Rejected by the Alpha: Pregnant with His Twins

The grand ballroom of the Silver Moon Pack was bathed in golden light, fragrant with expensive champagne, and buzzing with the laughter of elite werewolf nobility. Tonight was the annual Blood Moon Gala—a night of celebration, honor, and mate bonds. Everyone was dressed in exquisite silks and tailored suits. Everyone belonged. Except for me. I stood near the shadowed pillar at the edge of the room, smoothing down the edges of my faded, off-the-rack silver dress. It was three sizes too big and picked up from a thrift store on the outskirts of the territory. My pale hands trembled slightly as I held a crystal glass filled only with tap water. I was Jane Reed. To the world, I was a tragic anomaly—the only twenty-year-old wolf in the entire Northern Alliance who had never shifted. I possessed no deadly claws, no blinding speed, and no ferocious wolf inside me. To my pack, I was nothing more than a pathetic, powerless parasite breathing their air. Yet tonight, my heart thudded against my ribs like a trapped bird. Because tonight was the night Alpha Lucas Vance turned twenty-five. For two years, Lucas and I had shared a secret, fragile connection. Though I was weak, we had felt the quiet, undeniable hum of the mate bond pulling us together during those late-night meetings at the eastern boundary of the packlands. He had kissed my brow, held my cold hands in his warm, calloused palms, and whispered that power didn't matter when it came to the heart. He had given me a temporary mate mark—a soft, faint seal on the side of my neck that burned gently whenever he was near. He will claim me officially tonight, I told myself, clutching the glass tighter. He promised. Suddenly, the heavy brass trumpets echoed through the hall. The chatter died down instantly. A heavy hush fell over the room as the massive double doors opened. Step by step, Alpha Lucas Vance walked onto the elevated marble balcony overlooking the floor. He was breathtaking. Standing six-foot-four, with broad shoulders clad in a pristine black military suit, Lucas exuded raw, terrifying dominance. His eyes were a piercing, icy blue, and his pitch-black hair caught the chandelier light. He was the most powerful Alpha the Silver Moon Pack had seen in three centuries. Beside him stood Lady Chloe Royal. My chest tightened instantly. Chloe was the daughter of the High Alpha of the Southern Blood Pack. She was dressed in a shimmering dress woven with real silver thread, her golden hair falling in flawless waves over her shoulders. She was breathtaking, lethal, and born to rule. Her amber eyes swept over the crowd with supreme arrogance before landing on me near the pillar. A cruel, victorious smirk touched her crimson lips. Lucas cleared his throat. His deep, resonant voice boomed through the ballroom, carrying the undeniable weight of Alpha Command. "Members of the Silver Moon Pack, elders of the Alliance, and honored guests," Lucas began, his icy blue eyes scanning the room. "Tonight, on my twenty-fifth birthday, the law demands that I officially declare the Luna who will stand beside me and rule this territory." My heart leaped into my throat. My fingers trembled as I took a small step forward from the shadows. I looked up at him, silently begging his eyes to meet mine, to give me that reassuring nod he always gave me in private. Lucas’s gaze slowly drifted over the crowd until it locked onto me. For a fraction of a second, I saw a flicker of hesitation—a shadow of guilt—in those cold blue depths. But before I could grasp it, his expression hardened into an impenetrable wall of frost. He reached out, taking Chloe’s gloved hand into his own. The room gasped in collective delight. My blood ran cold. "To ensure the survival, strength, and prosperity of our pack against the growing rogue threat," Lucas announced, his voice ringing crisp and utterly devoid of emotion, "I have chosen Lady Chloe Royal as my Alpha Luna." Applauses erupted like thunder. Glasses clinked. Wolves cheered for the perfect, powerful match. My world tilted. The air vanished from my lungs as if someone had violently slammed a blade into my chest. No... Lucas, no... what about us? What about your promise? "However," a loud, raspy voice cut through the applause. Elder Roger, the oldest and most traditional member of the pack council, stepped forward. "Alpha Lucas, rumors have circulated through the territory that a temporary mark already resides upon another. Pack law dictates that all prior ties must be severed before a new Luna takes the throne." The ballroom grew dead silent. Hundreds of pairs of eyes began searching the room, whispering, snickering, until one by one, they all landed on me. "Look at her... it's the weakling, Jane." "Did she really think a useless, wolf-less orphan could become our Luna?" "Alpha Lucas would never degrade our bloodline with her!" The whispered insults slashed through me like poison-dipped daggers. I stood frozen under the cruel, mocking stares of my pack. On the balcony, Chloe leaned closer to Lucas, her hand resting possessively over his chest. She murmured something into his ear, her eyes flashing with malicious glee. Lucas lowered his head. When he looked back up at the crowd, his face was a mask of absolute, unfeeling stone. He took a heavy step toward the edge of the balcony, looking straight down at me. "Jane Reed," Lucas called out, his voice laced with the terrifying authority of Alpha Command that forced my knees to tremble. "Step forward." I couldn't move. My feet felt glued to the marble floor. But the invisible pressure of his Command dragged me forward, inch by painful inch, until I stood at the very center of the ballroom floor, completely exposed under the harsh light of the chandelier. I lifted my head, tears blurring my vision as I looked up at the man I loved. "Lucas..." I whispered, my voice breaking. "Please..." "I, Alpha Lucas Vance of the Silver Moon Pack," he declared loudly, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling, striking my soul like a sledgehammer, "hereby sever all ties with you." He paused, taking a deep breath. His icy eyes didn't flinch. "I, Alpha Lucas Vance, reject you, Jane Reed, as my Mate and my future Luna." CRACK. It wasn't a physical sound, but a spiritual one. Deep within my soul, the faint, glowing thread that had connected my heart to his for two long years snapped violently. A wave of excruciating agony ripped through my chest, burning like liquid fire through my veins. The entire ballroom erupted into laughter and cruel taunts. "She got rejected! Serves the useless human right!" "Get out of our pack, freak!" Chloe sneered down at me, leaning her head on Lucas’s shoulder. "A pathetic useless creature like you never deserved to breathe the same air as an Alpha," she mouthed silently, making sure only I could see the malice in her smile. I looked at Lucas. I waited for him to look away, to show a sliver of regret, to blink. But he just stood there, tall, dominant, and indifferent, holding the woman who had replaced me. The pain in my neck—where his temporary mark resided—began to sizzle and burn like a branding iron. If I am nothing to you, I thought, a sudden, fierce wave of pride cutting through my broken heart, then I will leave you with nothing. I raised my right hand. My fingernails dug deep into the side of my neck, right over the glowing, faded mark he had given me under the starlight. The crowd went silent as they realized what I was doing. With a sharp, brutal pull, I dragged my nails across my skin, ripping the temporary mark open. Blood—hot, crimson, and thick—spurted out, dripping over my collarbone and staining my cheap dress red. The physical pain was blinding, but it was nothing compared to the death of my heart. Lucas’s eyes widened in sudden, genuine shock. He took a violent step forward on the balcony, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the marble railing. "Jane—!" "I accept your rejection, Alpha Lucas," I said, my voice surprisingly steady, echoing through the silent hall. I wiped the blood from my neck with the back of my hand, smearing it across my pale skin like war paint. I didn't let a single tear fall in front of them. Not one. "From this night on, I owe nothing to the Silver Moon Pack. And you owe nothing to me." Without waiting for his response, without glancing at Chloe’s stunned face or the murmuring crowd, I turned my back on the Alpha, the pack, and the only life I had ever known. I walked out of the ballroom with my head held high, leaving a trail of red droplets on their pristine white marble floor. The moment I stepped outside the pack house, the howling arctic wind whipped through my thin dress like a thousand razor blades. A violent snowstorm had engulfed the territory. White snow swirled wildly in the darkness, freezing the blood on my neck into icy crusts. My toes grew numb inside my thin shoes within seconds, and my breath hitched in my throat as I staggered aimlessly into the dark, desolate forest at the boundary of the packlands. I have to get away... far away... My body was growing heavy. The rejection trauma, combined with the blood loss from my neck and the freezing temperature, was rapidly leeching the life out of me. My vision blurred. Tree trunks swirled into distorted shadows around me. "Lucas..." I gasped, my knees finally giving out. I crashed hard onto the freezing snow. The cold seeped into my skin, numbing the agony in my chest. I rolled onto my back, staring up at the dark, stormy sky where the pale moon was hidden behind thick black clouds. Is this how it ends? I thought bitterly, feeling my consciousness slipping away. Dying alone in the snow, like the useless dog they always said I was? I closed my eyes, ready to let the darkness swallow me whole. Then, a sudden, strange sensation rippled through the deepest depths of my abdomen. It wasn't cold. It was... warm. A faint, golden pulse—soft as a butterfly’s wing, yet ancient and unbelievably powerful—throbbed gently inside my womb. Thump-thump. It pulsed once. Then, right beside it, a second pulse answered. Thump-thump. My eyes snapped open in the freezing dark. My hand trembled violently as I reached down, pressing my frozen palm against my lower stomach. The warmth radiating from within was unmistakable. It was a life force—no, two life forces. Two tiny, fragile hearts were beating in rhythm beneath my hand. Powerful. Resilient. Carrying a golden, sacred warmth that defied the freezing blizzard around me. I'm pregnant... The realization hit me like a bolt of lightning, shattering the numbness in my mind. I wasn't alone. I was carrying his blood. I was carrying the children of the Alpha who had just cast me out into the snow to die. "No..." I sobbed, tears finally spilling over my lashes, freezing onto my cheeks. "I won't die... I won't let you die..." I dug my bloody fingers into the deep snow, trying frantically to pull my frozen body up. "Help me... someone please..." Footsteps crunching on the snow echoed in the distance, but my strength was completely gone. The golden light inside my belly flickered gently, shielding my core from the bitter cold, but my eyes grew heavy. As my forehead fell back into the snow, my pupils flashed with a faint, uncharacteristic fleck of brilliant gold—a fleeting glimpse of something ancient sleeping in my blood—before the darkness finally dragged me under.