Rejected By My Mate: Claimed By The Alpha

All I could give

Seraphina’s POV

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Be my mate.

The words echoed in my chest.

I stared at him, trying to decipher if he was joking—if this was some twisted way of playing with me. But Lucien wasn’t smiling. He looked at me like he’d just handed me something sacred. Something permanent.

“You’re serious,” I whispered.

He gave a single nod. No smirk. No smugness. Just quiet certainty.

I took a step back, needing space to think, to breathe. “I don’t want a mate right now,” I said, more to myself than to him. “And I definitely don’t want an Alpha.”

Lucien didn’t flinch. He didn’t argue or rush to speak. He just watched me, arms still folded across his chest, eyes dark and unreadable. Steady. Patient. Unmoving.

“I just got out of something… poisonous,” I continued. “Karl was supposed to be my mate too, remember? The one fate gave me. And look how that ended.”

He still didn’t speak. It infuriated me. I needed him to get angry, to react—anything but this maddening calm.

“I’m not ready to belong to anyone,” I said sharply. “Not again. Not ever, maybe.”

Still, silence.

“Did you hear what I said?” I asked, finally snapping. “I’m not saying yes.”

“I noticed,” he said quietly. “You’re also not saying no.”

His voice was so calm, so unshakably sure, it made my stomach twist.

“I’m not some prize to be claimed,” I snapped. “I don’t need protection, or claiming, or some grand Alpha marking his territory.”

He tilted his head. “I never said you were.”

I hated how steady he was. How he didn’t try to overpower me with words or presence. He simply stood there like a mountain, unmoving, while my emotions raged around him like a storm.

“I felt it the moment I saw you,” he said finally. “The pull. The shift. The bond forming in ways neither of us asked for. The moon goddess wants us together. This might be our fate, who knows.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he held up a hand. His words kept echoing in my mind.

“This might be our fate.”

“I know you felt it too,” he continued. “Not when I said it. Before that. That night, when Karl rejected you… you looked right at me, and you felt it. Same as I did.”

I clenched my fists. “Even if I did, that doesn’t mean I want it.”

“I’m not asking you to want it. I’m asking you to consider it,” he said. “There’s a difference.”

My throat tightened.

“The Moon Goddess doesn’t make mistakes,” he added softly. “She’s bringing us together for a reason. Even if we don’t understand it yet, and I am not forcing you to be my girlfriend, think about it. I will treat you better than Karl did, i am nothing like him.”

I turned my back to him, needing to get out from under that intense gaze. I stared at the far wall of the hotel room, the silence between us stretching like thread pulled too tight.

I thought about what he had said. I didn’t want a mate right now, especially not the man standing behind me.

What was I supposed to do with this? With him?

Part of me wanted to scream no, to slam the door in his face and shut out whatever bond fate thought it could forge between us. But another part… the quiet, wounded part of me… wasn’t so sure.

Because he wasn’t like Karl.

Lucien hadn’t tried to possess me. He wasn’t demanding obedience. He wasn’t even asking for love.

He was offering something else entirely.

A choice.

When I finally turned around, he was still there. Still watching. Still waiting.

I didn’t say yes.

I didn’t say no.

I just stared at him.

And for now, that was all I could give.