I Rejected My Alpha In Front Of The Pack

Nora's POV: My fated mate was the Alpha of the Frostpine Wolf Pack. But I was just a human, and I had prosopagnosia, face blindness. If he so much as swapped jackets and melted into a crowd, I could easily mix him up with a total stranger. So Ronan Hale got a long duster custom-made, with a bright red butterfly stitched right into the back. "Just follow that butterfly, Nora Bell. No one will ever hurt you." Three years later, he gave that very coat to a strange wolf just to help his childhood sweetheart win a bet. I chased that flash of red butterfly through a howling blizzard. What waited for me when I caught up, though, was a hand clamping tight around my throat. I barely managed to drag myself away, my shoulder throbbing and raw. By the time I stumbled to safety, I pulled out my phone and heard Serene Brown laughing through the speaker. "See, Ronan? I won! Your little human mate really does only recognize the coat." He laughed right along with her, and promised to spend the whole upcoming vacation with her. When he finally put that butterfly coat back on later and begged me to take him back, I turned him down cold, right in front of the whole assembled Moon Court. ***** The blasting heat in the rescue station was so intense it made my frozen fingertips ache and prickle as they thawed. The nurse snicked her scissors through the sleeve of my jacket, and her hands froze for a beat when she saw the state of my shoulder. "Who came here with you?" she asked. "No one," I replied. I set my phone on my lap. The screen was still open to the photo Ronan had sent me. It showed a man with his back to the camera, standing at the corner of a ski slope. A familiar red butterfly blazed on the back of his gray coat. The text under the photo read: The truck cannot make it all the way to the cabin. Walk over. I am right here waiting for you. When Serene first insisted we all come up to Aspen to ski, I had zero interest in tagging along. She had just gotten back from Europe, decked head to toe in a crisp white ski suit. She looped her arm through Ronan's and asked me with a sickly sweet smirk, like she was just dying for me to say no, if I was too scared to come. "It is just skiing. It is not like we are asking you to shift into a wolf with us or anything," she said. Ronan reached over and snapped the chin strap of my hat into place, his voice low and reassuring. "I have got you." Then the blizzard hit and blocked the mountain road. He left me behind in the cabin and told me to wait for him. And I did wait, until his message came through. The corner was not far, but the storm was so brutal I could barely make out the road signs. I fumbled my way along the guardrail, and when I finally spotted the exact coat from the photo, I ran straight over and grabbed the man's arm. "Ronan," I called out. The man slowly turned his head around. Face blindness does not mean I cannot see facial features, it is not like I am completely blind to faces. I could see his eyes, the bridge of his nose, his lips clear as day. I just could not immediately match that face to a specific name. The reek of alcohol hit me right in the face, and I stumbled back immediately. "Wrong person," I muttered. He snatched my scarf and dragged me roughly behind the guardrail. "Trying to leave now?" he growled. His golden pupils narrowed to thin slits. His claws sliced through my coat, the fabric tearing with a loud rip right at my shoulder. I fought like hell, but he wrenched my right arm behind my back hard enough to make me see stars. That sharp burst of pain made my vision go completely black for a second. When he reached for the front of my shirt, I fumbled for the emergency whistle tucked at my waist and blew it as hard as I could, the high, sharp screech cutting through the howl of the storm. The rumble of a snowmobile cut through the storm nearby. The man glanced up for a split second, and I grabbed a handful of crushed ice and slammed it right into his eyes, then ran as fast as my wobbly legs could carry me toward the light. The person who finally steadied me was a mountain patrol ranger. Not Ronan. Once my treatment was done, the nurse secured my arm in a brace. The Colorado territory duty officer sat down beside my bed, asked for my permission, and documented the incident and photographed my injuries. "The patrol team already has that man in custody," he said. "He is not part of any local pack here. He had a temporary access pass issued by Frostpines." I lifted my head sharply. "Who signed it?" "Ronan Hale," the officer replied. Right then, my phone started ringing. The duty officer stood up to give me privacy, but I shook my head and hit the speaker button. Serene was the first to speak. "Nora, I am so sorry. I thought you would at least be able to tell your own mate apart from other people." She still had not fully wiped the smirk off her face. "Aren't you always going on about how Ronan smells like cedar? Turns out a single jacket is all it takes to fool you." I stared at my tattered jacket, folded neatly by the bed, and asked, "What's his name?" "Who?" Serene asked. "The guy you gave that jacket to," I said. Ronan took the phone. "Some lone wolf picking up odd jobs in the parking lot. I told him to stand there for a bit." "You sent him to pick me up?" "I just told him to stay in that spot," Ronan said. "Nora, Serene only wanted to make you see you cannot always rely on clothes to tell people apart." A sharp clink echoed from the phone. The sound of cutlery clattering against plates drifted through the speaker. An anvil of ice seemed to settle on my chest, dragging my breath down to a slow, heavy crawl. "He attacked me. My shoulder hurts," I said. The line went dead silent for a couple of seconds. "Where are you?" Ronan asked. I texted him the address of the rescue station. He promised he would be there right away. Half an hour later, his guard showed up instead. The man carried a medical kit, and explained that Serene had slipped and sprained her ankle just now, so Ronan could not leave until the healer had checked her over. "The Alpha sent me to take you back to the hotel first, ma'am," the guard said. I did not move an inch. "Tell him I am not coming back tonight," I replied. The guard caught sight of the incident report the ranger had left on the table, and his face dropped. "Miss Nora, can we let the Alpha handle this first?" The guard lowered his voice, looking anxious. "This involves a Frostpine temporary access permit. If word gets out, it will cause all kinds of trouble." "Pass me the pen, please," I said to the ranger. Signing was hard. I curled my left hand around the pen, and wrote my name one slow, deliberate stroke at a time. This time, I was not going to wait around for Ronan to decide what I should do.