THE ALPHA REJECTED ME, BUT HIS WOLF CHOSE ME

The first thing I learn about being rejected in front of four hundred wolves is that frost smells like iron when you're standing on it in thin shoes. The second is that the courtyard stones are never washed before a ceremony My hands do not shake. Not when Rennick comes down to the Omega wing and says my name like it is a duty he would rather not perform. Not when he walks me up through the pack and the pack parts like I am something contagious. Not when I see the elders lined along the dais in their grey robes, and Maerwen at the back with her hands wrung into her apron, and Ysolde two rows in, mouthing something I refuse to read on her lips. And not when I see him. Vikael stands at the centre of the dais in black, and the cold that comes off him has nothing to do with the season. Alpha of Mooncrest. Six years in the seat. He has the kind of face that makes people look down first and up later. I spent three years learning that face, the way you learn a language you are never allowed to speak. Three years. That is how long I have felt it. The low and constant pull, like a second heartbeat set slightly out of step with mine. When he crossed the kitchens, it pulled. When he stood on the training field with the sun on his shoulders, it pulled so hard I had to grip the water bucket with both hands. When he looked at me across a crowded hall the way he did, I did not imagine it — it went quiet and warm, the way a room goes quiet when the person you have been waiting for finally comes home. Three years of convincing myself that, that meant something. The bell rings once. The pack goes still. "Diara of the kitchens," the elder says. "Come forward." I come forward. Somebody in the front row snickers. I know that snicker. It belongs to a boy I served bread to this morning. I keep my eyes on Vikael. I want him to see me. Not the Omega. Not the flour still dusted down my apron, because they pulled me out of the bakehouse mid-batch. Me. And for one second — one — I think he does. His jaw shifts. His throat works. Something flickers behind his eyes, gold and quick, like a fish turning under dark water. Then it is gone and he is winter again. "I have called the pack," he says, and his voice is easy and carries all the way to the outer wall, "to witness my rejection of a bond I do not accept." Four hundred wolves breathe in at once. I do not. "Say it," I hear myself say. The courtyard turns to stone. Rennick's hand twitches at his side, like he wants to stop me. I do not look at him. Two rows back, Ysolde makes a small wounded noise. She will hate me for this later. "Say it properly," I say. "Say my name. If you are going to do this, do not do it sideways." Vikael looks at me then. Really looks. And there is a whole second where the pack, the elders, my ruined life — all of it drops away, and it is only the two of us, and the pull between us goes so tight it hurts, like a cord drawn through my sternum. Do not, something in my chest whimpers. Do not, do not, do not. "I reject you," he says. Three seconds of silence. I count them. I have always been good at counting. Beans, loaves, hours, days. I count them and hold his eyes and I do not look away, and in the third second I think, wildly, he will not finish it. He will stop. He will. Somebody laughs. That is what makes it unbearable. It is not a big laugh. It is small and delighted and disbelieving, off to my left, the sound a person makes when the thing they were hoping for finally happens. And it breaks the courtyard open. Others take it up. Not everyone, but enough. A ripple of it going round the stones like water finding a crack. They were waiting for it. All of them. This is the best night of the season. Something in me that has been very quiet for three years sits up and shows its teeth. "Again," I say. The laughter stumbles. Vikael goes very still. "Say it again," I say, and my voice does not crack. "Louder. So the ones at the back hear it. So nobody has to ask what happened to the kitchen girl." "Diara," Rennick says, low. "Say it." The Alpha's fingers curl. I am close enough to see it. Close enough to see the small white crescents where his nails press into his palm. And I see something nobody else in this courtyard gets to see, because nobody else is standing this near. He is trembling. Alpha Vikael of Mooncrest, who put a mountain cat down bare-handed two winters ago, is shaking in front of his pack. "Say it," I whisper. His eyes come up. Gold at the rim, with a bit of sliver. "I reject you as my mate, Diara." There. It is real now. It is carved into the stones of the only home I have ever had. I want to say something devastating. I have three years of sentences saved up for a man like him. But the only thing that arrives is stupid and small and true, and I will not hand it over for free. So I nod. Once. Like he has told me the bread delivery is running late. Then I turn and I walk. The crowd does not part fast enough. I shoulder through three wolves, and one of them — a woman who has known me since I was seven — flinches away from my sleeve as if rejection itself were contagious.. Fine. I keep walking. I keep my chin up, because Ysolde is watching and Maerwen is watching, and those two have kept me alive for eighteen years and I will not let them watch me break in public. Behind me, he does not move. I can feel that. That is the worst part of whatever this sickness between us is. I can feel him. Standing still. Staring at my back. Let him stare, I think. Let him stare at nothing. Ten paces from the arch. Six from the gate. The pull in my chest — the one that just watched me get hollowed out — grabs. It hooks me. A yank, hard and low, from the inside out. I stumble. My palm slaps the cold stone. Somebody behind me gasps. And in the space behind my ribs, where my wolf has lived for three years, small and shivering and half asleep, I hear something that is not my wolf. It is him. Vikael's wolf. And it is not the cold, measured voice of the man on the dais. It is a growl. Deep. Ruined. Breaking at the edges. And it has words. 'Mine.' 'You rejected her.' ​