I Rejected My Mate On Purpose
She waited eight years to find the man who destroyed her family. She never expected he'd be her fated mate.
When Wren Calloway walks into Blackthorn territory under a false name, she's not looking for love, she's looking for revenge. All she needs is one piece of proof, one mistake, one moment alone with the man responsible for the fire that took everything from her. What she doesn't plan for is the mate bond that slams into place the second she meets Alpha Ronan Blackthorn, in front of his entire pack, on the one night he's being crowned.
So she does the only thing that makes sense. She rejects him. Publicly. Instantly. In front of everyone he rules.
But Ronan doesn't rage the way a rejected Alpha should. He watches. He waits. And within hours, he's already found the one thread in her past she thought no one could pull.
Now Wren is trapped inside the walls of the man she came to destroy, fighting a bond she never wanted, hiding a truth that's unraveling faster than she can control, and running out of time before the Alpha figures out exactly who she really is, and what she came here to do to him.
Some mates are fated to fall in love. Wren was fated to bring hers down.
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Chapter: Chapter 77: Eight Years LaterIt is a rule in my house that I am never the first one awake.This morning, the person who woke me was six years old and standing on my ribs."Mama," said Tamsin, in the voice of a general addressing a lazy army. "The hens are in the great hall again. Grandmother says it is not her fault, and Grandfather says it is a little bit her fault.""Mm," I said into the pillow."Also Dov bit Kael."That woke me. I opened one eye. My daughter stood at the foot of the bed with a wooden sword in one fist and her father's green eyes blazing under a tangle of dark hair. She had my stubborn chin, which Ronan said was a punishment, and my mother's habit of tilting her head when she was thinking."Where did he bite him?" I asked."On the boot. Kael said he was a very good biter, for three." She considered. "Dov said Kael tasted like mud."Beside me, a large warm shape began to shake with silent laughter."Good morning, Luna," said Ronan, into my shoulder."I have told you not to call me that before br
Last Updated: 2026-10-13
Chapter: Chapter 76: A New BeginningWe did not sleep that night.Nobody said we should. After the feast, after the lanterns were put out and the courtyard emptied, my family gathered in a small side room off the great hall. There was a fire, and a pot of tea nobody drank, and Pip asleep in my mother's lap with honey still drying on her chin.Adaeze had examined her twice. She sat now with her hands folded, tired and steady."There is nothing wrong with her," she said. "No fever, no strange pulse, no mark. She is a healthy, noisy eight year old who ate too much cake.""Then why did it speak through her?" Ronan asked."Because she was the nearest open door." Adaeze's voice was gentle. "I do not think she did anything. I think Orla knocked, and Pip did not know how to say no.""Then she must learn," said Nyra.We all looked at her. She sat by the fire with her grandmother's hand in hers, and she had not said much since the mountain. But there was a steadiness in her face now that had not been there at the salt grove."My m
Last Updated: 2026-10-13
Chapter: Chapter 75: The Alpha and His LunaNobody in the little room could speak.My father lay with his hand in mine, gray eyed and tired, looking at my face as if it were the last page of a very long book. My mother knelt at the bed with her hands pressed flat against her mouth. I felt Ronan's arm around me, and I felt the thread between us go taut and bright, and I could not make a single word come."A sister," I said finally. It came out as a croak."I heard her cry," my father whispered. "Just once. Then a door shut.""Hale," my mother said. Her voice was very small. "Hale, stop. Please."He turned his head. She had not moved, but her face had changed. All the joy of the last hour had drained out of it, and what was left was gray and old and so full of grief that I almost looked away."You remember," he said gently."I remembered last night." She was shaking. "In the kitchen, when the memories came home. I remembered everything at once, and I could not say it aloud, because you were all so happy." Tears slid down her chee
Last Updated: 2026-10-13
Chapter: Chapter 74: My AnswerWe left Wickmere within the hour.Nobody argued about sleep. Kael's wagon was too slow, so Ronan borrowed horses from the village, and Adaeze stood in the road with her hands on her hips and told us we were all fools. Then she climbed up beside my mother and wrapped her in three blankets."Elin is not riding a horse," Adaeze said. "Her memories came home last night, and her head is not yet steady. She goes in the wagon, and I go with her.""I can ride," my mother said."You can also fall off."My mother looked at Adaeze, and then at me, and a small, bright flicker of the old Elin came into her face. "She is as bossy as you were at six," she said to me. "Where do you suppose you got it?"I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes.We rode all night. The road ran north along a ridge of black hills, and the stars wheeled slowly overhead, and nobody spoke much. Cassian rode beside the wagon with one hand resting on the side rail, and every so often my mother's scarred hand came out of the bl
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter 73: His ConfessionFor a long moment, I forgot how to be a person.My mother stood in her garden with dirt on her apron and a basket of herbs at her feet, smiling at me the way you smile at a stranger on a cold road. I had expected something to happen. I do not know what. A cry, maybe, or a gasp, or her hands flying to her mouth. Instead there was only the lantern light and the hens muttering in their coop and a woman waiting politely for me to say why I was in her garden."Mama," Cassian started, in a cracked whisper.I caught his sleeve. He turned, and I shook my head, very slightly. I could feel him shaking."Not like that," I said, as quietly as I could. "She will be frightened.""She is my mother.""I know. She is mine too." My own voice was thin. "But she does not know that, and if we shout it at her, she will only be afraid of us."He stared at me. Then something in his face gave way, and he nodded once, hard, and pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes.I took a breath and stepped forward
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter 72: The Bond Nobody BuiltLiora sat down on the warm stone, and nobody said a word until she did.She did it slowly, one hand on Ronan's arm, like a woman lowering herself into cold water. Her braid hung over one shoulder. Her hands, which I had last seen lit silver, were thin and spotted and shaking. For a moment she only looked at me, and I looked back, and I realized I was waiting to feel angry.I could not find it. I knew the shape of the place where it should be. It was a hollow, and when I reached for it, I only found a quiet, curious ache."You were at the ridge," I said."Yes.""You pressed a ring into wax, and you made a bargain with the men who burned my house.""I made a bargain with the men who were going to burn it anyway." Liora's voice was low and even. "I will not tell you it was kind, Wren. It was the only thing I had. The Circle had already decided. I could not stop the fire. I could only decide who walked out of it.""Who did you choose?""You, and your mother."The silence that came down th
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
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