REJECTED AND PREGNANT: HIS RIVAL’S OBSESSION

CHAPTER 3

Sophiah's POV

I locked myself in the bathroom for thirty minutes before I could think straight.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking. I pressed them flat against the cold counter and stared at my reflection. My face was pale. My eyes were red. And the flutter in my stomach had settled into a quiet pulse that I couldn't ignore no matter how hard I tried.

I needed to be sure.

I slipped out of the packhouse through the back entrance and drove to the only clinic outside pack territory where no one would recognize me. It was a small human facility twenty minutes past the border, the kind of place where they didn't ask questions and they didn't remember faces.

The test took ten minutes. The result took three seconds to destroy my entire world.

Positive.

I was pregnant. Six weeks along.

I sat in the parking lot for a long time, staring at the paper in my hands. The words blurred and sharpened and blurred again. A baby. Tyran's baby. Growing inside a woman he couldn't even look at. A child whose father was considering rejecting its mother in front of the entire pack in two weeks.

What was I supposed to do with this?

If I told Tyran, he would keep me. Not out of love but out of duty. His father, Alpha Ronan, would never allow him to reject a pregnant mate. The pack would be forced to accept me, at least on the surface. I would have security. Stability. A place.

But I would also have a chain.

I would spend the rest of my life knowing that the only reason my mate kept me was because of the child in my womb. Not because he wanted me. Not because he loved me. Because tradition demanded it. Because his father commanded it. Because the mate bond was a leash neither of us could cut.

I folded the paper and tucked it into my pocket.

No one would know. Not yet. Not until I figured out what I wanted, if what I wanted even mattered anymore.

When I got back to the packhouse, the chaos of ceremony preparations had doubled. Pack members rushed through hallways carrying decorations and supplies. I moved through them like a ghost, invisible and unbothered by anyone.

Until I reached the main hall.

Keira stood on a raised platform near the front, directing a group of warriors through what looked like a security formation drill. She moved with confidence, pointing and commanding like she had been born to lead. The warriors responded to her without hesitation, their respect genuine in a way that mine never was.

And standing at the side of the room, watching her with an expression I had memorized from years of craving it, was Tyran.

Pride.

He was proud of her.

I turned before either of them could see me and headed for the one place in this pack where I still felt human. The orphanage.

The pups rushed me the moment I walked through the door. Small arms wrapped around my legs, my waist, my hands. Their laughter was the only medicine that worked on the kind of sickness I carried.

"Luna Sophiah! You're back!"

"We missed you!"

"Can you read to us again tonight?"

I knelt down and held as many of them as I could. Their warmth seeped into me, filling the hollow spaces that Tyran and this pack had carved out over three years.

"I missed you too," I whispered, and for the first time today, I meant what I said without any pain attached to it.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with them. Reading stories. Braiding hair. Helping with homework. Settling fights over toys. It was simple and exhausting and the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

By evening, I was back at the packhouse. I had hoped to slip upstairs without being noticed, but the sound of voices from the living room stopped me.

"She's not fit to be Luna, Tyran. Everyone sees it." It was Keira. Her voice was soft but deliberate. Every word placed like a stone in a wall she was building between us.

"I know," Tyran replied.

Two words. I know. Spoken without hesitation. Without conflict. Without the slightest tremor of guilt.

"She doesn't have a wolf," Keira continued. "She can't shift. She can't fight. She can't protect the pack or herself. The elders are already talking. If you mark her at the ceremony, you'll lose their support."

"I said I know, Keira."

"Then what are you waiting for? Reject her. Announce me as your chosen mate. Your father will resist at first, but once the elders back you, he'll have no choice."

Silence. Long and suffocating.

I stood frozen in the hallway, my hand pressed against my stomach where a tiny heartbeat pulsed beneath my fingers. Their child. The child of a man who was sitting in the next room, calmly discussing how to throw me away.

"It's not that simple," Tyran finally said. "The mate bond is real. Rejecting her will come with consequences."

"Consequences you can survive," Keira said quickly. "A few days of pain, and then it's over. You'll be free."

"And if my father doesn't accept it?"

"He will. Because I'll give him what Sophiah never could. A Luna who can shift. A Luna who can fight beside you. A Luna the pack actually respects."

The silence that followed was Tyran's agreement. He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either. And in three years, I had learned that Tyran's silence was never neutral. It was permission.

I backed away from the door slowly, each step careful and quiet. My heart was pounding so hard I was afraid they would hear it. The paper in my pocket felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

I made it to my room and sat on the edge of the bed. My hands found my stomach again, and I looked down at the place where my child was growing.

"I won't let them do this to you," I whispered. "I won't let you grow up the way I did. Unwanted. Unloved. Fighting for scraps of affection from people who will never give it."

The decision wasn't sudden. It had been building for months, maybe years. Every cold glance. Every ignored word. Every night spent alone in a bed meant for two. Keira's return hadn't caused it. She had just ripped the bandage off something that was already rotting underneath.

But now there was a reason bigger than my pain. A reason bigger than my pride.

I pulled out my phone and opened a message thread with the only contact I trusted. Mila.

"I need a favor. Don't tell anyone."

Her reply came in seconds. "Anything, Luna."

"I need you to find out the schedule for border patrol on the north gate for the next three days. Specifically the gaps."

The typing dots appeared and disappeared twice before her response came through.

"Luna, are you planning to leave?"

I stared at the screen. My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Before I could reply, my bedroom door swung open without a knock. Tyran stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable. His eyes moved from my face to the phone in my hand to the hand resting on my stomach.

"We need to talk," he said. "My father just called. He's moving the ceremony up. It's happening in three days."