Rejected by Three Alphas, Chosen by the Alpha King

Chapter 3: Run, Little Wolf

I run.

Not walking. Not choosing. Running.

Gravel bites my bare feet. Trees blur past. The Choosing Circle disappears behind me, but I can still hear them. The screaming. The gasps. Rowan’s voice, broken and scared.

Wolfless. She has to be wolfless.

My lungs burn. My ribs still hurt from the three rejections. But under that pain is something new. Heat. It rolls under my skin like a second heartbeat.

Faster, little moon, the voice says. She sounds happy. Let’s run them all off our land.

“Stop talking,” I gasp.

I break through the tree line and hit the road. Human road. Asphalt. Cars. Freedom.

I don’t stop to look back. If I look back, I’ll see him. The King. Standing there between me and the three Alphas, saying words that should get him killed.

Touch her again, and I’ll show you what extinction really looks like.

No one talks to an Alpha heir like that. Not even a King. It means war.

And he said it for me.

I shake my head. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about silver eyes or old voices or Kings who kneel.

Think about buses. Think about cities. Think about anywhere that isn’t here.

A truck honks. I jump out of the way, heart pounding. The driver yells something out the window. Human words. Human anger. Normal.

I almost cry from relief.

I walk for an hour. Then I hitch a ride with a woman who sells honey at the farmers’ market. She doesn’t ask why a girl in a black dress is walking barefoot on the highway. She just hands me a pair of old flip-flops and a bottle of water.

“Rough night?” she asks.

“You have no idea,” I say.

She drops me at the edge of the city. Riverport. Big buildings. Loud streets. No wolves.

I find a motel. The Blue Moon Motel. I laugh when I see the sign. The moon is laughing at me.

The guy at the desk doesn’t ask for ID. I pay cash. My emergency cash. The money I hid for the day I finally ran.

Room 7. It smells like smoke and old carpet. The lock is broken. The TV only gets two channels.

Perfect.

I lock the door with the chain. Then I push the dresser in front of it. Then I sit on the bed and finally let myself shake.

The heat under my skin hasn’t gone away. It’s sitting now. Waiting. Like a dog by the door.

You can speak to me, little moon, the voice says. I don’t bite. Usually.

“Who are you?” I whisper. My voice sounds wrong in the small room.

I am you. And I am not. I am the first sleep and the last wake. I am the howl before the war.

“Okay, crazy.” I press my hands to my face. “I’m crazy. The rejection broke my brain.”

Three knives broke your heart. I broke your cage.

I stand up. Pace. Three steps to the bathroom. Three steps back. The flip-flops slap against the floor.

I need rules. Facts. Something solid.

Fact one: I was rejected by three Alphas. Publicly. Painfully.

Fact two: The Alpha King knelt and called me Queen.

Fact three: My eyes turned silver.

Fact four: I have a voice in my head.

Conclusion: I need a doctor. Or an exorcist. Or both.

I go into the bathroom. The mirror is cracked down the middle. My reflection looks back at me. Black hair, tangled. Black dress, dirty. Eyes… brown. Normal. Human.

I lean closer. “Show yourself,” I tell the mirror. To the voice. To me.

Nothing.

I slump. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe stress and pain and humiliation made me see things.

Then I blink.

For half a second, my eyes flash. Silver. Bright like the moon. Then brown again.

I stumble back. Hit the wall.

Hello, little moon, the voice purrs.

“Nope.” I turn on the faucet. Splash cold water on my face. “Nope. Not doing this.”

I change into the motel’s scratchy towel and wash my dress in the sink. I hang it over the shower rod. I order pizza from the greasy menu by the phone. I pay the delivery guy with my last twenty.

I eat on the bed. I watch static on the TV. I act human.

At midnight, I finally lie down. The heat under my skin is quiet now. Like she’s sleeping.

I close my eyes.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I sit up fast. My heart jumps into my throat.

The door. Someone’s at the door.

No. No, no, no. I pushed the dresser. I locked the chain.

Knock. Knock. KNOCK.

Louder. Desperate.

“Ella!” A voice. Young. Terrified. “Ella, open up! Please!”

I know that voice.

I crawl off the bed. My legs feel like water. I move the dresser an inch. Peek through the gap in the door.

Theo.

Alpha heir Theo Ashford. The smart one. The one who said You know I can’t.

He looks nothing like he did at the Choosing. His suit is torn. His white shirt is covered in blood. His foot is tapping against the ground, fast and nervous. His hands are up, palms out. No claws. Not a threat.

“Ella, please,” he says. “She’s hunting us. She’s hunting all of us.”

Ice runs down my back. “Who?”

“Your wolf.”

Behind him, Jace steps into the light. He’s worse. His arm hangs at a wrong angle. Blood drips from his chin. He won’t meet my eyes.

“Rowan’s dead,” Jace says. His voice is flat. Shock. “She ripped his throat out. In front of the whole pack. And then she looked at me and said—”

He stops. Swallows.

“Said what?” I whisper.

“Said ‘two more.’”

The heat under my skin rises. Fast. Like it heard its name.

They hurt you, the voice says. I hurt them back. Balance.

I step back from the door. “You rejected me. You all did. Why would I help you?”

“We’re not asking for help,” Theo says. His tapping foot stops. He looks at me, really looks. “We’re warning you. The King took Rowan’s body. He said he’s coming here. He said if we touched you, he’d end our lines.”

Good.

No. Not good. Killing is bad. Killing is wrong. Even if they deserve it.

“Where is he now?” I ask.

“On his way,” Jace says. “He let us run. Said to tell you…” He closes his eyes. “Said to tell you ‘Run, little wolf. I’ll find you anyway.’”

The heat purrs. He plays the game right.

“I’m not his little wolf,” I snap. To Jace. To the voice. To the whole world.

The motel room feels smaller. The air feels thicker.

Then I smell it.

Snow. And pine. And power.

The same scent from the Circle. The King’s scent.

He’s here.

Theo hears me suck in a breath. He turns. Sees something over his shoulder. His face goes white.

“He said we had until midnight,” Theo says. “It’s midnight.”

A shadow moves at the end of the walkway. Too big to be human. Too calm to be afraid.

Caelan Drayce.

He’s still in the black suit. No blood on him. No claws out. He walks like he owns the motel, the city, the night.

He stops ten feet from the door. Looks at Theo. Then Jace. Then me, through the gap.

“Ella,” he says. Quiet. “Are you hurt?”

I should say yes. My ribs hurt. My heart hurts. My head hurts.

“No,” I say.

He nods. Then he looks at the two Alphas. “You delivered my message. Leave.”

Jace doesn’t move. He’s staring at me. “Your eyes… they were silver.”

“Jace,” Theo hisses. He grabs Jace’s good arm. “Now.”

They run. They actually run. Two Alpha heirs, running from one man who isn’t even showing his wolf.

Caelan watches them go. Then he turns back to me.

He doesn’t come closer. He stays ten feet away. Respects the line.

“I told you I’d find you,” he says.

“I told you I don’t trust you,” I say back. My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes.

“I know.” He slides his hands into his pockets. Casual. Like we’re talking about the weather. “Can I come in?”

“No.”

He nods. Accepts it. “Alright. I’ll stay out here.”

The rain starts. Soft at first. Then harder. It soaks his hair, his suit. He doesn’t move.

“Why did you kill Rowan?” I ask. The question jumps out before I can stop it.

“I didn’t.” His grey eyes meet mine. “She did.”

She. My wolf.

He tells the truth, the voice says. I did it. He let me.

I grip the door. “Why?”

“Because he drew blood from my Queen.” Caelan says it simple. Like it’s law. “The penalty is death. Old law. Older than him. Older than me.”

“And Jace? Theo?”

“They will face the Council. If they live.” He shrugs. “That’s up to you.”

Up to me. The girl with no wolf. The girl who now has a wolf that kills.

The rain pours. He’s soaked. He doesn’t ask again to come in.

He’s patient, the voice says. He waited a hundred years. He can wait a night.

A hundred years?

“What did you mean?” I ask. “At the Circle. You said I’m older than you.”

Caelan’s smile is sad. “Your wolf, Ella. She’s not new. She’s the first. She’s my great-grandmother’s wolf.”

My blood goes cold. “That’s not possible.”

“It is.” He steps closer. Just one step. Rain drips from his jaw. “She went to sleep five hundred years ago. When her mate died. We thought she was gone forever.”

He’s right, the voice whispers. I mourned. I slept. And now I wake, and my mate’s grandson kneels to me.

Mate.

The word slams into me.

“No,” I say. “No. I’m not anyone’s mate. I’m not anyone’s Queen. I’m just—”

“Ella.” He says my name like it’s a prayer. “You don’t have to decide tonight. But you should know something.”

He takes another step. Now he’s five feet away. I can see the water on his eyelashes.

“What?” I whisper.

“The law says a King must mark his Queen within thirty days.” His voice is calm. Too calm. “Or he abdicates. The packs fall into war.”

Thirty days.

“And I won’t mark you unless you ask me to,” he finishes. “I won’t force you. I won’t cage you. But if you run for thirty days…”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.

If I run, he loses his crown. The packs go to war. People die.

Because of me.

The heat under my skin rises. Not angry. Not happy. Ready.

Choose, the voice says. War or King. Blood or bond. But choose fast, little moon.

Thunder cracks. The lights in the walkway go out.

In the dark, his eyes shine. Not silver. Gold. Alpha gold.

And mine answer.

Silver light floods the motel walkway as my eyes burn. Caelan doesn’t step back. He steps forward, into the light. “There she is,” he says, voice rough. Behind him, tires screech. Black SUVs surround the motel. Elder Miriam steps out, holding a silver knife. “Alpha King Caelan Drayce,” she calls. “By Council order, you are under arrest for treason. The girl comes with us.”