His Rejected Curve

The full moon made Silverpine Royal Academy look like a castle made of knives. Everyone was already gathered on the Ceremony Grounds. The air smelled like pine and expensive cologne and bonfire smoke. Every girl had spent three hours getting ready. Every girl except me. I stood at the edge of the stone circle in my plain black dress, holding the library check-in clipboard like it could shield me. My sister Giselle stood ten feet away, and the difference between us had never been louder. Giselle Hart. 19. Perfect. Thin waist, long blonde hair, warrior uniform that fit like it was sewn onto her. The boys from three packs were already staring at her. And then me. Alina Hart. 18. The other Hart daughter. The plus-size one. The Omega. The library assistant. "Don't worry, Lina," Giselle whispered as the drums started, not unkindly, but loud enough for people to hear. "Maybe the Moon Goddess will give you someone nice from Stoneclaw. Someone... patient." Someone who likes big girls. She didn't say it. She didn't have to. I forced a smile. I was used to it. For four years at this academy, I had been the joke that walked next to the beauty queen. Giselle's chubby little sister. The one who ate her feelings. The one whose wolf still hadn't come. Except my wolf had come. Two months ago, in the library after hours. Big, snow-white, and so large I knocked over a bookshelf when I shifted. I told no one. Mama Sage, the old Healer, was the only one who saw. She just touched my cheek and said, "Oh, child. No wonder they can't see you. You're too much for this small place." The drums stopped. Alpha King Darius Thorne stepped onto the high rock with his son beside him. Prince Jaxon Thorne. He was every poster, every rumor, every bad decision wrapped into one person. Black leather jacket, black hair, golden eyes that never looked at anyone like they were real. Captain of the Academy. Heir to Silverpine. Worshipped by everyone. He was also drunk. I could see it from here. His Beta, Cole, was holding him up. A silver flask glinted in his hand. "Welcome, pups," the Alpha King growled. "Tonight the Moon Goddess reveals her matches." One by one, names were called. Howls rang out. Girls cried. Boys shifted. It was beautiful, if you were beautiful. I stared at my shoes. Just get through this, I told myself. Just get through this and in two weeks you graduate and you never have to come back. Then it happened. A scent hit me like a lightning strike. Cedar and storm rain and leather. My knees buckled. My clipboard clattered to the stones. My wolf - no, my wolves - woke up inside me and HOWLED. Inside my head, Luna screamed one word: MATE! Across the circle, Jaxon Thorne's head snapped up. His golden eyes went wide. Then black. His nostrils flared. Everyone turned to look at us. The bond snapped between us, bright and silver and impossible to miss. A thread of light from his chest to mine. Silence. Then a whisper, then a gasp. Giselle's hand flew to her mouth. Jaxon stared at me. At my black dress. At my curves. At my face. Shock twisted into something ugly. He laughed. A short, slurred, half-hearted laugh because he was drunk and because he couldn't believe the Moon Goddess would do this to him. He stumbled forward a step, and Cole tried to hold him back, but he was already speaking. "I reject you, fatass," the Alpha Prince slurred half-heartedly. For a second, I didn't hear anything. Just blood in my ears. Then laughter erupted around me. Not small giggles. Full, echoing, cruel laughter from the entire pack. From the warrior boys who had asked Giselle to dance. From the girls who had pretended to be my friends in herbology. From the teachers who had watched them hide my lunch tray for four years. I stood there frozen in humiliation as my mate bond shattered before the entire pack. The Moon Goddess had blessed us as fated mates, yet he treated it like a joke. He was the Alpha King's heir. Handsome. Powerful. Worshipped by everyone. He had the entire world at his fingertips. What did one undesirable fated mate matter to him? Especially when that mate was me. The plus-size wolf that was constantly mocked for her appearance while standing beside her gorgeous sister. I thought I was already used to humiliation, but nothing could compare to the cruelty that followed after he rejected me. My chest ripped open. Not metaphorically. The bond tearing felt like claws inside my ribs. I gasped and fell to my knees on the cold stone. The silver thread between us snapped and whipped back into me. Jaxon didn't even flinch. He turned away, like he'd just thrown away trash. Giselle ran to him, not to me. "Jaxon, are you okay? You were drunk, she knows you didn't mean it like -" That was when I heard another voice. Calm. Low. Furious. "Enough." Everyone turned. Standing at the edge of the circle, where the liaison students from the north stood, was the new transfer Alpha. I had seen him in the library for three days. Theo Calloway. Tall, brown skin, quiet eyes, always reading in the corner. The one boy who had ever said "excuse me" when he needed to get past me instead of just shoving. He wasn't looking at Jaxon. He was looking at me. He walked straight through the circle - straight through the gasps - and knelt in front of me. He didn't touch me. He just held out his jacket. "Is this okay?" he asked softly. I couldn't speak. I nodded, tears burning my eyes. He draped it around my shoulders. It smelled like old books and pine. Safe. "She said no," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, his eyes on Jaxon. "She didn't get to reject you back. In the old law, a rejection has to be accepted. She hasn't accepted." Jaxon spun around, his golden eyes flashing. The alcohol was gone now, replaced by something wild. "What did you say, transfer?" Theo stood up slowly, placing himself slightly in front of me. "I said," Theo said calmly, "you're making a mistake that the Moon Goddess is already regretting for you." For a second, I thought Jaxon would shift and attack right there. But Mama Sage was suddenly there, pulling me up. "Come, Alina," she whispered. "Let's get you inside." I let her pull me away, Theo's jacket clutched around me. I could feel Jaxon's eyes burning into my back the whole way up the hill. That night, I packed my one suitcase. I took my books, my herb kit, my journals. I left the black dress on the floor. At midnight, there was a knock on my dorm window - the small one in the library attic where they put the Omegas. It was Theo. "I know this is crazy, we just met," he whispered through the glass. "But I talked to my Alpha. My pack - Stoneclaw. We don't rank people by size. We need a Historian. Someone who can read the old runes. Mama Sage said you can. My mother... she thinks she knew your mother." I opened the window, shivering. "Why are you being kind to me?" I asked. My voice was raw. "Everyone else -" "Because everyone else is an i***t," he said simply. "And because my wolf won't stop pacing since he smelled your jacket. Not in a mate way - in a family way. I think we might be related, Alina. I think you're my sister." I stared at him. "Come with me," he said. "At dawn. My truck leaves at dawn. You don't belong here." For the first time in four years, someone was offering me a door. I said yes. At 5 a.m., with my suitcase by the service gate, with Theo loading the last box of books into his truck, with hope actually fluttering in my chest for the first time since I was 12 - A hand grabbed my wrist. Hard. Hard enough to leave a bruise. I gasped and turned. Jaxon Thorne stood there in sweatpants and last night's leather jacket, his eyes bloodshot, his hair wild, his scent spiraling out of control. He looked wrecked. He looked feral. He looked at Theo's hand on my suitcase, then at me in Theo's jacket, then at the silver mark forming where he gripped me. And he growled, low and broken and possessive, the voice of his wolf more than his own: "My mate isn't going anywhere."