Rejected By The Alpha

Briar's POV "Hit me like you mean it." My father didn't wait for me to get set. His fist came fast, aimed at my jaw, and I dropped my shoulder just in time to feel it graze past my ear. I drove my elbow into his ribs and he grunted, stepping back into the hay-dusted light of the barn. "Better," he said. "But you dropped your guard on the follow-through. Reyne's men won't give you a second chance to fix that." I hated that he was right. It was almost midnight, and most eighteen-year-olds in Fallow Creek Pack were asleep in their beds. But my father, Hollis Callahan, had been waking me up for training since I was seven years old, ever since the night rogues killed my mother on the eastern ridge and he decided his daughter would never again be someone who needed saving. Tonight wasn't about rogues, though. Tonight was about Alpha Marcus Reyne. "He sent another letter," Dad said, wiping sweat from his neck. "Says he wants to discuss 'securing our family's future' over dinner tomorrow. Alone. Just me and him." My stomach turned. I knew exactly what kind of future Marcus Reyne wanted to secure. He'd made it clear enough at the last pack gathering, looking at me the way a man looks at land he intends to buy. He didn't want a wife. He wanted my father's warriors — the best fighting unit in the pack — bound to him permanently through marriage to the captain's only daughter. "You're not going," I said. "No," Dad agreed. "I'm not." Something in the way he said it made my whole body go still. "Dad." "Get your brother," he said. "Pack only what fits in one bag each. We leave within the hour." I didn't argue. I'd learned a long time ago that when my father's voice went flat and quiet like that, arguing only wasted time we didn't have. I found Dez in his room, headphones on, sketching in the notebook he thought nobody knew about. He was fifteen and built like he might not stop growing until he hit the ceiling, but he still jumped when I touched his shoulder. "We're leaving," I told him. "Tonight." He didn't ask why. He just looked at my face and started shoving clothes into his duffel bag. Twenty minutes later, we stood in the kitchen while Dad fed our phones into the fireplace one at a time. I watched the screens curl and blacken, taking with them every photo of the life we were leaving behind. "Reyne tracks everything," Dad said, like he was explaining why the sky was blue. "Every call. Every message. If we want a real head start, we go dark completely." "Where are we even going?" Dez asked. Dad's jaw tightened. "Your mother's pack. Stonewood." I hadn't heard that name spoken out loud in years. My mother left Stonewood before I was born, and she'd never once told us why. All I knew was that her parents still lived there, and that Stonewood's current Alpha had a reputation for being cold, brutal, and untouchable — the kind of Alpha who made even Marcus Reyne think twice about picking a fight. Maybe that was exactly what we needed. We drove for hours on back roads, headlights off whenever the moon gave us enough light to see by. Dez fell asleep against the window somewhere past the second county line. I stayed awake, watching the mile markers, feeling every muscle in my body wound tight as a fist. "You did good tonight," Dad said quietly, eyes on the road. "Both of you." "Do you think he'll come after us?" Dad didn't answer right away. That was answer enough. "Marcus Reyne doesn't lose things gracefully," he finally said. "But Stonewood is strong. Stronger than us. If we can just get across that border, we'll be under a different Alpha's protection. Different laws. He can't touch us there." I wanted to believe him. I'd spent my whole life believing him, training under him, trusting that if I hit hard enough and moved fast enough, nothing could touch our family that we couldn't handle together. But I'd never seen my father burn our phones before. I'd never seen him look over his shoulder at every gas station like the shadows themselves might be reporting back to Fallow Creek. Somewhere around three in the morning, the trees started changing. Thicker. Older. A hand-painted sign flickered past in our headlights: STONEWOOD TERRITORY — ALL VISITORS MUST REPORT TO BORDER CHECKPOINT. "Almost there," Dad murmured, more to himself than to us. I sat up straighter, some old instinct from training kicking in even though every part of me was exhausted. Dez stirred beside me, blinking awake. "Are we safe now?" he asked. I opened my mouth to answer him, some reassurance ready on my tongue the way I always had one ready for my little brother. Then I saw the headlights in the side mirror. They weren't there a second ago. Now they were close enough that I could make out the shape of the vehicle behind us — a black truck, moving fast, gaining on us with every second. "Dad—" "I see them." His voice had gone hard and flat, the voice he used right before a fight. His hands tightened on the wheel. "Both of you, seatbelts. Now." "Is it him?" Dez's voice cracked. "Is it Reyne?" I twisted around in my seat, watching the black shape eat up the distance between us and the empty road behind. The Stonewood checkpoint sign glowed faintly up ahead, still a mile off. Maybe more. "Dad, how fast can that truck go?" He didn't answer. He just pressed the gas harder, and the old engine screamed in protest as the trees blurred past the windows. The headlights behind us didn't fall back. If anything, they were closing the gap. We were still on the wrong side of the border. Whatever protection Stonewood offered wouldn't mean anything until we actually crossed it — and right now, with that truck bearing down on us in the dark, a mile felt like it might as well have been a hundred.