She was rejected not once

"I, Damon Voss, future Alpha of the Ashwood Pack, reject you, Lila Marsh, as my mate." The words hit before the pain did — a half-second of silence, then a tearing sensation ripped through her chest like something inside her had been physically cut loose. Lila's knees buckled. She caught herself on the edge of the Great Hall's stone table, knuckles white. The entire pack was watching. That was the worst part. Two hundred wolves, silent, waiting to see if the weakest omega in Ashwood history would cry in front of her Alpha. She didn't. "Say it again," she said, voice steadier than she felt. "Say it so there's no mistake." Damon's jaw tightened. Beside him, Seraphine Cole — the pack's golden daughter, daughter of the Beta, everything Lila wasn't — smiled like she'd already won something. "You're an omega," Damon said, like it explained everything. Like it was a sentence instead of a rank. "You can't lead this pack beside me. I need a mate with real strength. Real bloodline. I'm sorry, Lila. This isn't personal." "It's the most personal thing that's ever happened to me," she said. A few wolves laughed. Not cruelly — just the low, careless laugh of people who'd never once had to fight for the air in their own lungs. Lila straightened. The bond between them, the one that had hummed under her skin since the day she turned sixteen, went dark and silent, like a light switched off in a room she used to live in. She felt hollowed out. She felt, for one terrifying second, like she might actually die from it — omegas had before, when the rejection came too sharp, too public, too final. But she didn't die. She breathed. And somewhere underneath the hollow place where the bond used to be, something else stirred. Something that didn't feel like grief at all. "Fine," she said. Damon blinked. He'd expected begging. He'd expected tears, maybe a scene, maybe her running from the hall the way rejected omegas always did — straight into the woods, straight into whatever quiet corner they crawled into to disappear. "Fine?" Seraphine repeated, delighted. "That's it? No pleading?" Lila looked at her. Really looked — at the polished nails, the tailored dress, the confidence of someone who had never once been told she wasn't enough. "I don't beg for things that were never mine to keep," Lila said. "You want him, Seraphine? Take him. But I want something in return." The hall went quiet in a different way now. Curious. "Name it," Damon said, arms crossed, already bored, already looking past her toward his future. "Under the Old Accords," Lila said, "a rejected mate retains the right to a formal challenge trial before she's stripped of pack rank. I'm invoking it." Whispers broke out across the hall. Even Damon looked caught off guard. "You want to challenge for rank," he said slowly, like she'd suggested something absurd. "You're an omega, Lila. You've never won a single sparring match in your life." "No," she agreed. "I haven't. Not yet." She held his gaze, and for the first time since she was sixteen years old, she didn't feel like the smallest thing in the room. "Ninety days," she said. "That's what the Accords give me before the trial. Ninety days, and then I fight for the rank you just took from me. If I lose, I leave Ashwood forever, no argument, no appeal. But if I win —" "You won't win," Seraphine said. "If I win," Lila continued, ignoring her, "you honor the outcome. Whatever it is." Damon studied her for a long moment. She could see him doing the math — ninety days wasn't nearly enough time to turn an omega into a fighter. He probably thought he was being generous. He probably thought this would be the last interesting thing she ever did. "Granted," he said finally, waving a hand like he was dismissing a servant. "Ninety days, Lila. Enjoy them." She turned before he could see her face change, before the wolves in that hall could witness whatever came next — grief, or rage, or the strange cold clarity settling into her bones. She walked out of the Great Hall with her spine straight and her steps even, and she didn't stop walking until the pack house was far behind her and the tree line swallowed her whole. Only then did she let herself stop. Only then did she press a hand to her chest, to the place where the bond used to live, and feel the emptiness where Damon Voss used to be. It didn't feel like heartbreak anymore. It felt like room. Room to become something Ashwood Pack had never bothered to imagine an omega could be. Ninety days, she thought. Ninety days to stop being the wolf they rejected, and start being the one they'd regret rejecting.