Rejected by My Alpha Mate

Traps with My Name

Two days after they move me, the traps come back from the border.

They arrive in a crate that smells like metal and damp earth. Warriors carry it into the strategy room off Damon’s office, the one with maps pinned all over the walls and a permanent sense of bad news.

I’m not supposed to be there.

Obviously, I am.

“You stay out of the way,” Damon says when he spots me hovering by the doorway.

“I’ll stand very still,” I say. “Like a decorative hazard sign.”

He gives me a look that says he’s reevaluating his earlier life choices, then waves me in anyway.

The room is full of people who could make me disappear with a nod. Betas, lieutenants, a couple of elders’ envoys pretending they’re not here to report back every word.

Jace stands near the crate, arm in a brace, face paler than usual. He shouldn’t be up yet, but I recognize that restless look. The one that says lying still feels worse than the pain.

“Show me,” Damon says.

One of the warriors pries the crate open. Inside, a tangle of metal gleams dully—jaw traps, trip wires, spikes. All the charming little toys hunters leave in the woods when they’re bored.

Caleb reaches in with gloved hands and pulls one out. It’s a round device with serrated teeth, the kind that would snap shut on a wolf’s leg and not let go.

I’ve seen enough of them in my nightmares.

“Same make as last time,” Caleb says. “Same silver content. But…”

He flips it over.

I see it before anyone explains.

A symbol scratched into the underside. A crescent line, jagged but deliberate, with three smaller cuts radiating out like crude rays.

My wristmark’s shape, crudely copied in metal.

The room goes weirdly quiet.

“We found that on half of them,” Jace says. His voice is hoarse. “Not stamped. Carved. Like someone took their time.”

My throat dries out.

“So subtle,” I say. “In case anyone missed the memo.”

Damon steps closer, eyes narrowing. He doesn’t touch the trap—his fingers hover just above it, reading, gauging.

“They want you to see it,” he says.

“They want all of you to see it,” one of the envoys says. “They’re making it clear who they’re here for.”

“They were already clear,” Damon says.

“Symbols change things,” the envoy says. “They turn rumors into banners.”

Garrick isn’t here, but I can hear his tone in that sentence.

I fold my arms, more to keep from rubbing my wrist than anything.

“Maybe they just like branding,” I say. “Merchandising opportunity. Coming soon: Silverblood traps, now with extra spite.”

No one laughs.

Jace drags in a breath. “We found one of these under the service road culvert,” he says. “Where the patrol got hit.”

The air thickens. No one has to say what that means: they didn’t just scatter traps randomly. They knew our routes. Our patterns. Us.

“They’re getting better intelligence,” Caleb says.

“Or their bosses are sending more,” the envoy mutters.

Damon straightens. “Either way, this changes nothing about our immediate protocol,” he says. “We reinforce the border. We adjust patrol routes. We triple‑check any reports of human activity.”

“It changes how we view her,” the envoy says.

Everyone looks at him. Then, inevitably, at me.

“Careful,” Damon says. His voice is quiet, but the warning in it lands like a blade laid on a throat.

The envoy holds up his hands. “I’m not saying anything the council isn’t already thinking. Hunters are carving her into their weapons. They’re sending messages. Ignoring that is—”

“Stupid?” I supply. “Reckless? Hero complex?”

A few of the warriors almost smile. Almost.

The envoy’s mouth thins. “Dangerous,” he says. “For all of us.”

The room waits.

Damon looks at me.

It’s a split‑second thing, but it happens. His gaze finds mine, holds, then returns to the envoy.

“Hunters painting symbols on their toys doesn’t change what she is,” he says. “It changes what they think she is. Our job is not to agree with their theology.”

“Our job is to keep our people alive,” the envoy counters.

“I am,” Damon says.

The envoy’s eyes flick to my mark. “By keeping the beacon in the center of the tower?”

Something in me snaps.

“Funny,” I say. “From where I’m standing, the beacon keeps getting dragged to wherever you want to hold your meetings.”

All heads swivel my way.

Damon’s aura flares for a fraction of a second, sharp as a slap.

“Evelyn,” he says, warning.

“What?” I ask. “Too honest?”

The envoy looks at me like he’s trying to decide if I’m a threat or a child.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says. “This is a security briefing.”

“I’m the security breach,” I say. “Feels relevant.”

“Enough,” Damon says.

He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. The air pulls tight around the word.

I shut my mouth, not because he told me to, but because I can feel the edge of the room tipping toward the part where people start making decisions without me again.

Jace clears his throat. “There’s more,” he says. “It’s not just the symbol.”

He reaches into the crate for a different device. This one is smaller, flatter, with an ugly little disk at its center.

“Sonic emitter,” he says. “Like the one they used on the patrol. We found it wired to a motion sensor, under a low branch.” He hesitates. “And… this.”

He passes Damon a folded scrap of something. Paper, by the sound.

Damon opens it.

From where I stand, I can’t see the writing. I can see his face, though, sharpening as he reads.

“What is it?” Caleb asks.

“A prayer,” Damon says.

My skin crawls.

He doesn’t hand it to me. He doesn’t hand it to the envoy. He tucks it into his pocket like it’s something he doesn’t want anyone else to touch.

“Hunters left a note now?” I say. “What’s next, gift baskets?”

No one rises to the bait.

“We adjust the patrol around this sector,” Damon says, businesslike again. “We assume they’ve mapped our old routes and act accordingly.”

The envoy looks unconvinced. “And the fact they are literally engraving her mark into their traps—”

“—means they’re obsessed,” Damon says. “Not that they’re right.”

“Obsession kills,” the envoy says.

“So does panic,” Damon replies.

They stare each other down. Power hums in the room, thick and ugly.

I’m suddenly, painfully aware of how many of the warriors’ gazes keep sliding back to me. Not with hatred. Not exactly. With the kind of wary calculation people use on storms and cliffs and loaded guns left on tables.

I’ve been outside the pack’s equations for years. Easy to forget outside things. Easy to pretend they’re not there until they break.

Now I’m in the center of every column whether I like it or not.

“May I see it?” I ask, nodding at the trap in Caleb’s hand.

He hesitates, then looks to Damon.

Damon nods once.

Caleb carries it over like it’s a wild animal that might bite.

“Don’t touch the teeth,” he says.

“I may be a variable,” I say, “but even I know that.”

Up close, the symbol is even cruder. The lines are uneven, scraped into metal with something sharp and angry. Whoever carved it didn’t care about aesthetics. They cared about making sure anyone who flipped the trap over would know exactly who it was baited for.

I reach out.

“Evelyn,” Damon says sharply.

“Relax,” I say. “I’m not sticking my hand in.”

I stop just short of the scratched mark and hover my fingers over it.

The mark on my wrist warms, a low, almost reluctant response.

It’s like hearing your name mispronounced from across a crowded room.

“It… hums,” I say quietly.

Caleb goes still.

“Like?” Damon asks.

“Like it recognizes the shape,” I say. “But not the source. Like someone drew a bad copy of my face and sent it to strangers.”

Jace makes a face. “That’s creepy.”

“Welcome to my life,” I say.

Damon’s jaw tightens. “Get these out of here,” he says. “Locked storage. No one touches them without gloves. No one takes pictures. No one spreads this symbol farther than it’s already gone.”

The envoy bristles. “Information control—”

“Keeps hunters from winning a propaganda war,” Damon snaps. “They want you terrified of her shadow. I’m not going to hand them a printing press.”

The envoy opens his mouth. Then he closes it.

They file out eventually, carrying the crate with its marked jaws. The room empties until it’s just me and Damon and the maps.

He shuts the door.

The click feels louder than it should.

“You shouldn’t have touched it,” he says.

“I didn’t,” I say. “I barely looked at it. Apparently that’s enough.”

I rub my wrist on reflex. The heat is gone, but a ghost of it lingers in my tendons.

“They’re going to use this,” I say. “In every argument. Every vote. Every whispered ‘I told you so.’”

“I know,” he says.

“They already hated me for existing,” I say. “Now they have merch.”

He huffs, a sound with no humor in it.

“You’re not a brand,” he says.

“Tell that to the traps,” I say. “Tell that to whoever sat in a basement carving my mark while they talked about me.”

“I intend to,” he says.

I look at him.

“You can’t punch carvings, Damon,” I say. “Or prayers. Or whispers. You can’t hit what’s already inside their heads.”

“I can hit the people who put it there,” he says.

There’s a flatness in his voice that makes the hair on my arms rise.

“You can’t fight a secret society with your fists,” I say.

“Watch me,” he says.

He turns back to the map and starts adjusting patrol routes with quick, precise strokes, drawing new lines over old ones.

Hunters have my shape on their traps.

The pack has my shape on their maps.

Either way, I’m the center of someone else’s diagram.

And the circles are closing in.