Chapter 1 He Rejected My Proposal
1303 Words
I proposed to the Alpha Wyatt I'd loved for three years — and he turned me down cold. Turns out he was never planning to make me his Chosen Mate. He was planning to marry my stepsister. And me? I was just supposed to be grateful to be kept on the side.
Sophia's POV
Three years. Three years I had loved Wyatt Steele in secret, hiding who I really was. And tonight, I was done hiding.
"You want to choose Wyatt as your Chosen Mate?" Aurora's voice stirred in the deep current of my mind.
"Of course. We've waited three years."
"I've always felt something was off about him," she muttered.
I had set everything up — candles, soft lighting, a dinner that had taken me two hours to make. When Wyatt came home, he wrapped his arms around me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder.
"Baby, you finally decided?" His voice was low, excited. "Tonight..."
He thought I was finally ready to sleep with him. That's what he thought this was.
He had no idea.
My hands were trembling as I reached into my bag and pulled out the velvet box.
Anticipation. Nerves. Hope.
"Wyatt." I turned to face him. "Will you be my Chosen Mate?"
I opened the box.
A man's engagement ring. Simple, beautiful, chosen with care.
I looked up at him, my heart wide open.
Three years. I had done my research — quietly, carefully. Wyatt Steele, heir to the Silvermoon Pack in the North, living undercover at a Southern university like any ordinary wolf. For four years, just blending in. And in the three years I had known him, he had brought me late-night food when I worked overtime. He had carried me home when I drank too much. I believed — I had let myself believe — that it was real.
I waited for him to light up. To lift me off my feet. To say yes.
Instead —
His expression froze.
The smile dropped off his face like a mask.
Not surprise. Shock. The bad kind.
'I knew it,' Aurora snarled inside me. 'This bastard never once planned to —'
No. No, that couldn't be right.
My own smile began to stiffen.
My heart sank, slow and heavy, like something falling through dark water.
"Sophia." His voice had changed. Distant. Like a stranger's. "What... what is this?"
He stared at the ring like I was holding something dangerous.
Had he only ever wanted to play with me? Had he never, not once, thought about making me his?
I couldn't breathe.
'He thinks he's too good for us,' Aurora growled low and furious.
I am the unwanted daughter of the Shadowfang Pack Alpha. When I came back from studying abroad, I had something to prove. So I took the elders up on their offer — strip away the pack name, take over a failing little company, build it into something real within three years, and they'd consider me for the family inheritance. No pack prestige. Just results.
I had hit every target.
And then word came down from the North: the Silvermoon Pack was looking to form an alliance through marriage. With Shadowfang.
My half-sister Serena would jump at Wyatt the second she had the chance. I knew that. So I moved first. I proposed before the arrangement could be made for her. Three years of real feelings — I was confident. I had never told Wyatt who I was. I wanted him to choose me for me, not for the alliance. Not for politics.
"The elders have been pushing hard. I want to bring you home to meet them..."
"Sophia, don't —" Aurora's voice cracked with something like grief.
I forced my smile to hold. Forced it.
"What's wrong? You don't want to?"
Wyatt finally spoke. "Sophia, this is... really sudden."
He took a step back.
"I'm not ready for this." His eyes slid away from mine.
Not ready.
We had been together for three years.
"Actually — Donny just texted me, something came up, I need to go handle it real quick."
What?
His eyes were darting everywhere but at me. He turned and walked toward the door.
He didn't even change his shoes.
"Wait —" The word got stuck in my throat.
Bang.
The front door closed.
Then the sound of a car engine. Fading. Gone.
He left.
He actually left.
"Sophia..." Aurora's voice was full of sorrow.
I stood there in the middle of the room with the ring box still open in my hand.
Slowly, my arm dropped.
"He never planned to mark you," Aurora said, and her voice was raw with anger and grief. "Not once. Not ever."
The excitement was gone.
The hope was gone.
What replaced them was cold. A slow, spreading cold, like someone had poured a bucket of ice water straight into my chest and let it drain all the way down to my feet.
He had never planned to mark me.
I don't know how long I sat on the couch after that.
Midnight came.
He still wasn't back.
I called his phone.
"The number you have dialed is currently unavailable —"
"He's avoiding you," Aurora said flatly.
The cold in my chest started to shift. Something sharper was moving in under it. Something that stung.
I stood up. Grabbed my jacket.
I knew which bar. He and his friends went there all the time.
I was going to find him. We were going to talk. Whatever was happening, we were going to say it out loud.
"Yes," Aurora said, and there was steel in her voice now. "We deserve an explanation."
The door to the private room was cracked open. I hadn't even stepped inside when I saw him.
Wyatt. Lounging in the corner of the sectional, legs crossed, one arm around a woman who was pressed into his side. Smoke curled up from the cigarette she'd just lit for him. He looked completely at ease. Like a man who had not, two hours ago, run out of my apartment without changing his shoes.
A friend's voice cut through the noise, teasing and loud: "Wyatt, I told you to end it with her ages ago. Now look at this mess — the old girl actually fell for you. She's talking about marriage. Does she even know who you are?"
I went completely still.
"Old girl?" Aurora's voice shook with disbelief and fury. "They dare —"
My fingers curled into my palm. My nails broke the skin.
Wyatt exhaled a slow ring of smoke. He looked down, bit the grape the woman held out between her lips, and smiled.
"Delusional. Like she could ever marry into the Silvermoon Pack."
My breath stopped.
"Sophia..." Aurora's voice was barely a sound.
"Marking her? Not a chance. Her bloodline's nothing special. But she's got the looks for it — could keep her as a side piece down South. Set her up somewhere comfortable."
"Makes sense. You're about to be tied to Shadowfang anyway. North and South, two different worlds. As long as she doesn't go running her mouth to the heiress, you're fine."
Serena.
My half-sister.
So the woman he had always planned to marry wasn't me.
It was my sister.
"I warned you," Aurora said, and her voice was breaking. "I told you there was another she-wolf's scent on him. I said something was wrong. You wouldn't listen."
I know. I screamed it inside myself. I KNOW. Don't say another word.
"Wyatt, the clock's running out on that bet," a third voice said. "You lose, and —"
A bet.
What bet?
"What?" Aurora went silent with shock.
Wyatt laughed.
"Relax. I'll have her before I head back North. I've been playing the sweet, patient boyfriend long enough. Time to collect."
- Writer
