The Rejected Mate

Chapter5

Selene’s POV

The world slowed to a crawl. The rain felt heavy, like frozen needles pinning me to the muddy earth. I stared at Caleb—the man who had sat at our dining table, the man who had laughed at Sebastian’s dry jokes, the man I had trusted as a brother.

He wasn't wearing the Dark Hollow Falls crest. The silver crown over a broken sword on his shoulder gleamed under the tactical headlights of the SUV. The Blackwood Syndicate. A shadow organization every pack feared, a group of rogue wolves and mercenaries who dealt in human trafficking, illegal serum trading, and the systematic erasure of entire bloodlines.

And Caleb was one of them.

"You're a traitor," I whispered, the words tasting like ash. "Sebastian trusted you. He considers you a brother."

Caleb let out a short, mocking laugh, the sound swallowed by the howling wind. "Sebastian is a fool, Selene. He’s an Alpha blinded by his own ego and a pretty face from his past. He thinks he’s running a multi-millionaire empire, but he doesn't even realize his own house is termite-ridden. Aria has had him wrapped around her finger for months. Did you really think her return was a coincidence?"

My hand remained pressed against my stomach. Inside, the golden hum grew louder, vibrating against my palms. It wasn't a gentle flutter anymore. It felt like a pair of young, fierce wolves were pacing inside me, ready to tear through my skin to protect themselves. The twins were reacting to the threat. Their ancient, atavistic power was waking up, fueled by my terror and rage.

"She sent you to kill me," I said, backing up slowly toward the tree line. The mud sucked at my boots, threatening to trip me.

"She sent us to finish the job," Caleb corrected, stepping forward. The mercenaries behind him fanned out, blocking the path back to the road. Their eyes glowed a sickly, chemical red—the unmistakable sign of wolves who used synthetic serums to boost their strength, burning out their humanity in the process. "Aria doesn't want any loose ends. She knows about your bloodline, Selene. She knows what your father tried to hide when he married you off to the King family."

"My father..." I faltered. My father had been a cold, distant Alpha, but he had insisted on this marriage. He had told me it was my duty to bind myself to Sebastian. I thought it was for a political alliance.

"Your father knew your blood carries the lineage of the Moon Goddess's original priestesses," Caleb said, his smirk fading into something cold and clinical. "The King Pack was powerful, but they lacked divine protection. Your marriage was a lock. By binding yourself to Sebastian, your bloodline anchored his pack’s territory, making it impossible for the Syndicate to breach their borders. But now? You signed the papers. You broke the bond. The lock is open."

The puzzle pieces slammed together with terrifying clarity. Aria didn't just want Sebastian. She didn't care about a high-society marriage or becoming a Luna. She wanted the Dark Hollow Falls Pack vulnerable. She had used Sebastian’s lingering guilt and her own manipulation to make him dissolve the marriage, completely unaware that he was stripping his own pack of its supernatural shield.

And Sebastian had walked right into the trap. He had thrown me out, thinking he was reclaiming his freedom, while effectively handing his empire over to the executioner.

"And the babies?" I choked out, my voice cracking. "How do you know about them?"

"Dr. Julian’s office isn't as secure as she thinks it is," Caleb replied, pulling a pair of heavy leather gloves over his hands. "Twins with atavistic blood. The first purebred descendants of the original wolves. Do you have any idea how much the Syndicate’s scientists will pay for their spinal fluid? We can create an entire army of Alphas."

A wave of pure, maternal fury crashed through my veins, burning away the residual pain of the rejection. The heartbreak I had felt just moments ago turned into something lethal.

Nobody touches my children.

"You'll have to kill me first," I growled.

"That was always the plan," Caleb said. He bared his fangs, his bones popping and cracking as he began a partial shift. His jaw elongated, and thick grey fur sprouted along his neck. "Catch her. Don't damage the abdomen."

The three mercenaries on the left lunged first. They moved with unnatural speed, their synthetic red eyes cutting through the darkness like tracers.

I didn't think. I let my instincts take over. I reached down to my boot and pulled out the silver dagger my mother had given me on my eighteenth birthday. The blade caught the moonlight, humming with a faint spiritual resonance.

The first wolf leaped at me, his claws extended to pin my shoulders. I ducked beneath his guard, sliding through the wet mud. As he passed over me, I drove the silver blade upward into his thigh. He screamed, a horrific, half-human sound as the silver began to burn through his corrupted veins.

The second mercenary tackled me from the side before I could recover my footing. We went down hard into the brush. The wind was knocked out of me, and for a terrifying second, my grip on the dagger slipped. The wolf’s snapping jaws were inches from my face, his foul, chemically altered breath hot against my skin.

"Protect them!" a voice screamed in my head. It wasn't my wolf. It was a dual echo—the voices of my unborn children.

A sudden explosion of heat radiated from my core. A blinding white light flashed from my eyes, illuminating the dark forest like a solar flare. The mercenary howling above me gasped, his eyes widening in shock as the sheer spiritual pressure of my bloodline slammed into him. It felt like an invisible shockwave, throwing him off me and sending him crashing into a massive oak tree twenty feet away. The tree cracked under the impact.

I scrambled to my feet, panting, my hand gripping the silver dagger once more. My breath came in short, ragged gasps. The white light in my vision faded, leaving behind a sharp, crystal-clear focus. I could see every raindrop suspended in the air. I could hear Caleb’s accelerated heartbeat from thirty yards away.

Caleb stared at the unconscious mercenary by the tree, his smirk completely wiped from his face. The remaining wolves hesitated, backing away from the perimeter of the light I had inadvertently cast.

"What the hell was that?" one of the men muttered, his voice trembling. "She’s supposed to be weak. The reports said her levels were depleted!"

"She’s drawing power from the fetuses," Caleb realized, his amber eyes narrowing. A dark, twisted look of greed washed over his features. "The atavistic traits are already active. They're defending the host. Don't fight her head-on! Use the darts!"

One of the men reached into his tactical vest, pulling out a compact pneumatic pistol loaded with a shimmering blue liquid. Wolfsbane serum. A concentrated dose that could paralyze an Alpha in seconds. If that entered my bloodstream, my babies wouldn't survive the toxicity.

I couldn't fight them all off, not in this state. The burst of power had left my legs feeling like lead, and a dull ache was beginning to form at the base of my spine. Julian's warning echoed in my mind: *You are extremely weak... the chances of miscarrying are extremely high.*

I had to run.

I turned and vaulted over a fallen log, throwing myself into the deep, unmapped thicket of the neutral forest.

"After her!" Caleb roared behind me. "Don't let her reach the river!"

I sprinted blindly through the thorns and brambles, the branches tearing at my jacket and face. I didn't care about the pain. Every ounce of my willpower was focused on placing one foot in front of the other. The sound of heavy, mutated paws thudded against the earth behind me, gaining ground with terrifying speed.

The forest began to slope downward, the sound of rushing water roaring in the distance. The border river. If I could cross it, I would be in neutral human territory, where the pack’s tracking magic would fail, and the Syndicate’s vehicles couldn't follow.

But my body was failing me. The rejection bond’s phantom pain chose that exact moment to flare up again. It felt like a cold blade twisting in my chest, a reminder that the man I loved had torn our souls apart. My knees buckled, and I tumbled down a steep, muddy embankment, crashing through the brush until I hit the rocky shore of the river.

The impact jarred my teeth. The silver dagger flew from my hand, clattering into the dark water.

I tried to push myself up, but my arms shook violently. The dull ache in my back had turned into a sharp, terrifying cramp in my lower abdomen.

"No, please," I sobbed, clutching my stomach. "Not them. Take me, but let them live."

A heavy shadow fell over me.

Caleb walked down the embankment, his boots crunching on the river stones. The pneumatic pistol was in his hand, pointed directly at my chest. The remaining two mercenaries flanked him, their red eyes gleaming in the darkness.

"It's over, Selene," Caleb said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "You fought well for a discarded Luna. But you're carrying the future of the Syndicate. Sebastian doesn't want you, and your father sold you out long ago. There’s nowhere left to run."

He raised the pistol, his finger tightening on the trigger.

I closed my eyes, bracing myself to use the very last drop of my life force to trigger another psychic blast, even if it meant destroying myself to kill them.

Thump-thump.

A massive, deafening roar echoed through the canyon, shaking the pebbles on the riverbank. It wasn't the sound of a wolf. It was something deeper, older, like the earth itself cracking open.

Before Caleb could pull the trigger, a blur of silver and grey fur exploded from the opposite side of the river. A giant wolf—easily the size of a small vehicle, with eyes like molten silver—slammed into the two mercenaries, crushing them into the rocks instantly.

Caleb spun around, his eyes widening in pure horror. "What the—"

The massive grey wolf didn't give him a chance to finish. With a swift, brutal snap of its jaws, it caught Caleb by the shoulder, throwing him across the riverbank like a rag doll. Caleb hit a boulder with a sickening crunch and slumped to the ground, unconscious or dead, the pneumatic pistol clattering into the stream.

I stared in shock as the giant wolf turned toward me. It didn't have the rabid, violent energy of a rogue. Its presence was ancient, heavy, and strangely comforting.

The wolf stepped into the shallow water, its massive paws kicking up spray. As it neared the shore, the silver light around its body began to shift, the fur receding, the massive frame shrinking until a tall, elegant woman stood in the shallows.

She had long, silver-white hair that fell to her waist, and her striking grey eyes were a mirror image of my own. She wore a simple, dark green cloak, completely unfazed by the freezing rain.

"Mother?" I whispered, my vision blurring as the adrenaline finally left my system.

Elara stepped onto the rocks, rushing to her knees beside me. She gathered me into her arms, her warmth cutting through the freezing cold that had settled into my bones.

"I've got you, my beautiful star," my mother whispered, her voice a soothing balm against my panicked mind. She placed a warm, glowing hand over my stomach, and instantly, the sharp cramps began to fade, replaced by a deep, restful calm. "The bond is broken. The prophecy has begun. Let the King Pack bleed for what they've done. We are going home."

As my eyes drifted shut, escaping into the safety of unconsciousness, the final remnant of my connection to Sebastian King dissolved into nothingness.

He was the past. And the past was dead.