Rejected by My Alpha Mate

Useful, at a Price

Being useful feels good.

That’s the problem.

The morning after the patrol, the tower hums with a different kind of rumor. Not just Silverblood, not just sacrifice. Another word slips in at the edges.

She helped.

You’d think it would make things easier.

It doesn’t.

It just changes the shape of the fear.

***

The debrief happens in the war room again. Damon at the head of the table, Caleb and the patrol leaders flanking, Jace sitting with his sling and a smug look like being half‑broken and still right should be an Olympic sport.

I’m there, across from Damon, because I insisted and because after last night even he couldn’t come up with a reason to send me out.

“She felt it before any of us saw it,” Caleb says, tapping one of the updated maps. “Twenty meters out. You could argue we might have noticed the glint ourselves, but we didn’t. The mark did.”

He doesn’t say Evelyn did.

It’s a small distinction. It shouldn’t matter.

It does.

“So our asset is more sensitive than our scouts,” one elder envoy says, steepling his fingers. “That’s good news.”

He says asset like it’s a compliment.

“It’s information,” Damon says. “We’ll use it. That’s all.”

“Information is leverage,” the envoy says. “And leverage changes strategy.”

He looks at me when he says it. Like I’m a particularly tricky line item in a contract.

“Send it to accounting,” I mutter.

Damon’s lips twitch.

Jace leans forward. “The point is,” he says, “if we pretend she’s not connected, we’re just tying one hand behind our back while they keep both free.”

“You’re suggesting we put her on every patrol,” the envoy says flatly.

“I’m suggesting,” Jace says, “we stop acting like the only two options are lock her up or sacrifice her.”

“There is a third option,” the envoy says. “Use her until she gets us all killed.”

“If she doesn’t come,” Caleb says, “someone steps on that trap next time. You want to talk about who gets us killed, we can start there.”

The argument swells. Voices rise, overlap.

I sit very still.

Because under the petty words and the big ones, the equation is simple and brutal:

Me there = more information.

Me there = more risk.

Either way, the war snakes through the numbers and comes up with the same sum: cost.

“Enough,” Damon says.

The room drops back into order.

“We’re not turning this into a referendum on her existence every time we meet,” he says. “We know more today than we did yesterday. We adjust.”

He looks at me.

“Thank you,” he says. “For calling it.”

Two words. Flat. Almost formal.

They land anyway.

“You’re welcome,” I say.

He turns back to the table. “Going forward, she comes on controlled patrols only. No open engagements. No deep forest. She stays in line of sight.”

“You’re normalizing her presence,” the envoy says.

“I’m normalizing reality,” Damon says.

The envoy’s mouth twists. “Reality has a habit of bleeding, Alpha.”

“So do we,” Damon says. “Meeting adjourned.”

The warriors file out, murmuring. The envoy goes last, giving me a look that says this isn’t over.

I know.

Nothing is ever over here. It just mutates.

***

I find Lydia in the corridor outside the medic wing.

Of course I do.

She leans against the wall, a glossy magazine in hand, long legs crossed at the ankles. Her hair falls in a perfect sheet over one shoulder. A basket of fruit sits on the chair next to her, carefully arranged for maximum sympathy effect.

“You’re early,” she says when she notices me. “Or late. I can’t tell which, with you.”

“I’m not on a schedule,” I say. “Just passing through.”

Her gaze drifts to my wrist.

“So I heard,” she says softly. “Congratulations on your first official patrol. You must feel… very brave.”

“I feel very tired,” I say. “Bravery is mostly aching feet and bad decisions.”

She laughs, low and delighted, like we’re sharing a joke in some other, kinder life.

“You do like to walk where you shouldn’t,” she says. “Council chambers. Forest borders. My seat at the table.”

“Your seat was empty,” I say. “Someone had to keep it warm.”

Her eyes flash.

Then her smile returns, smooth as ever.

“You know, Evelyn,” she says, “there are women in this pack who would kill for that kind of access. Walking beside Damon. Having his eyes on you.”

“They can have his eyes,” I say. “I’ll keep my internal organs.”

She tilts her head. “But you are keeping both, aren’t you? Organs and his attention. That’s very greedy.”

“You’re very observant for someone who spends so much time in hallways,” I say.

“Hallways are where things move,” she says. “Doors are just where they pretend to stop.”

Her gaze flicks to the medic wing door.

“How is he?” I ask before I can talk myself out of it.

“Jace?” she says. “Oh, he’s… recovering.” Her voice softens, syrupy. “So brave. So dedicated. It’s tragic, really, the way some people’s loyalty gets them hurt.”

“Some people’s,” I echo.

“He believes in this pack,” she says. “In Damon. In you.” Her lashes lower. “I’m not sure which worries me more.”

“You, clearly,” I say. “Since you’re the one lurking outside his door with fruit.”

Lydia’s smile sharpens. “You think I’m buying his opinion?”

“I think you’re renting the optics,” I say. “A wounded warrior. A devoted almost‑Luna. It plays well.”

She laughs outright. “Optics. Listen to you. Maybe you do understand this world after all.”

“It keeps trying to kill me,” I say. “I pay attention.”

She steps closer, perfume wrapping around me—light, expensive, suffocating.

“Here is what I pay attention to,” she says, tone sugar‑soft. “Since you started sitting at that table, the elders spend more time arguing and less time sleeping. Warriors bleed more. Hunters move closer. The tower breathes shallower. And Damon…”

She trails off, looking down the hall toward his office.

“What about him?” I ask, hating myself for asking.

“He’s playing hero,” she says. “It doesn’t suit him.”

“You would know,” I say. “You’ve seen all his suits.”

Her eyes chill.

“This isn’t a game, Evelyn,” she says. “You being useful.” She practically spits the word. “It buys you time. It buys you access. It does not buy you safety.”

“I know,” I say. “Believe me, I know.”

“And it doesn’t buy you him,” she adds.

There it is.

The real war, wrapped in fruit and concern and politics.

“Good,” I say. “He’s not for sale.”

She laughs, but there’s no humor in it.

“Everything is for sale up here,” she says. “You’re just the newest currency.”

She picks up the basket.

“Enjoy your patrols,” she says as she sweeps past me into the medic wing. “Try not to make too many people fall in love with you just because you happen to be standing where the light hits.”

The door swings shut behind her.

I stand there in the empty hall, her words coiling around my ribs.

Useful.

Currency.

Somewhere between those words is a line I can’t afford to cross.

Because being useless gets me sacrificed.

And being too useful might get me turned into exactly what hunters want:

A tool.

***

That night, Damon finds me in the small lounge off our hallway, sitting in the dark with the city lights bleeding in through the windows.

“You’re avoiding your room,” he says.

“You’re avoiding yours,” I say.

He steps in, bare feet silent on the carpet. He leans against the opposite wall, folding his arms.

“You did well today,” he says.

“You already said thank you,” I say. “In the debrief.”

“I’m saying it again,” he says.

It shouldn’t matter.

It does.

“You know they’re going to use this against you,” I say. “Your council. Your father. Lydia.”

“They already do,” he says. “They just have new words now.”

“Useful,” I say.

He huffs. “That one, at least, is accurate.”

“It doesn’t bother you?” I ask.

“What?” he says. “That they see you as a tool?”

The word makes me flinch.

He notices.

“You’re not,” he says. “Tools have no say. You keep arguing with me every time I open my mouth.”

“That’s my charm,” I say.

He smiles, faint and brief.

“Being useful isn’t a crime, Evelyn,” he says. “Being used is.”

“What’s the difference?” I ask.

“Choice,” he says simply.

“I didn’t choose this,” I say, lifting my wrist.

“You didn’t choose the mark,” he says. “You choose what you do with it.”

“You’re the one choosing where I go,” I say.

“And you fought me for it,” he says. “You’re not passive in this. Don’t rewrite your own spine out of the story just because it scares you.”

Silence settles between us, heavy and not entirely uncomfortable.

“They’re going to keep raising the price,” I say quietly. “For every time I help. For every patrol I sense. For every child I pull out of a rogue’s jaws. They’re going to want more.”

“I know,” he says.

“Can you pay it?” I ask. “For them? For me?”

He looks out at the city instead of answering immediately.

Lights move along the river. Somewhere out there, hunters pray to whatever god listens to people who carve marks into steel.

“I’ll bleed for this pack,” he says finally. “I always knew that. I didn’t expect the bill to have your face on it. But I’m not handing it to you alone.”

“You can’t stop them from trying,” I say.

“No,” he says. “But I can be between you and them when they do.”

He says it like he’s stating a battle plan, not a vow. That makes it easier to accept.

Barely.

“And if being between us and them means using what I can do,” I say, “you’re not going to stop that either.”

“No,” he says. “I’m going to make sure you survive it.”

I don’t have an answer for that. I just let it sit.

Useful.

Not safe.

But not nothing.

For now, that will have to be enough.