Rejected By My Alpha Mate

The ceremony was tomorrow night. Kaela Nightshade was running out of ways to hide her fear. She leaned against the stone wall in the servants' corridor. She listened as the pack moved above her. Laughter, crystal clinks, and warm chatter echoed through the floorboards. She knew she would never join them. They were already celebrating. The mating ceremony was the biggest night in pack life. Even the betas' children would be wearing their best tonight. Kaela was wearing her second uniform. The first one had a tear she hadn't been able to fix. She walked down the corridor to the kitchen, staying close to the wall. Her head was down, a familiar posture that felt like a part of her. In three years of living at the pack house's edge, she had perfected the art of occupying no space. "Nightshade." She didn't stop. Stopping made it last longer. "Hey. Wolfless." This time, she stopped. Not because she had to, but because she felt tired tonight. Her small reserves of patience felt see-through. She turned. Three of them. Kale and his two shadows stood nearby. She never learned their names. Knowing the names of those who liked to hurt you felt too intimate, and she wouldn’t allow that. They were warriors in training, broad and young, and wore their status like cologne. Kale tilted his head. "Did you get a look at the ceremony roster?" "I saw it," Kaela said. "Then you know you're at the bottom." He smiled. "You know what happens at the bottom of the roster? Last to enter. Last person to see. And you, they're going to see you standing there with no wolf, no bond, nothing," he paused to let the cruelty land better. "It's going to be sad." Kaela held her gaze. She did not tell him that she already knew this. She didn't tell him she'd already been awake, thinking about it. She stood in front of the whole pack in that cold, torch-lit clearing. Everyone thought the mate bond wouldn't happen. They believed she had no wolf and was incomplete. She didn't share her deeper fear about tomorrow night. It felt more embarrassing and human than she wanted to admit. She was afraid that some part of her still hoped. That was the most terrifying thing. For twenty-one years, she had heard she was nothing. Still, that stubborn part of her woke up each day, thinking today would be different. "I'll see you at the ceremony," she told Kale and walked past him. She heard him say something to his shadow behind her; she did not turn around. ✦ ✦ ✦ The kitchen was empty at this hour. Kaela moved through it from memory. She followed the exact path around the prep counter. It avoided the third stone tile, which rocked and clicked when stepped on. The exact position of the spice shelf was in the dark. She memorized this kitchen in her first month here. It was the only room in the keep where no one said she didn’t belong. She was assembling a plate of leftover stew and grain when the door scraped open. Luna burst in like a small, warm disaster. "I've been looking everywhere for you," Luna said, her breath coming in quick bursts. She had been running with evident effort. Her copper hair hung loose. Someone pushed up one sleeve. She pressed a cloth bundle into Kaela's hands. "Here. I altered it. It took me two weeks, but the neckline is better now." Kaela unwrapped the bundle. A dress. The deep grass-green fabric showed it had cost Luna a lot, but she didn’t share the price. Simple lines, yet beautiful in their details. This dress says: I know who I am, and I won’t apologize for it. Kaela's throat did something she didn't allow. "Luna" "You deserve to walk into that ceremony with your true self on display," Luna said with conviction. "Not like the pack's errand girl. Like you." "Like me, it's the problem," Kaela said. "There is no version of me that belongs in that ceremony." "Stop that." Luna pulled out a stool and sat down across from her. She wore a look that said she was ready to stand her ground. "Stop deciding that things are going to be terrible before they happen." "I'm not deciding; I'm predicting based on evidence." "Evidence like what? You've never been to a mating ceremony. How do you know?" "Luna." Kaela placed the dress on the counter with care. Luna had spent two weeks on it, so it meant a lot. "I have no wolf. You know that. Everyone knows that." I'll stand in that clearing tomorrow night. The bond won’t come for me. I’ll walk out the other side, knowing I am exactly what they’ve always said I am. The kitchen was quiet. Luna looked at her. "Or," she said in a whisper, "the bond will come." "And everything will change." Kaela opened her mouth to say, "That doesn't happen to people like me." And stopped. A strange feeling rushed through her, quick and subtle, gone before she could name it. A warmth somewhere beneath her sternum, like a coal touched by air. Here and gone. She put her hand over her ribs. Pressed. Nothing. "Are you all right?" Luna asked. "Fine." Kaela picked up her spoon. "Thank you for the dress." Luna's face showed she wanted to keep talking, but she knew to let it go for tonight. ✦ ✦ ✦ Later, when the keep was quiet and the sounds above had faded, Kaela sat on her cot in the dark. She thought about tomorrow. She had a small window in her room. A larger air gap, placed high in the stone, serves for ventilation, not for a view. But if she stood on the cot, she could see a stripe of sky. She did that now. The moon was not yet full. Tomorrow night it will be. She watched it through the gap in the stone and tried to feel something manageable. She pushed the warmth she felt in the kitchen, brief and almost nothing, back down to its source. Hope, she had learned long ago, was the name you gave to the pain that hadn't arrived yet. She would go to the ceremony. She would stand at the end of the roster. She would feel nothing because there would be nothing to feel. She would return to this room, this cot, and this stripe of sky. She would still be exactly who she had always been. She believed this. She felt a strong certainty that she believed this. She lay down and closed her eyes. In her chest, faint, impossible, unwelcome, the warmth pulsed once more. Like something beginning. Like something that had always been waiting, finally deciding it was time.