Rejected by the Alpha Hockey Captain And Then Claimed By His

Rosalie's POVI heard voices, far away.That was the first thing that woke me up. My eyes felt like they were glued shut, and when I finally managed to blink them open, everything was a massive, blurry smudge. I couldn't make sense of the ceiling or the walls.But then my chest started to ache as that deep, crushing weight came slamming right back into my ribs, and the memory of the bedroom door, the giggle, the sheets—it all flooded my brain.It had to be a nightmare. I had to have just fallen asleep and had the worst dream of my entire life.I scrambled to sit up, my head spinning so fast I felt sick, and that was when I noticed the white curtains and the smell of rubbing alcohol. The pack infirmary.Why was I in the infirmary? I couldn't remember collapsing.I swung my legs off the mattress, my knees shaking like jelly. I didn't care, I just needed to find Easton. I needed to see his face and have him tell me that none of it was real.Disoriented and stumbling, I pushed past the d

Elias' POV“There is an attack on the bridge,” the soldier panted, his voice shaking as he stumbled into the makeshift command post.I didn't move immediately, I just looked down at my hands, which were covered in the drying blood of my fallen brothers. The chaos outside was deafening, a relentless meat grinder that I honestly hadn't planned on surviving. It would have been a lot more peaceful to just stay down out there, frankly.“Of course there is,” I muttered, wiping a streak of red off my jaw with the back of my sleeve. “Because why would anything go smoothly today? That would just be too efficient.”A bitter weight settled in my stomach. If my father had just listened to me, if he had paused his grand strategy for even five minutes to look at the actual logistics none of this would have happened.But the old man always preferred a dramatic speech over a solid perimeter defense and now we were paying the price in bodies.“Sir, you don't understand,” the soldier pressed, wiping sw

Elias’s POV Mac went very still. His eyes flicked to the cot, to her sleeping face, and something clicked into place behind them, recognition, the same slow-motion horror I'd just gone through myself, except from the outside looking in. "The girl from the canyon." "Yes." "The girl who doesn't have a pack scent, who we found half-buried in rubble at the edge of the Abyss, on the same night…" He stopped himself. I watched him do the math anyway, watched his jaw tighten as he arrived at the same conclusion I had, minus however many extra hours I'd had to sit with it. "On the same night as Easton's mating ceremony," he finished, quieter. "Yeah." "Elias." He said my name like a warning, like he already knew where this was going and wanted to head it off before I said anything he couldn't unhear. "Tell me you're joking." "Do I look like I'm joking?" He studied my face a beat longer, then swore under his breath, dragging a hand back through his hair. "Does she know?" "No." I looke

The name meant nothing to me. I turned it over anyway, waiting for some spark of recognition, some memory that might explain the way my pulse kept stuttering every time his eyes landed on mine. Nothing came. Just the name, unfamiliar, and the strange, unsettling awareness of him sitting close enough that I could feel warmth radiating off his skin even through the thin blanket someone had draped over me."Found me where?" I pressed. "You said the Abyss. That doesn't make sense. I was on the northern road."Something shifted behind his expression, not quite a lie forming, but a careful decision about how much truth to hand me. I recognized that look too. I'd spent two years learning to read exactly that expression on Easton's face before he told me something designed to keep me calm and compliant rather than something honest."There was a breach," Elias said finally. "The Abyss opened along the northern border. My unit was sent to seal it. You were caught in the fallout somehow, I don't

Elias's POVMac found me at the edge of camp, watching the last of the tents come down, and the look on his face told me before he said a single word that whatever news he was carrying wasn't good."Scout just rode in from the eastern trade road," he said, keeping his voice low enough that it wouldn't carry to the men coiling rope a few yards off. "Word from IronVale is already three days old by the time it reached us, but it's clear enough.""Tell me.""Easton's mating ceremony happened. Two nights ago. Public, full clan in attendance." He hesitated, and that hesitation was answer enough that I braced myself before he finished. "He rejected Rosalie in front of everyone. Chose Brenda Trent instead. Announced her as his Luna on the spot."Something cold settled low in my stomach, spreading slowly outward until it reached my fingertips."Rejected her," I repeated flatly, like saying it out loud might make it make more sense. It didn't."That's not the worst of it." Mac's jaw tightened.