Rejected by My Alpha, Reborn as the Wolf King's Mate

Lucian cut my mate mark away while the dark moon hung directly above the sacrificial court. The silver blade traced the old bite at the curve of my neck, opening skin that had once healed around his teeth, and the bond between us tore strand by strand. Somewhere inside my mind, my wolf screamed until her voice became a raw scrape, but the chains across my wrists kept me flat against the stone. The entire Gray Ridge Pack watched from below the altar. Elders stood in the first row in their ceremonial coats, warriors filled the steps behind them, and the lower-ranked wolves crowded near the iron gates. No one tried to stop their future Alpha from executing a wolfless Omega, because Lucian had already told them my death was necessary. My younger sister, Erin, wore the silver gown that had been made for me. She stood beneath the Alpha's banner with one hand looped through Lucian's arm, her pale hair arranged around the Luna's moonstone crown. When my blood ran down the altar, she shifted her feet to keep it from touching her slippers. Father occupied the center seat among the nobles. Mother held a white handkerchief over her nose as if the smell of my blood offended her more than the knife did. Three nights earlier, both of them had promised that if I submitted to the full-moon rite, House Vale would protect me from the elders who wanted a public execution. "You should not blame me for this, Selene." Lucian handed the bloodied knife to an attendant, his voice as calm as it had been at council meetings. "You have no wolf. Gray Ridge needs an heir strong enough to lead. Erin can give the pack one." I stared at the black wedding band around his wrist. The night before, he had reached through our failing mind-link and promised the execution was theater for the elders, that he would stop the blade before it cut the mark. I had believed him, so I had not escaped when the old groundskeeper offered me a horse, and I had not sent the smuggling ledgers hidden in Father's cellar to the king of the Northlands. "She certainly can give him a strong heir," Vera said from behind the altar. My oldest friend stepped into the moonlight carrying an empty blue vial. Vera Hale had slept in my room during childhood storms, braided my hair before my first pack dance, and brought me the medicine I had swallowed every morning for six years. She dropped the vial beside my face, and the last blue drop rolled across the stone like a tiny polished jewel. "Your wolf is already inside her," she continued. "How could Erin be anything but strong?" I jerked against the chains hard enough to tear the skin around my cuffs. Vera crouched beside me and dipped two fingers into the blood running from my neck, then wiped them across the hem of Erin's silver gown. She did it without anger and without hesitation, which hurt more than if she had spat in my face. Vera told me the truth because she believed I would be dead within minutes. The medicine had never been meant to awaken my missing wolf. It suppressed her, weakened the barrier around my soul, and allowed the Vale family priests to siphon a little of her strength into Erin each month. "Six years," Vera said, checking the pulse in my bleeding wrist. "That was how long the transfer required. Lucian knew by the third year. The final stage could only be completed if your true mate severed the bond with his own hand." The last thread of our mind-link burned behind my ribs. I followed it until I found Lucian's wolf pacing in panic, ramming his shoulders against the walls of its own mind. Lucian himself would not meet my eyes. "Why?" I asked him, though Vera had already given me the shape of the answer. Lucian looked at Erin before he looked at me. He wiped a spot of my blood from her skirt with his thumb, then tucked the white handkerchief Mother offered him into his pocket. "House Vale controls the moon-silver mines. Erin has your wolf. Together, they give Gray Ridge the alliance and the bloodline it needs." "And me?" His jaw tightened. "When the rite is over, the official account will say you volunteered. The pack will honor your sacrifice." I had loved him for twelve years. On the morning I learned he was my fated mate, I had thanked the Moon for choosing someone who had known me before the pack started calling me defective. Dying on his altar taught me what the bond could not: fate could tie two souls together, but it could not force a coward to grow a conscience. Father signaled the priest to continue. Mother finally left the noble platform and approached me, but she did not unlock the chains. She pressed her handkerchief to my mouth and told me to stop making the ceremony ugly, because Erin would be Luna by sunrise and House Vale would buy me the finest grave marker in the territory. Her voice was gentle. It was the same voice she had used when she coaxed me into drinking my first bowl of blue medicine at sixteen, promising that the pain meant my wolf was trying to wake. The Moonwell rose around the altar. Freezing water spilled over the stone, entered the cut at my neck, and lit every vein in my body. A white-silver wolf spirit was dragged from my chest, larger than any wolf in the watching pack, her claws gouging the altar as the priests pulled her toward Erin. Erin lifted her chin and opened her arms. My wolf snarled at her. Vera began the transfer incantation. Lucian put his palm on my shoulder, holding me still while the knife cut through the last living thread of our mate bond. The pain burned so completely that, for a moment, I could not tell whether I was still inside my body. Then I laughed. Lucian flinched as if I had bitten him. He probably thought pain had driven me mad, but I was looking at the silver spirit twisting behind him. My wolf had never accepted Erin. She had been imprisoned, starved, and cut into pieces, yet she was still fighting her way back to me. "If I live again," I said, spitting blood across Lucian's polished boots, "I will reject you first." The Moonwell covered my mouth and nose. Through the rising water, I saw black rejection veins spread above Lucian's collar and watched surprise break through his perfect control. The backlash had finally reached him, but it was too late to matter. My wolf sank with me. Erin's triumphant smile vanished when the silver spirit turned on her and released a howl that did not belong in a human throat. Then the water closed over my eyes, and the mate who had promised to save me became a shadow above the surface. When I opened my eyes again, Vera stood beside my bed holding a steaming cup of blue medicine. Sunlight poured through lace curtains. A white wedding dress hung from the wardrobe, untouched and unstained, and the calendar on the dressing table marked the day before my pairing ceremony. Vera smiled when she saw me awake and held out the cup with the easy confidence of someone repeating an old habit. "Drink before it cools," she said. "You don't want your condition acting up tomorrow." My neck was whole. There was no scar where Lucian had carved out his mark, yet the memory of the blade remained so sharp that I could feel blood drying under my collar. Deep inside me, my wolf lay silent, but for the first time I knew silence did not mean absence. I took the cup and swallowed one mouthful while Vera watched. The rest ran down the inside of my sleeve into an empty perfume bottle hidden beneath the blanket. When she leaned close to straighten my collar, I asked whether Erin's dress was ready. Vera's fingers paused for less than a second. She recovered quickly and said Erin would attend as my maid of honor, nothing more. I thanked her, smiled until she left, then bolted the door and poured the mouthful I had kept beneath my tongue into the same bottle. Father's study occupied the west wing. In my first life, I had not learned about the compartment behind his map cabinet until the old groundskeeper whispered the secret outside my cell. Now I waited for the servants to change shifts, entered through the adjoining library, and pressed the hidden catch without wasting time on the obvious locks. There were no family jewels inside. The compartment held moon-silver shipping ledgers, records from the private Moonwell beneath our abandoned mine, and two sealed decrees. The first announced that Erin Vale would replace me as Lucian Gray's bride after the pairing rite. The second authorized the execution of "the cursed wolfless female Selene Vale" to stabilize the new Luna's wolf. My death was scheduled for midnight the following day. Lucian had signed the order three days earlier.