THE PAIN OF REJECTION

CHAPTER FOUR

The days following the rejection were a blur of physical and mental torture.

Amelia could barely remember what happened from one hour to the next. Morning became night, and night became morning without any real difference between them. She moved through Mooncrest as though she were trapped inside a fog, performing the duties expected of an Alpha while feeling as though some essential part of her had been ripped away.

She felt as if a limb had been amputated, but the ghost of it still itched and burned. The pain was everywhere.

It settled behind her ribs when she breathed. It crawled through her veins when she tried to sleep. Sometimes, she would wake suddenly in the middle of the night with her hand pressed against her chest, convinced for one terrible second that she could still feel the bond.

Then reality would return.

Lucien had rejected her too.

The memory alone was enough to make her chest tighten.

Her wolf was in a state of constant rebellion, pacing the confines of her mind, whimpering and scratching at the walls of her consciousness.

It wanted him. It wanted the vampire she had rejected. The contradiction was maddening.

Amelia had spent years believing that vampires were monsters. She had built her entire identity around protecting her people from them. Yet her own wolf seemed determined to betray everything she believed in.

She clenched her jaw and forced her attention back to the maps spread across her desk.

"Eat something, Amelia," Rowan said, placing a plate of food on her desk.

The smell of the meal reached her, but instead of making her hungry, it turned her stomach.

Amelia didn't look up from the maps of the territory.

"I'm not hungry."

Rowan stared at her for a moment.

The Alpha before him barely resembled the woman who had once commanded an entire room simply by walking into it. Amelia's shoulders were tense, dark circles rested beneath her eyes, and her usually steady hands constantly trembled whenever she thought no one was watching.

"You haven't slept in three days. You're vibrating," Rowan noted, his voice laced with concern.

Amelia's fingers paused over the map.

She wanted to deny it. She wanted to tell him that she was fine and that the weakness in her body meant nothing. But she knew Rowan too well.

"The council is getting restless again," he continued. "They see your distraction as a weakness." That finally made Amelia lift her eyes.

"I am not distracted," Amelia lied, though her hand trembled as she reached for a pen.

The pen nearly slipped between her fingers. Rowan noticed. Of course he noticed.

He had served beside Amelia long enough to recognize every tiny sign of distress she tried to hide.

He looked at her for several seconds before speaking again.

"Whatever happened at the border... whatever you and the Vampire King discussed... it's eating you alive," Rowan said softly. "You can tell me."

Amelia's expression hardened instantly.

"It's nothing," Amelia snapped. "Just a disagreement on diplomacy."

Rowan sighed.

He knew that tone.

It was the tone Amelia used whenever she wanted people to stop asking questions.

He slowly turned toward the door, but before leaving, he glanced back at her.

His expression remained skeptical.

He knew the scent of a distressed wolf, and Amelia smelled like a wounded animal.

A wounded animal that was determined to pretend it wasn't bleeding.

The door closed behind him.

Amelia stared at it for several seconds.

Then she looked back down at the maps.

Her eyes moved over the borders of Mooncrest territory, but the markings refused to make sense. She could read every name, every boundary, every river and mountain range, yet none of the information remained in her mind.

All she could think about was violet eyes. A cold voice. A bond breaking. She squeezed the pen harder.

"No," she whispered to herself.

She would not think about him. She could not afford to.

The peace was shattered an hour later when a scout burst into the room, breathless and pale.

"Alpha! Another one! West ridge, near the stream!"

Amelia was out the door before the scout could finish.

Her chair scraped violently against the floor as she pushed away from the desk. She barely registered the worried look on Rowan's face as she passed him.

The corridor blurred around her.

By the time she reached the outer grounds, her wolf had already taken control of her senses. She could smell the fear lingering in the air before anyone told her what had happened.

She followed the scout toward the west ridge.

The trees grew thicker as they approached the stream, their branches twisting overhead and blocking out much of the daylight.

Then she saw him.

When she reached the site, she found a soldier slumped against a willow tree.

He was dead.

His body had fallen awkwardly against the trunk, one arm hanging loosely at his side. His skin was a waxy gray, and his eyes stared blankly at the canopy above him.

For several seconds, Amelia simply stood there.

Her stomach tightened. She slowly approached and knelt beside him, her fingers grazing the wound on his neck. The skin around the wound was cold.

She paused, her brow furrowing. Something wasn't right. She leaned in closer, sniffing the wound. The scent was faint, but it was there.

Blood.

Something darker.Something that reminded her of the vampires.

"Rowan, look at this," she whispered.

Rowan immediately crouched beside her.

"More vampire marks."

Amelia's eyes narrowed.

"No," Amelia said, pointing to the edges of the puncture wounds.

She carefully examined the damaged skin.

"Look at the bruising. Vampire fangs leave a clean entry and exit. There's a specific suction pattern."

Her fingers hovered just above the wound.

"These... these are ragged. There's a slight tearing of the skin, and the blood hasn't been fully drained."

She looked at Rowan.

"It's been sampled, not consumed."

Rowan frowned.

The confusion on his face deepened as he examined the body again.

"What does that mean?"

Amelia stared at the wound.

The pieces were beginning to fit together, but what they suggested made her skin crawl.

"It means someone is trying to make this look like a vampire attack," Amelia whispered, a chill running down her spine.

She slowly rose to her feet.

"But they don't know how a vampire actually feeds."

For the first time since arriving at the scene, Amelia looked genuinely afraid.

Because if she was right, this wasn't simply another attack.

Someone wanted them to believe it was a vampire attack. Someone wanted Mooncrest to blame the vampires.

And whoever was behind it had made a mistake.

A mistake that only someone familiar with vampire feeding habits could recognize.

While Amelia puzzled over the corpse, Lucien Draven was experiencing his own nightmare.

In the obsidian halls of the Day Walkers' coven, the Vampire King paced his throne room, his movements jagged.

The massive chamber was almost completely silent.

Dark stone walls rose around him, reflecting the faint glow of the silver-blue lamps that illuminated the room. The atmosphere was normally one of controlled power and absolute authority.

Tonight, however, it felt suffocating.

Lucien's steps echoed across the polished floor.

He could still feel the rejection.

The pain had faded from its initial intensity, but the hollow ache remained.

The rejection had left a hollow ache in his chest that no amount of blood could fill.

He had tried. Blood should have eased the emptiness. It should have quieted the hunger. It should have restored some measure of balance.

It hadn't.

Nothing could fill the space Amelia had left behind.

"My King," his advisor, Julian, said, stepping forward.

Lucien stopped pacing. Julian hesitated for a moment before continuing.

"Three more of our sentries were found dead this morning on the eastern border."

Lucien's expression changed immediately. His personal pain was pushed aside by the instincts of a king.

He turned toward Julian.

"Drained?"

"No," Julian replied, sounding perplexed. He lowered his voice. "They were killed by what appeared to be werewolf claws, but the wounds are... wrong."

Lucien's eyes narrowed.

"Wrong?"

"They are too precise, almost surgical. And there are bite marks on their throats."

For a moment, Lucien said nothing. His heart, which beat only once every few minutes, gave a heavy thud.

"Bite marks?"

"Yes," Julian replied. "As if a vampire had fed on them."

Lucien's gaze hardened.

"But we know our own, and none of the covens are missing."

A vampire attack would have been easy to understand.

A werewolf attack would have been equally simple. But this was neither..Someone was imitating both.

Lucien slowly turned his head toward the enormous windows overlooking the dark forest.

Beyond those trees lay Mooncrest.

Amelia.

The irony was a bitter pill.

While he and Amelia were tearing themselves apart over a broken bond, someone was playing a game with their lives.

Someone was killing werewolves and leaving evidence that pointed toward vampires.

At the same time, someone was killing vampires and leaving evidence that pointed toward werewolves.

It was too deliberate to be a coincidence.

Too precise to be random.

Lucien's jaw tightened.

If the attacks continued, war would become inevitable.

And if war came, neither side would stop to ask who had started it.

A week later, a messenger bird arrived at Mooncrest with a small, silver scroll.

The bird landed outside Amelia's chamber, its wings beating rapidly as it released the message.

Amelia approached cautiously.

The silver scroll was small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.

There was no seal. No official insignia. Only a single letter.

She opened it.

Her eyes moved across the words.

Her breath caught.

"Private meeting. Neutral ground. The Whispering Gorge. Midnight. Come alone, or don't come at all. — L."