Rise of the Alpha's King Rejected Mate

I pressed myself against the cold stone wall of the pack house, doing my best to hear the sounds of laughter coming from the grand hall.  Alpha Darius's birthday celebration isn’t a place for someone like me. I should even consider myself lucky, being able to at least hear the sound of music being played from the hall.

The rough stone bites through the thin fabric of my dress, my best dress. I figured that even if I had no chance at being at the party with the rest of the pack, I could at least have my own little party right here. My ‘best dress’ is nothing special though, just some worn out clothes someone had thrown in the lost and found. If I were growing properly, the dress would have been undersized, but I hadn’t grown an inch since I was sixteen years old, so it was still in perfect shape.

My case in the pack house is no new story. The wolf unable to shift. The orphan girl who serves in the kitchens, scrubs floors, and pretends not to hear when they whisper about how pathetic I am. But not tonight. Something special happened tonight. After serving countless food and cleaning every inch of the place, the head kitchen omega shoved me towards the hall.

"Go," she'd hissed, her eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. "Alpha wants all pack members present for his announcement. Even the... special ones."

The way she said "special" made my stomach turn and I knew it wasn’t the biting hunger I was feeling. I knew what she meant. The broken. The girl who couldn't even access her wolf.

Now I hover at the edge of the grand hall, completely out of place, my bare feet on the cold floor. The scent of the other wolves in the hall assaults my nose. Not horrible, powerful. Intoxicately powerful. My nose burns with it, overwhelmed by the concentrated dominance of fifty pack members in one room, and for the first time, I felt it was actually mercy and not injustice keeping me away from them.

The hall itself is magnificent. Crystal chandeliers cast golden light over walls lined with portraits of past Alphas. Even the portraits have a domineering feeling to them. Their painted eyes seemed to judge me for breathing the same air as they did. The tables were filled with food but no matter how tempted I was, I wouldn’t give them an opportunity to finally dispose of me.

I find a shadow near the servants' entrance and melt into it, making myself as small as possible. From here, I can see him.

Darius Vaughan. Alpha of the Blood Moon pack. Six feet and three inches of grace, with black hair that catches the light and green intense eyes. A scar runs along his left eye. People say he got it from an intense battle with a rival Alpha. This only adds to his domineering stature. His jaw is sharp enough to cut, with a stubble that increases the extremely masculine air around him, and when he moves, every wolf in the room tracks him like he's the center of their universe.

You could say he is.

My chest tightens as I watch him laugh at something his beta says, the sound rich and warm. He's wearing a black suit, and it fits him like it was made for his body alone. I can see his muscles shift behind the fabric and the dryness in my mouth makes swallowing hard.

"Look what crawled out of the kitchen," a voice sneers behind me.

My blood freezes. I turn slowly to find Marcus, one of the younger warriors, grinning at me with too many teeth. Behind him stands three others, and I already know what is coming.

"Shouldn't you be scrubbing dishes, little kitchen mouse?" His tone carries an arrogant note filled with ridicule. "What are you doing here with the real wolves?"

I would have run, but I had chosen a corner to hide from the wolves. How would I know that they’d find me here?

 

"Maybe she's looking for scraps," Marcus jests, his smile widening. "Like the charity case she is."

"No," the third one says, and something in his tone makes my skin crawl. "I think she wants to play with the big wolves. Don't you, freak?"

Before I can protest or even run, hands grab my arms. I'm shoved forward, stumbling over my own feet. I pushed through the crowd of powerful, elegant wolves. 

The conversation dies. The music stops. Fifty pairs of eyes lock onto me, filled with disgust, and I want to disappear. I want to just melt into the marble and never come back.

And then I see him. Darius. His head turns toward the commotion, those devastating green eyes tracking across the room until they land on me.

The moment our gazes meet, it feels like time itself stops.

It hits me hard, like the first draw of breath after almost drowning. Every nerve in my body comes alive. My heart stops, then races so fast that I think it might burst. Heat floods through me, starting low in my belly and spreading outward until my entire body feels like it’s burning.

Mate.

Like an instinct, I instantly knew what it was. Something in my head was telling me, not in my voice but in something deeper. Something more primal. Something that has been sleeping in my chest for eighteen years finally awakens.

His wolf recognizes mine even though I still can't shift. The bond snaps into place between us like a chain, and for one perfect, impossible moment, I see the same shock of recognition flash across his features.

My lips part on a gasp. Hope blooms in my chest like flowers after rain. This is it. This is my moment. The Moon Goddess hasn't forgotten me after all. She has seen me suffer enough and has given me the most powerful wolf as my mate. Maybe, just maybe things will be different now.

Maybe I'll finally matter.

Darius stares at me across the room, and I see the exact moment his expression shifts. The recognition dies. His features hardens and I could feel the temperature drop a few degrees. Those green eyes that had been wide with shock now narrow with something that looks like disgust.

He takes a step forward, his voice carrying easily across the silent hall.

"I, Darius Vaughan, Alpha of Blood Moon pack, reject you, Lyra Quinn, as my mate."

The words hit like bullets, each syllable easily tearing through the bond that had barely been formed. Pain explodes in my chest. Devastating pain, like someone's ripping my heart out through my ribs. I double over, gasping, as the rejection burns through every nerve.

The pack erupts in laughter. Cruel, delighted laughter that sounded more like relief to them. Someone whistles. Someone else cheers. I hear fragments through the ringing in my ears:

"knew she was delusional…"

"thinks she deserves an Alpha…"

"pathetic little orphan…"

The bond shreds like tissue paper, taking pieces of my soul with it. I can't breathe. Can't think. Even my vision goes blurry as I kneel there on the expensive marble, drowning in agony while they laugh at my pain.

As the pack's laughter rings in my ears and my knees buckle from the rejection's agony, Darius turns to Seraphine. She the woman that makes more sense. Tall, elegant and a hundred times the woman I’ll ever be. It made perfect sense, and I was a fool for thinking I had a chance.

"I choose you as my Luna," he declares.

The last thing I see before darkness claims me is her triumphant smile and the back of the wolf that broke me.