Chapter 2: The Billionaire Who Called Me Weak

I did not faint. Lycan mates don't faint. We bleed.

Liam half-carried, half-dragged me to the service elevator. The blood from my nose had stopped, but the pain behind my ribs hadn't. The rejection pain. They say when an Alpha King rejects his fated mate, the weaker one can die.

I understood why.

"Don't," I choked out when he tried to take me to the infirmary. "Don't take me down there. Everyone will see."

Liam's golden eyes were full of guilt. "Seraphina —"

"Did you know?" I whispered. My voice was raw. "Did you know I was his mate and you let him get engaged to her?"

Liam looked away. That was his answer.

The elevator doors closed. 87 floors down. Manhattan's lights blurred through my tears.

"He had no choice," Liam said finally. "The Elder Council. They told him a human Luna would weaken the bloodline. Elena is Stone Pack royalty. Her father promised him the southern territory."

"So I'm a business deal he couldn't afford," I said. I laughed, and it tasted like blood. "He called me weak."

"He was trying to save you," Liam said. "If the Council knew the Goddess mated him to a human who can't shift, they would have killed you."

I pressed my forehead against the cold elevator wall. My hand was still on my stomach.

Three weeks. I had found out this morning. One pink line turned to two while I was hiding in the diner bathroom between shifts. I had taken the test three times because I couldn't believe it.

I was pregnant with the child of a man who had just told the entire Northern Pack I would never be enough.

The elevator dinged. Lobby.

Liam grabbed my wrist. "Where will you go?"

I pulled away. "Away from Manhattan."

"Seraphina, the rejection — you need pack care. A human doctor won't understand the —"

"I'm not pack," I said. The words cut my own tongue. "Your King made sure of that."

I walked out into the snowstorm.

New York in December is brutal when you are broke. The wind cut through my thrift-store coat. My waitress shoes filled with slush. People rushed past me, carrying shopping bags, laughing, alive. Nobody looked at the girl bleeding internally from a broken mate bond.

I had $43 in my bank account. Rent was due in two days. I had just been fired from the diner for being late again — because I had been standing outside Thorne Tower like an idiot with a cupcake.

And now I was pregnant.

I walked six blocks until my legs gave out and collapsed on the steps of a closed laundromat. The snow fell on my hair.

My phone buzzed. My mother.

I ignored it. My mother had told me on my eighteenth birthday: "You didn't get the wolf gene, Sera. You're a mistake. Don't embarrass us by sniffing around real wolves."

She was right. I was a mistake.

The mate bond throbbed. I could still feel him. Even though he rejected me, a faint thread still connected us. Like a ghost limb. I could feel his anger. Was he angry at me? At himself?

I closed my eyes. I was going to die on these steps and nobody would find me until morning.

Then a black Range Rover pulled up, tires screaming on the snow.

The window rolled down.

Alexander Thorne.

His hair was wet with snow. His suit jacket was gone. His white shirt clung to him. He was breathing hard, like he had run.

"Get in the car," he ordered.

I stared at him. My heart tried to beat its way out of my shattered chest.

"You rejected me," I whispered.

"Get in the car, Seraphina," he repeated. His voice was lower now, almost a growl. His eyes flashed amber in the dark.

"No."

For a second, something like shock crossed his face. Nobody said no to the Lycan King.

"You are bleeding," he said.

"Because of you."

He got out of the car. In the middle of Manhattan, in a snowstorm, the Billionaire Lycan King knelt in the slush in front of a waitress.

He reached for me. His hand was huge, warm.

I flinched.

His hand stopped mid-air.

"You're in heat," he said suddenly, his nostrils flaring. "Your scent —"

"I'm not," I lied, panicking, pulling my coat tighter over my stomach. Pregnant she-wolves smell different. He couldn't know. He would kill me if he knew I was carrying his heir without his permission. Lycan law — a rejected Luna carrying a royal child is treason.

His eyes darkened. He leaned closer. He inhaled.

"Snow," he whispered. "And milk. Why do you smell like milk?"

I pushed him. Hard. With all the strength I had left.

"Don't touch me! You said I was weak! You said I would never be your Luna! So go back to your perfect Elena!"

I ran.

I didn't get far. Two steps and my knees gave out again. The rejection pain was too much. The pregnancy was too much.

But before I hit the icy ground, arms caught me.

Not Alexander's. Liam's. He must have followed.

"Let her go," Alexander ordered. His voice was lethal.

"Brother, she will die if she stays in the cold," Liam said. "Her human body can't handle the rejection fever."

Alexander looked at me in Liam's arms. I was shivering, my lips blue, my eyes barely open.

For a moment, I thought I saw regret. Real, raw regret in the eyes of a King.

Then his phone rang. The screen lit up. ELENA.

He answered.

"Yes. I'm coming up," he said, never taking his eyes off me. "No. Nothing. Just a stray."

Stray.

He hung up. He looked at Liam.

"Take her to the human hospital. Pay her bill. And make sure she leaves Manhattan tonight."

Then he got back in his Range Rover and drove away, leaving me bleeding on the sidewalk in his rearview mirror.

Liam carried me to his own car.

As he laid me in the back seat, I finally let the tears fall.

He called me a stray.

And I was carrying his heir.