The Rejection

Danika stared at the four Alpha heirs circling her like vultures. She lowered her gaze, letting her wild curls curtain her face. Anything to mask the humiliation burning in her eyes.

At twenty-one, she was still latent. Unable to shift or commune with her wolf.

In Crimson Veil Pack where her father reigned as Alpha, girls were expected to summon their wolves by sixteen. Anything less was a disgrace.

And she had become the living embodiment of it. Had? No. She was already a disgrace even before finding out she was latent. The label had clung to her since birth because of the circumstances surrounding it.

Every Alpha her father begged had rejected her — not because she was not beautiful. Her father had in fact thought of this ceremony as his last option. Because he believed that if none wanted her because of her status as his daughter, atleast one would be willing to take her in as a mate because of her beauty.

For she was beautiful. Extremely beautiful. Apart from her lips which some of the pack members termed too big as tiny lips in women were a thing, every other thing about her was considered ethereal and a work of art.

Especially her hourglass figure which earned her hate from other pack members, the females including her step sister, Lyra.

Her father had paraded her before countless Alphas in the past, begging for an alliance through mating. But none had accepted. Even though her father was the most powerful, she was considered empty inside. No wolf meant no power and in her part of world, it meant that she had no worth as well.

But now as she would be turning twenty one in few weeks, the Lycanshade Council's pressure was growing unbearable. So her father made this final gamble.

He invited five Alpha heirs from neighboring packs to this Public scenting ritual, to give her a last chance to salvage his reputation which she had dented since being born.

She had steeped herself in moon-herbs, bathed in oils and even choked down bitter extracts, all in the hope that her dormant pheromones might be stirred to seduce atleast one of them.

The first Alpha had stepped forward.

He was young and cruel-looking and his eyes gleamed with contempt. He appeared arrogant and someone she would not relate with but she had no choice.

He leaned in, sniffed the air and then recoiled sharply.

"She's lowly," he sneered, loud enough for the crowd to hear. "The omega stench coming off her makes me want to puke."

Snickers rippled among the onlookers.

Danika flinched inwardly but held her spine straight. She dared not do so outwardly, lest she would incur her father's wrath. She had trained herself to never cry in public. But inside, she cracked.

Was it her fault that she was an omega? Everyone in the pack and the neighboring villages knew that she was birthed by a human mother whom her father had fallen for. And she had died while trying to save the kingdoms from a war. Why couldn't they honour her sacrifice by being good to the daughter she left behind,whether or not she were among the lowliest in hierarchies.

She made sure to take in his face properly despite the hair curtaining hers.

It was Rowan, the Alpha heir of the Hollow Fang Pack.

She watched as he closed his fist tight, rejecting the fragile wave of pheromones she had struggled to release into the air.

After everything her father had done for his pack.

Kaelan of Grave moon Pack did not even bother to step forward from where he stood. She had heard stories of how childish and immature he was but she never thought it would be to the point where he did not know traditions or was arrogant not to keep them, at twenty seven years of age.

"I heard she's a hybrid and my pack does not need a future Luna who is half human" he said as if he had rehearsed the words previously.

Danika noticed her father's gaze burning on Kaelan's father's who stood in the crowd with the onlookers. As if knowing perhaps, that he had put the words in his son's lips.

She couldn't bear that she was still standing here and listening to all these being said to her face. But what could she do. She was hopeless herself and needed someone to claim her.

And this desperation wasn't just about fear of ridicule or the endless whispers behind her back labeling her as the Crimson Veil Pack's burden.

No.

It was her body that had begun to betray her.

She knew what came next and what would. She had read the scrolls and heard the warnings.

Intended heat cycles without relief could cause real damage. Internal bleeding. Hormonal disruption. Sometimes, even fertility loss. The body turned on itself when denied what it was biologically built to receive during that time: a mate.

And her scent laced with desperation had begun to thicken the air. She could see it in the way Thorne from Obsidian Howl Pack's eyes flickered gold for a second too long. In the sharp angle of Rowan's jaw as he ground his teeth. In Kaelan's shifting stance, torn between disgust and instinct.

And that was the true danger.

Being unmated in heat around dominant males was like bleeding into an ocean of sharks.

It triggered something primal. Something dangerous. That even the most disciplined Alphas could lose control, driven mad by a scent that wasn't meant to float unclaimed in the air.

She felt her thighs clench involuntarily as a tremor passed through her. The ache was turning unbearable.

Her body knew. It knew what it needed.

And yet, no one stepped forward.

Not even to touch her. Not even to put an end to the humiliation.

So she stood there burning and suffocating in her own skin while the world watched and did nothing.

After this she would probably spend weeks to heal. Being latent, it was impossible to do so quicker with a wolf's quick healing abilities.

And this causes her heat to even rage on.

But then and suddenly, It shifted.

The pressure in her lower belly dulled like a fire smothered too quickly. The prickling behind her eyes eased, and the trembling in her thighs… stopped.

She blinked once and twice again, scanning the men who circled her but none of them seemed to have claimed her like she thought.

But still she could feel as if she had been, because her chest no longer heaved with shallow nor frantic breaths. The feverish burn under her skin has also receded like a tide.

What...? No because it was impossible.

Just minutes ago, she had been suffocating inside her own body. Drowning in a heat that had wanted to ruin her from within.

Now, it was… quiet. Not gone nor forgotten but quiet, as if someone had calmed it down but she could not see whom it was.

Something had shifted. She didn't know what it was nor was she able to understand how it had happened.

But for the first time since the mate finding rituals always held for her since she turned eighteen was concerned, she could finally breathe.