Chapter 3

[Sera]

"I didn't—I didn't do anything—" The words scrape out, raw and thin, barely audible over the pound of my heart. My free hand flutters uselessly at his wrist, not pulling, just holding on, because if I let go, I might fall apart completely.

He doesn't buy it. His face twists, that perfect jaw locking like he's biting back something vicious. "That's not possible." His voice is a blade, precise and freezing. "I would never touch someone like you. Not sober. Not willingly."

Someone like you. The words reduce me to a thing, a category.

He doesn't remember.

The thought crashes in. He doesn't remember the gold in his eyes, the way he held me like I was precious, the bite that still throbs on my neck like a second heartbeat. None of it.

His gaze drops to the floor, snags on my crumpled uniform shirt. Recognition flickers, not the warm kind, not you're the one, but the sharp, disgusted kind that says you're the help who got too close.

His hand releases my throat, not with care, but like he's discarding something sticky. He stands, putting space between us like I'm contagious, and just like that, I'm reclassified. From whatever I was to him last night to a problem he needs to solve before checkout.

"You have thirty seconds." His tone is lethally quiet, the kind that makes you wish for yelling instead. "Tell me exactly how you got me into this room. And if you lie to me, I will make you regret ever walking into this hotel."

I sit up slowly, pulling the sheet around me like the world's most useless armor. Right. Because I, who can't make rent, am clearly running an Alpha honey trap operation.

"You collapsed in the corridor." My voice wobbles, but the words hold steady. "And you grabbed me, said my name, called me mate. I didn't do anything to you. You did this."

Silence stretches, thin and brittle. Then he laughs, short, bark-like, designed to shrink me down. "Mate." He repeats it like a diagnosis, something clinical and repulsive. "An Alpha knows his mate on sight. The bond is unmistakable." His eyes rake over me, hair a mess, feet bare, everything exposed and inadequate. "I feel nothing when I look at you. Nothing."

Nothing. I've heard it before, from pack kids who shoved me aside, from foster homes that shipped me out like yesterday's trash. But from him it carves deeper, hollowing out the spot where last night's warmth still lingers. I don't flinch. I've got practice at this.

So I show him proof. I tug the jacket aside, baring the mark on my neck. It's raw, vivid, an angry red crescent that screams what his words deny.

"Explain this."

His eyes lock on it, and everything shifts. The arrogance cracks, just for a second, his face flinching like he's been hit. Then the bond surges, violent, a tidal wave crashing through my chest. His wolf slams against whatever cage he's built, desperate and raging, full of a love that feels like it could swallow me whole.

He claws at his sternum, fingers digging into his shirt like he can rip the feeling out. For three heartbeats, panic floods his features, not anger, but raw terror, like he's staring down a monster he thought he'd buried.

Then he locks it down. I watch it happen, the fear draining away, replaced by something flat and final, like a door slamming shut.

"This was an accident. A mistake caused by circumstances beyond my control." Each word builds a wall, stone by stone. "I will not acknowledge this bond."

"But your wolf—"

"My wolf is an animal." He cuts me off with surgical precision. "I am not."

He looks at me. Through me.

"And I'm going to end it."

No question, no debate. Just a declaration, like he's ordering coffee instead of ripping a soul bond out by the roots. He doesn't frame it as something we discuss, two people tangled in a miracle neither asked for.

He decides, and I'm supposed to nod along.

The worst part is that I'm not surprised. Deep down, I've been waiting for this since I was a kid, the wolfless scrap everyone overlooked. You learn fast that you're the extra, the one they tolerate but never pick.

Even last night, with his gold eyes and whispered promises, a voice in my head whispered: How long before he sees what everyone else sees?

But I thought I'd have more time. I thought the dream would last longer than one night. I thought that at the very least, he would remember holding me before he decided to throw me away.

This fall, from heaven straight to hell, hurts a hundred times more than simply being born in it would.

He speaks the words. Formal, like reading from a script, no ceremony in this sex-scented room that reeks of regret.

"I, Killian Voss, reject you, Sera Winters, as my mate." No waver, eyes locked on mine. "I sever the bond between us. I release you from any claim."

Pain erupts in my chest, a ripping sensation, like roots being yanked from soil. My vision blurs white. Knees threaten to fold.

I don't let them. I lock my stance, nails biting into palms until blood wells, jaw clenched till it aches. I will not crumble here.

Through the haze, his wolf howls in the bond, fury, grief, a betrayal that echoes in my bones. The wolf didn't sign off on this. It's being torn from what it claims.

Good. Let him feel it.

I have to respond. The rejection hangs incomplete until I accept. Every fiber screams fight, refuse, but I look at him, posture rigid, eyes empty, hands loose like this costs him zero.

I won't beg a man who feels nothing to fake it.

"I, Sera Winters, accept your rejection."

Something frays inside, a thread snapping under weight. The pain peaks, then dulls to an ache lodged behind my ribs, heavy as lead.

Done.

The room goes too quiet. A ringing fills my ears, thin and persistent, like the aftermath of an explosion only I can hear. I stand in the wreckage and wait for the world to resume.

Killian fishes out his wallet, counts bills, hundreds stacking up, and extends the wad like settling a debt he'll never think about again.

"Get the morning-after pill. The rest is your compensation."

I stare at the cash. His hand. His face.

Three years. Clipping articles, replaying interviews, lying awake imagining what it would feel like if he ever, just once, looked at me.

And now he has. And this is what it looks like.

I take the bills. Fold them once. Step forward, close enough that the dying bond hums between us, and push the entire stack into his chest.

He catches it. Reflex. And for one beat, he looks like no one's ever thrown his money back at him before.

"I can handle a pill on my own." My voice holds steady, sharper than I feel. "Keep your money, Mr. Voss. You clearly need it more than I do if you think I planned this."

I grab my shirt, my shoes, and walk out before he can say another word. The door clicks shut behind me with a finality that feels like a second rejection.

---

 

The corridor stretches long, cream walls blurring as I walk, shoes dangling from my fingers because stopping to slip them on would break whatever's holding me together.

Don't think about it. Don't think about "mine" whispered against your skin. Don't think about the fact that six hours ago you were the happiest you've ever been and now—

I slice the thoughts off. Keep moving.

The elevator dings, mirrors trapping me. I look wrecked, hair chaos, shirt crooked. And there, on my neck: the mark.

I freeze.

It should be fading. Everyone knows, rejected bonds erase their traces. Edges soften, color drains, gone in a day. Like you were never touched. Like it never counted.

I was rejected ten minutes ago. It should be paling.

It's darker.

A deeper crimson, less wound, more deliberate. And at the edges, faint lines spider out, thin, branching, like roots burrowing in.

I touch it. It pulses, a rhythm not mine. Steady. Alive.

Rejected bonds fade. Mistakes are supposed to erase.

But this... this is digging in.