The Rejection

The pack house had never felt so cold.

I stood in the center of the grand hall, surrounded by two hundred wolves who looked at me like I was something they’d scraped off their boots. Their whispers cut through the silence like broken glass.

“Omega Clara. Can you believe she thought he’d choose her?”

“Pathetic. She should have known her place.”

“Look at her. No wolf would ever want her.”

I kept my chin up. My hands were trembling, but I refused to let them see me cry. Not again. Not him.

Derek Blackwood stood ten feet away from me, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Handsome. Powerful. The future Alpha of the Shadow Fang Pack. And until five minutes ago, my fated mate.

The Moon Goddess had given me to him. And he was about to throw me away.

“Clara Vance,” Derek announced, his voice echoing through the silent hall. “Before the entire pack, I, Derek Blackwood, reject you as my mate.”

The words hit my chest like a physical blow. I staggered back half a step, my wolf whimpering deep inside me. The mate bond—that golden thread I’d felt the moment I turned eighteen—began to fray.

“I refuse to be tied to an Omega,” he continued, his lip curling with disgust. “You’re weak. You’re worthless. You have no status, no power, no family. You would be a stain on my reputation and a weakness at my side.”

Someone laughed. A sharp, cruel sound.

I recognized her. Lydia Vance—no, Lydia Ashford now. My own cousin. The woman Derek had been seen with for months. She was beautiful, elegant, and pure-blooded. Everything I wasn’t.

“I, Clara Vance,” my voice came out brittle, like ice about to crack, “accept your rejection.”

The bond snapped.

Pain exploded through my chest—white-hot, agonizing. I dropped to one knee, gasping, as my wolf howled in despair. The marking on my neck, invisible to others but sacred to me, burned and then faded to nothing.

I was mate-less. Rejected. Alone.

Derek turned away without a second glance. Lydia slipped her arm through his, smirking at me over her shoulder.

“Take her things,” Derek ordered two warriors. “Throw them at the border. Clara Vance is no longer a member of this pack.”

No. No.

I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the searing pain in my chest. “You can’t do this! I was born here! My mother’s grave is here!”

“Your mother was a maid,” Derek said coldly. “And you are nothing.”

The warriors grabbed my arms. I struggled, but I was too weak—an Omega against trained soldiers. They dragged me out of the pack house, past the sneering faces of wolves I’d grown up with, past the old oak tree where I used to play as a child.

At the border, they threw me to the ground. A small bag of my belongings followed—crumpled clothes, a worn photograph of my mother, a single silver locket.

“Don’t come back,” one warrior said. “Or next time, we won’t be gentle.”

They left.

I lay in the mud, the rain beginning to fall, soaking through my thin dress. My chest ached with the phantom pain of the severed bond. My wolf was silent—broken, maybe.

For a long moment, I wanted to die. To just close my eyes and let the forest take me.

But then I remembered my mother’s face. I remembered her voice, weak from illness, whispering on her deathbed: “You are stronger than you know, Clara. One day, they will all beg for your forgiveness.”

I clenched my fists.

Slowly, painfully, I pushed myself to my feet. Mud dripped from my dress. Rain plastered my hair to my face. But I was standing.

I looked back at the pack territory—at the lights of the pack house glowing in the distance.

“Derek Blackwood,” I whispered into the storm. “Lydia. All of you.”

My voice grew harder.

“One day, I’m going to come back. And when I do…” I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “You’ll regret every single thing you did to me.”

I turned my back on the only home I’d ever known.

And I walked into the human world.