, thunder rolled.

Emery looked toward the cloudless sky.

“Wasn't supposed to storm today.”

“No,” Griffin said quietly.

My eyes lifted. He wasn't looking at the sky. He was looking at me.

Then Maxon reached the car.

He opened the rear door and stopped.

His gaze swept over me slowly. My hair. My face. My clothes and then back to my eyes.

I knew that look. I had seen the beginning of it a thousand times.

The pause before the insult.

The tiny curl of his mouth before he found some new way to make everyone laugh at me.

My wolf pressed forward.

Closer.

I recoiled internally.

Traitor.

Maxon's nostrils flared; something strange passed through his expression.

His arrogance disappeared.

Only for a heartbeat. Shock. Confusion. Something almost hungry.

Then it was gone.

His familiar smirk returned and there he was.

Maxon Ellis.

Future Alpha.

Grimholt's golden boy.

My personal nightmare.

I lifted my chin.

Not today.

He could laugh. He could insult me. He could call me fat, freak, psycho, or whatever new word he'd come up with over the summer. But today belonged to me and, for once, Maxon Ellis was not going to take it.

The wind rose behind him slowly at first.

Then harder.

Leaves spiraled across the drive. The ancient trees surrounding the packhouse groaned, their branches bending toward us.

Toward me. Maxon's smirk faded.

My mother's necklace warmed against my chest. And somewhere deep inside me, my wolf stared at him with an intensity I'd never felt before.

Not fear. Not hatred.

Something worse. Something I couldn't understand yet.

Maxon's eyes darkened.

Mine narrowed.

Mate.