Rejected By My Mate: Claimed By The Hockey Alpha

Chapter 1

Siena

I had loved Chris since I was eight years old.

Even then, when I was just the orphan girl the pack had taken in out of pity, I used to watch him from the edges of the training fields. He was already the future alpha—tall for his age, fierce, golden-eyed, and so sure of himself it made the rest of us feel small. I never expected him to notice me. I just wanted to be near him. When the war with the Blackwood pack came three years later, I was still that same quiet girl. Everyone else ran when the rival alpha’s enforcers cornered Chris in the woods. I didn’t. I stayed. I dragged his broken body through the undergrowth, carried him home on my back, and kept him breathing until the healers arrived.

His grandmother never forgot. Neither did he. The day I turned Eighteen she ordered the mating. “Repay the debt,” she said. “Honor the girl who saved your life.” Chris put the mark on my neck that same night. He never said he loved me. He never needed to. I already loved him enough for both of us.

Tonight was our three-year anniversary. He had promised me a surprise. I spent the whole day imagining it—maybe a real proposal at last, a public claiming in front of the pack, something that would finally make the bond feel like more than duty. I wore the soft blue dress he once said looked nice on me. I curled my hair. I even bought a little silver keychain shaped like a hockey stick because he was rising fast in the league and I had never missed a single game.

I let myself into the apartment with the key he’d given me. The lights were low. Soft music played. For half a second my heart lifted.

Then I saw them.

Kelani was straddling him on the couch, her blouse open, his hands gripping her hips. My best friend. The girl I had treated like the sister I never had. The same girl who had cried on my shoulder after every bad date and slept in my bed when she was scared. She was on top of my mate, and she was smiling.

Chris looked up. His eyes met mine without a flicker of guilt.

“Surprise,” he said.

I stood frozen in the doorway, the keychain still clutched in my hand. Kelani didn’t scramble off him. She just sat there, confidently, one hand resting protectively over her stomach.

“You’re early,” she said, like I was the inconvenience.

Chris pushed her gently to the side and stood, not bothering to fix his shirt. “You always did have the worst timing, Siena.”

My voice came out thin. “What is this?”

“This,” he said, gesturing between himself and Kelani, “is the truth. I’ve never loved you. You know that. I claimed you because Grandma ordered it and because I owed you. That debt is paid. Kelani’s carrying my pup. We’re done pretending.”

Kelani laughed softly. “You should see your face. All these years acting like the perfect little mate, and he never once wanted you. It has always been me.”

I felt something crack behind my ribs. “She’s pregnant?”

“Three months,” Chris said. “Grandma already knows. She supports it. She always liked Kelani better anyway.”

The words landed like punches. I looked at the woman who had been my only real friend, the one who had held my hand through every lonely full moon, and saw nothing but satisfaction.

“You’re both disgusting,” I whispered.

Chris stepped closer, eyes cold. “No. You’re pathetic. Still hanging around hoping I’d eventually fall for you. I never did. I never will. This—” he pointed at Kelani’s stomach “—is the only future that matters. You can keep the mark if it makes you feel better, but don’t expect me to act like a real mate ever again.”

Kelani slid an arm around his waist. “Maybe now you’ll finally stop tagging along to every game like some sad little groupie. He doesn’t need your cheers anymore.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The gifts I’d brought—the small cake, the keychain, the card I’d written in careful handwriting—stayed on the entry table. The only thing I took was the unopened bottle of tequila sitting on the kitchen counter. Chris had bought it for the “celebration.”

I walked out without looking back.

The hallway blurred. Tears came hard and fast the second the door shut behind me. I didn’t care who saw. I twisted the cap off the bottle and drank as I walked, the burn doing nothing to stop the shaking in my hands. Three years of quiet hope. Three years of telling myself that someday the gratitude would turn into something real. Three years of being the loyal girlfriend in the stands while he scored goals and smiled for the cameras. All of it trash.

I kept drinking. The breeze was cold against my wet cheeks. I didn’t know where I was going—just away. Away from the apartment, away from the pack house, away from the life that had never actually been mine.

I turned a corner too fast, I thought I'd fall but I walked straight into a solid wall of muscle.

Hands caught my shoulders before I could fall. I looked up, vision swimming, and froze.

Jeremy Blackwood.

Alpha of the rival pack. Captain of the team that had been fighting Chris’s for the league title all season. The man whose enforcers had almost killed Chris years ago. The last person on earth I expected—or wanted—to see while I was falling apart with tequila on my breath and mascara streaking down my face.

His dark eyes swept over me once

,something unreadable flickered across his face.

“Siena,” he said, voice low. Not mocking. Not cruel. Just my name, like he already knew exactly what had happened.

I tried to step back. My legs didn’t cooperate. The tequila hit hard all at once and the world tilted. Jeremy’s grip tightened, steadying me.

“Easy,” he murmured.

I hated that I needed the help. I hated that of all people it was him. Chris’s fiercest rival on the ice and off it. The enemy. The one the pack still whispered about in low, angry voices.

But right then I didn’t have the strength to push him away.

I lifted the bottle again with a shaking hand. Jeremy took it from me without asking and put it away, and kept one hand on my arm like he was afraid I’d drop.

“What did he do?” he asked quietly.

I laughed, broken and wet. “Everything I should have seen coming.”

Jeremy didn’t smile. He just watched me with that same unreadable intensity he used on the ice when he was about to destroy someone. Only this time it wasn’t aimed at me.

“Come on,” he said after a long moment. “You’re in no shape to walk alone.”

I should have refused. I should have told the rival alpha to go to hell and staggered home to whatever was left of my dignity. Instead I let him guide me down the sidewalk, his body solid and warm beside mine while the night kept spinning and the tears kept falling.

Somewhere behind us, in an apartment that no longer felt like home, Chris and Kelani were probably already celebrating the end of the lie.

And I was walking into t

he dark with the one man who had every reason to hate everything I used to belong to.