REJECTED AND PREGNANT: HIS RIVAL’S OBSESSION

CHAPTER 4

Tyran's POV

Three days. My father had given me three days.

I stood at the window of my office, staring at the darkening sky. The call with Alpha Ronan had lasted exactly four minutes. He didn't ask for my opinion. He didn't care about my timeline. He simply said the elders were restless, the pack needed stability, and the ceremony was happening in three days whether I was ready or not.

That was my father. A man who ruled with iron and never looked back.

I pressed my knuckles against the glass until they turned white. The ceremony meant marking Sophiah. It meant binding myself to her permanently through the mate bond. No more delays. No more excuses. No more time to figure out what I actually wanted.

And what did I want?

That question had haunted me for three years. When Sophiah first arrived at the Eternal Night Pack, I wanted nothing to do with her. She was thin, scared, and wolfless. A girl dragged out of a nightmare and dropped into mine. The mate bond pulled at me like a hook in my chest, but everything else pushed me away.

Alice's tears. Keira's warnings. The pack's disappointment.

They all told me the same thing. Sophiah was not fit to be Luna.

But somewhere between year one and year three, something shifted. I couldn't pinpoint when it happened. Maybe it was the night I came back from a border dispute at 3 AM and found her still awake, organizing medical supplies for the wounded warriors. Maybe it was the time she talked down an aggressive rogue at the eastern border using nothing but her voice while my trained wolves stood behind her with their tails between their legs.

Or maybe it was the way the orphan pups clung to her like she was the only safe thing in their world. Because she was.

I never told her any of this. I didn't know how. The distance between us had become a wall so thick that even the mate bond couldn't break through it. And every time I thought about reaching for her, Keira's voice echoed in my mind.

"She hates me, Tyran. She told me I should have never been born."

"She threatened to destroy me if I ever came back."

"She's not the person you think she is."

I believed Keira because I had no reason not to. She was the girl I grew up with. The one who laughed at my jokes when we were kids, who trained beside me, who cried on my shoulder when she found out the truth about her birth. She was family.

But lately, the cracks in that belief had started to show.

A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts. Cole, my Beta, stepped inside. His face was tight with something between urgency and dread.

"We have a situation," he said.

"What now?"

"Alpha Claine Stone just confirmed his attendance at the ceremony."

The name landed like a punch to the throat. I turned slowly. "Say that again."

"Claine Stone. Alpha of the Ironclaw Pack. He sent word twenty minutes ago. He's coming. Personally."

I felt my wolf stir for the first time in hours, not with excitement but with warning. Claine Stone was not the kind of man who attended ceremonies out of courtesy. He was the wealthiest Alpha on the continent, a billionaire in the human world and a predator in ours. His pack was three times the size of mine, his territory stretched across two regions, and his reputation was built on the bones of Alphas who made the mistake of underestimating him.

We had a treaty with Ironclaw. A fragile one. It existed because my father had negotiated it fifteen years ago, and because Claine hadn't found a reason to break it yet. But treaties meant nothing to a man like him. If he smelled weakness, he would strike.

"Did he say why?" I asked.

"No. Just that he looks forward to meeting the future Alpha and his Luna."

His Luna. The words sat heavy in my stomach. Claine Stone was coming to evaluate us. To evaluate me. And standing beside me would be Sophiah, a woman without a wolf, without combat training, without the respect of her own pack.

If Claine saw that, everything my father built would crumble.

"Keep this quiet," I told Cole. "No one knows until I decide how to handle it. Double the border patrols and have the warriors on standby. I want every inch of this territory locked down before he arrives."

Cole nodded and left.

I sat down heavily in my chair and pressed my palms against my eyes. This was supposed to be my moment. The ceremony where I stepped into my father's shoes and proved that the Eternal Night Pack was in strong hands. Instead, I was walking into a battlefield with a mate who couldn't shift and a rival Alpha circling like a vulture.

I needed to talk to Sophiah. She had to understand what was at stake.

I found her in her room. When I pushed the door open, she was sitting on the bed with her phone in one hand and her other hand pressed against her stomach. She looked pale. Tired. Smaller than usual.

Something about the image made my chest tighten in a way I didn't expect.

She looked up at me, and for a split second, I saw fear in her eyes. Real fear. Not the quiet resignation I was used to. This was raw. Then it was gone, buried behind that mask she wore so well.

"We need to talk," I said. "My father moved the ceremony up. It's happening in three days."

She stared at me. No tears. No panic. Just those dark eyes searching my face for something I probably wasn't giving her.

"Three days," she said flatly.

"Yes. And there's more." I stepped further into the room. "Alpha Claine Stone is attending."

This time, her mask slipped. Her lips parted slightly, and something flickered across her expression. Not recognition. Something deeper. Something I couldn't name.

"The Ironclaw Alpha," she whispered.

"You know who he is?"

"Everyone knows who he is, Tyran."

Fair enough. His reputation was impossible to ignore. But her reaction bothered me. It wasn't fear. It was something else entirely, and it made my wolf pace inside me with a possessiveness I hadn't felt in months.

"He's dangerous, Sophiah. If he sees any weakness in this pack, he will exploit it. I need you to be ready. I need you to stand beside me and look like you belong there."

The words came out wrong. I knew it the second they left my mouth. Look like you belong there. As if she didn't. As if she hadn't earned her place a hundred times over in ways I never acknowledged.

Her jaw tightened. "I've been standing beside you for three years, Tyran. You just never bothered to notice."

The silence between us was suffocating. I wanted to say something. Anything. But the words were trapped behind a wall I had built myself, brick by brick, every time I chose distance over honesty.

"Just be ready," I said quietly and turned to leave.

"Tyran."

I stopped but didn't turn around.

"After the ceremony," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "will you still want me here?"

The question cut deeper than it should have. Because for the first time, it didn't sound like she was asking for reassurance. It sounded like she was asking for permission. Permission to disappear.

I walked out without answering.

The hallway was empty, but my thoughts were louder than a packed arena. I was losing control of everything. The ceremony. The pack. Keira. Sophiah.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a message from an unknown number.

"Looking forward to meeting your Luna, Blackwell. I have a feeling she and I have a lot in common."

It was from Claine Stone.

And for the first time in years, something close to real fear crawled up my spine.