The Alpha's Reject, The King's Obsession

Chapter 1: Rejected Omega

The air inside the Crimson Moon packhouse tasted like warm sugar, cheap champagne, and panic.

Outside, December was doing its usual brute-force job on the windows, turning the glass gray and rattling the frames until the house groaned. Inside, everyone was pretending they didn't live in a freezing forest. The ballroom was loud enough to rattle my teeth—gowns sweeping the floor, laughter that sounded like breaking glass, and chandeliers that threw way too much yellow light into my eyes.

I stood behind a massive marble pillar, right where the shadows were thickest.

My name is Cassandra Campbell. In this pack, I’m the floor-sweep. The nobody. The omega whose job is to make sure the high-born wolves don't have to look at dust or empty glasses. My fingers were raw from scrubbing the East Wing flagstones since dawn, and the dress I’d scavenged from the rag bin felt like it was woven out of pure needles.

Deep behind my ribs, Lyre was pacing holes in my chest.

“Stop slouching,” she hissed, her claws digging imaginary trenches into my thoughts. “They’re looking. Someone’s always looking.”

I didn't answer. I just stared at my boots—scuffed leather, held together with black thread—and waited for midnight to save me.

Then the band stopped. Not slowed down, just died.

The double doors at the far end of the room swung open with a heavy, expensive thud. A draft rolled in off the snow, cold enough to make people shiver through their silk and velvet.

Jace Scottsdale walked through.

If you asked the pack, Jace was carved out of marble. High-ranking Beta, shoulders that filled out a tailored coat like he owned the weather, and hair that looked like wet ink under the lamps. Girls stopped mid-sentence just to watch him pass. Hanging off his arm was Chelsea Odsson, wearing a crimson dress that probably cost more than the roof over my mother’s head. She looked like she’d been born smiling at people she hated.

My heart didn't just skip a beat; it dropped down my throat and hit the floorboards.

A sudden, violent heat ripped through my veins. It wasn't the good kind. It felt like someone had poured boiling water straight into my bloodstream. My lungs filled with a heavy, thick scent—like crushed cedar needles and woodsmoke after a hard rain.

“Mate,” Lyre choked out, her voice suddenly high, shaking, and impossibly bright. “Jace. It’s him. The goddess actually did it.”

Before I could even drag air back into my lungs, Jace froze.

The heavy, arrogant stride just stopped. His neck jerked sideways like a dog catching a scent on the wind. His golden eyes—usually so bored, so full of that stupid Beta pride—snapped straight across the room. Straight through the crowd. Straight into the dark corner where I was trying to melt into the stone.

His face went completely blank for half a second. Then it twisted into something ugly.

He started walking. The crowd didn't just part; they scattered, whispering behind silk fans and champagne flutes.

My knees turned to water. No. No, no, no.

He stopped right in front of me. Up close, the smell of woodsmoke and cedar was so strong it made my head spin. Lyre was practically throwing herself against my ribs, weeping with a stupid, desperate hope.

"Jace?" I whispered. My voice sounded like dry paper.

He didn't look down at me like I was a person. He looked down like I was something disgusting he’d scraped off his boot. His lip curled back, exposing just the very tips of his canines.

"You?" His voice cut right through the chatter of the room, sharp enough to draw blood. "The Moon Goddess gave me this? An omega? A miserable little dirt-eater?"

The silence that hit the ballroom was so thick you could have carved it.

Chelsea drifted up beside him, pressing her shoulder against his arm and giving me a smile that made my stomach heave. "Oh, honey," she cooed, her voice dripping with fake pity. "Don't look at her like that. She probably snuck in the back door just to ruin your night."

Jace didn't even glance at her; he just nodded, his jaw locked tight. He turned his shoulders away from me, squaring up so the whole room could see the back of his head.

"Listen up," Jace shouted, his voice hard as iron. "I, Jace Scottsdale, reject Cassandra Campbell as my mate."

Snap.

It didn't sound like a word. It sounded like a dry branch breaking inside my chest, right where my ribs meet.

A white-hot spike of agony drove itself straight through my soul. The invisible cord—that stupid, glowing thread tying me to him—shattered into a million jagged pieces. The pain was so sharp, so violently loud, that I doubled over, my hands flying to my mouth to keep from screaming. Tears hot enough to blister skin spilled over my lashes and froze almost instantly on my cheeks.

Laughter rippled through the room. Soft, wet, ugly snickers.

"Classic," someone muttered by the punch bowl. "Imagine thinking a Beta would take the garbage."

Jace didn't look back. He tucked Chelsea against his waist and started walking toward the dance floor. "Come on, Chel. Let’s get some air. The room smells like mutt."

I couldn't breathe. My chest was a smoking hole.

“Run,” Lyre sobbed, her voice a weak, bloody mess inside my head. “Cassandra, get out. Move your legs, we have to get out of here!”

I didn't think about boots, or coats, or pack rules. I turned, shoved my shoulder hard against the heavy service door, and tumbled out into the dark.

The cold hit me like a physical punch. Zero degrees, maybe lower, and the wind was howling straight down from the peaks. I didn't care. I scrambled down the frozen stone steps, my cheap shoes skidding on the ice, and threw myself straight into the black line of the forest.

The trees swallowed me instantly.

Branches whipped across my face, tearing at my skin, but the physical sting was nothing compared to the hollow, burning crater in my chest where the bond used to be. I ran until my lungs felt like they were full of broken glass. I ran until my legs gave out from under me and I slammed face-first into a drift of packed snow.

"Ah—"

I curled into a tight, miserable ball, burying my face in my knees. The snow soaked right through my thin dress, turning freezing cold against my skin, but I couldn't stop shaking.

“We’re dying,” Lyre whispered, her voice fading into static. “An omega without a pack, without a mate... we won't see sunrise, Cassandra.”

"I know," I choked out into the dark. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Lyre."

Then the wind died.

Just like that. One second the trees were thrashing, and the next, the entire forest went completely, terrifyingly dead. No crickets. No owls. Not even the sound of the wind. A heavy, massive weight dropped out of the sky and pressed me flat into the snow. It felt like someone had laid an anvil across my shoulders.

My breath caught. This wasn't pack magic. This was something ancient and heavy enough to crack the earth.

Crunch.

A slow, deliberate footstep.

Crunch.

I forced my chin up, wiping the wet hair out of my eyes, and stared into the blackness between two massive trunks.

Two eyes were watching me. They weren't golden like Jace’s, or amber like the pack warriors. They burned with a pale, cold, liquid silver light that made my stomach drop into a bottomless pit.

A shadow stepped out of the brush.

He was massive—towers taller than any wolf I’d ever seen, built like a wall of muscle and dark fur. He wasn't wearing party clothes or smelling like stale cologne. He wore heavy, practical pelts, and resting right above his brow was a jagged, blackened iron circlet that looked like it had been forged in a war zone.

The Lycan King.

Drack Collins.

The monster the elders told stories about to keep kids from wandering off after dark. The ruler of the high crags who looked at normal packs the way a hawk looks at field mice.

My blood turned to ice. I tried to crawl backward, but my arms were shaking so hard I couldn't even lift my elbows out of the drifts.

Drack stopped two paces away. He lowered his massive head, his nostrils flaring as he dragged the freezing air deep into his chest.

Suddenly, his silver eyes flared blindingly bright.

The heavy, crushing pressure in the air didn't lift—it shifted. It curled around me like a heavy, burning-hot wool blanket.

Inside my head, Lyre didn't whimper. She let out a roar so loud and fierce it rattled my teeth.

And the pain in my chest—the jagged, bleeding hole where Jace had ripped out my soul—simply vanished. It didn't heal slowly; it was overwritten by something immense, dark, and absolute.

Drack let out a low, vibrating rumble from deep in his chest. It felt less like a sound and more like an earthquake shaking the ground right under my ribs.

He crouched down, his silver gaze locking onto my wet face, and his voice scraped across the snow like grinding stones.

"There you are," the King murmured, and the sound of it sent a violent shock straight down my spine. "Mine."