Chapter 3: I Reject You

AVIONNA’S POV

For a while after Alpha Fabian spoke, the hall was pin-drop silent. Then as though the spell had broken, murmurs rose.

“What did he just say?”

“Has Alpha Fabian lost his mind?”

“How could he accept her? That’s Elara Vale’s daughter!”

“How could this even be?”

I held the same questions too. More than anyone in this hall, I wanted to find a reason that explained all of this.

It just didn’t make sense that the Moon Goddess had thought it right to make Alpha Fabian my mate. It felt like one huge prank that had been designed for no reason other than to humiliate me.

My mind raced through every possible explanation but none of them served as the answers I wanted. The man himself had said he knew who I was. He hadn’t mistaken me for someone else.

I found that even more ridiculous.

As though he could see the wheels turning in my head, his steel-gray eyes remained fixed on me, completely unaffected by the chaos surrounding us.

I swallowed thickly, averting my gaze. “Um, Alpha Fabian… I don’t think this is right. It must be some kind of mistake. Maybe…”

“It’s not a mistake,” he cut in firmly.

My gaze snapped to him. His expression was still just as impassive as earlier, as though the commotion unfolding around us barely registered with him.

“I…I don’t understand,” I stuttered. “My mother…” The words trailed off when his expression darkened.

“I know what your mother did, Avionna Vale.”

“Then why?” The question stumbled out of me before I could stop it.

Why was he accepting me and even asking me to come back with him if he knew who I was? It was illogical, and I knew for a fact that were I to be in his shoes, the last thing I would want was to be mated to my enemy’s daughter.

He stared at me for a long minute, then his lips parted.

“You’re my mate.”

His answer did nothing to resolve the knot inside of me. It only weaved it harder. My wolf however seemed oblivious to the storm that was raging inside. She kept purring, drawn to him by a bond that had already begun tightening around my heart.

I couldn’t let it happen.

Not again.

Not after I’d already learned what happened when I trusted a mate. I had been let down by too many people to trust anyone but myself and I couldn’t allow a repeat of a mistake I already made.

Drawing a shaky breath to steady my racing heart, I took a step forward. Gazes diverted in my direction, probably wondering what I intended to do.

Alpha Fabian’s eyes narrowed as I exhaled loudly, curling my fists whilst trying to draw strength from whatever I could.

“I…” My words faltered and I took in another deep breath.

“I reject you…”

Gasps rang out immediately, but Alpha Fabian was even faster. He grabbed my hand with a speed I hadn’t expected and growled.

“No.”

My eyes widened. “What…”

“I said no.” His voice was firm and it reverberated through the room. My wolf immediately cowered beneath the weight of his Alpha command.

I stared at him in disbelief. “Why are you stopping me?”

What reason did he have to? He should want this. He should be doing this.

“I won’t let you reject me,” he muttered calmly, almost frighteningly so.

I stumbled back, trying to loosen his grip on my wrist but it only tightened.

He turned to my Father, regarding him with a look that dared anyone to contest his authority. “I suppose you have no problem with me taking her back with me.”

Dad’s face cracked. A nervous, almost cowardly laugh slipped out of him. “Of course not, Alpha Draven. She’s all yours.”

My jaw dropped. I had no idea what I was expecting from my Dad but it certainly wasn’t this. The shock however wore off soon enough. I should have known he wouldn’t hesitate to throw me to the dogs.

A strange silence followed, as though everyone in the hall was waiting to see what would happen next. Soon after, the murmurs returned.

“He’s really taking her?”

“After everything that happened?”

“Alpha Fabian must have really lost his mind.”

I lowered my gaze, unable to bear the weight of so many eyes. If it wasn’t Alpha Fabian standing in front of me, I would have felt relieved that my mate had stopped me from rejecting him but precisely because it was him, I felt trapped instead. Like I’d walked into a hole I couldn’t come out of.

The uncertainty behind his intentions frightened me more than anything else and none of the answers he’d given me explained why he was acting the way he was.

My gaze drifted across the room, searching for something familiar, and landed on Lucien. He was staring at me, with an expression that was difficult to read, and his jaw was clenched.

Our eyes met for a brief second before he looked away. I didn’t know what that was about, and I didn’t care enough to find out.

Ivy on the other hand was a different story. Her face had gone pale. She stood beside a brown haired man who I now realised was her husband, a man I’d seen walk in with Alpha Fabian. He looked equally as bewildered as everyone in the room.

Ivy’s fingers curled tightly around the fabric of her gown as she stared at Fabian. For once, she had nothing clever to say.

I would have smiled if I wasn’t in a predicament myself. Just as I shifted my gaze from her, Fabian turned to me.

“We leave tomorrow morning.”

My stomach dropped and my mouth gaped.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation in his voice. I could see it in his eyes that my opinion didn’t matter. He expected me to comply without question.

I swallowed and glanced around the hall, around the place that had once been my home yet had never been kind to me.

For a split second, the idea of leaving didn’t seem so bad. I was only scared because I had no idea what life awaited me in Saturn Pack.

While I was distracted by my thoughts, Alpha Fabian let go of my wrist, then walked away without a look back, leaving me standing there with a thousand unanswered questions.

The wedding continued around me, but I barely noticed. I spent the rest of the evening trapped inside my own thoughts, wondering why a man who should have hated me had chosen to accept me instead.

And as the celebration finally came to an end, one question remained louder than all the others.

What did Alpha Fabian really want from me?