unaccepted

Lyra’s pov

"Get your hand away from my mate."

For a second, nobody moves. Dorian Kane stays crouched in front of me, his hand still held out across the snow. And behind me, standing at the tree line with murder in his eyes, is the Alpha Prince himself, Cassian Aurelian. The man who rejected me in front of three hundred wolves less than an hour ago.

I get to my feet slowly; my knees are soaked, and my one good dress is ruined. And something hot is rising in my chest, burning right through the pain, and I realize, almost with relief, that it's anger. Anger is so much easier than heartbreak.

"Your mate?" I laugh. "That's funny. I could have sworn I heard you reject me loudly in front of everyone. There was a whole comedy show about it."

"Lyra." His voice is low and rough. He says my name like it hurts him, which makes no sense at all. "Step away from him."

"You don't get to say my name." The anger is fully awake now, and it feels wonderful. "You don't get to follow me here and growl my mate like the last hour didn't happen. You threw me away, Your Highness. Thrown-away things don't belong to you anymore."

Something moves behind his eyes. Something that looks, for half a second, like pain. Then it's gone, locked away behind that cold royal face, and I tell myself I imagined it.

"You don't understand," he says quietly. "You can't leave with him."

"Watch me."

I turn toward Dorian, and that's when Cassian moves.

He crosses the snow with wolf speed, and his hand closes around my arm hard enough to bruise.

"My mate," he says through his teeth, "isn't going anywhere."

Pain shoots up my arm, but the strangest thing happens when his skin touches mine.

The broken bond sparks.

I feel it: a jolt of light through the torn place in my chest, like a dead wire suddenly carrying current. Caora gasps inside me, and I see Cassian's eyes go wide, because he feels it too. 

A rejected bond isn't supposed to do that; it is supposed to be dead.

"Let go of me," I whisper.

"Lyra …"

"LET GO."

"I'd do as she says." Dorian Kane's voice is calm. He has risen to his feet, and he isn't reaching for a weapon, and somehow that's what makes him frightening. He stands there in the falling snow like a man who has never needed to raise his voice in his life.

"You're a long way from your capital, Your Highness," Dorian says. "And this is Silverpine land. You rejected this woman before three hundred witnesses. By pack law, she's free. Free to stay, free to go." He tilts his head. "Free to choose."

"This doesn't concern you, Kane."

"Maybe not." Dorian smiles. "But I find I'm concerned anyway."

The two men stare at each other over my head. The Alpha Prince, heir to everything. The small-pack Alpha with the kind face and the calm voice. They've never met before, I'm sure of it, and yet the way they look at each other feels old somehow. Like two chess players recognizing each other across a board, and then Cassian does something I don't expect.

He lets go of my arm and steps back. His hands curl into fists at his sides, and his jaw works like he's chewing on words he isn't allowed to say. That's the thing that catches me, even through the anger and pain. He looks like a man fighting something else and not Dorian or me.  Like fighting something I can't see.

"Fine," Cassian says at last. His voice comes out flat. "There's a simple way to end this."

He looks at me, and the torchlight from the distant hall catches his eyes, and for a moment, he doesn't look cruel at all. He looks trapped.

"Say the words," he says.

I blink. "What?"

"The ritual words. A rejection isn't complete until it's accepted. You know this, every pup knows this." Something flickers across his face, that trapped look again, gone as fast as it comes. "Say the words, Lyra Thorne. Accept my rejection, and then you can walk wherever you want, with whoever you want, and no law in this kingdom can stop you."

He's right; everyone knows the old law. A rejection is a door that both wolves have to close. He shut his side in front of three hundred laughing witnesses; all I have to do is shut mine.

"Lyra." Dorian's voice was gentle behind me. "You don't have to do anything tonight."

But I want to. Goddess help me, I want to. I want to close this door so hard the whole kingdom hears it slam. I want to watch the Alpha Prince's face when the last thread between us dies. He took my one golden second, the only moment in my whole life when the Moon herself said you are wanted, and he turned it into a joke.

So yes, I'll say the words.

I lift my chin, and I look him dead in the eyes.

"I, Lyra Thorne, daughter of Silverpine," my voice doesn't shake; I won't let it shake, "accept your rejection, Cassian Aurelian."

I know what's supposed to happen; everyone knows. The broken bond flickers out like a candle. A small cold moment, and then peace. An ache that fades into a bruise, and a bruise that fades into a story you tell someday, when it stops hurting, but that is not what happens.

The torn place in my chest ignites. Sparks burst under my skin, silver-white, shining straight through my dress like moonlight through curtains. Caora howls and the snow around my feet melts in a perfect circle, and the bond, the dead bond, the rejected bond, roars back to life so fiercely that Cassian staggers, one hand flying to his own chest like something just hooked him behind the ribs.

The light dies as fast as it came, with steam rising from the melted circle around my shoes.

I stare at Cassian, and he stares at me. He's gone white as the snow, and his hand is still pressed to his chest, and his eyes are the eyes of a man watching his whole world tilt sideways.

"That's not possible," he whispers. "I rejected you, you accepted, it's done. The bond should be…"

"Dead," I finish. My voice sounds far away. "It should be dead."

But I can feel it. Right there behind my ribs, it's not broken or torn, but rather it's burning brighter, hotter, and bigger than it was even at the Choosing, as if rejecting it only fed it.

I told you, Caora whispers inside me, and she doesn't sound hurt anymore. She sounds afraid. I told you there was too much of it. Lyra bonds don't refuse to die. Nothing refuses the ritual, nothing except…She stops.

Except what? I ask. Caora, except WHAT?

But my wolf has gone silent, and in the quietness, I become aware of Dorian Kane.

He hasn't moved or made a sound. But he's looking at me, at the melted snow, at the fading silver glow under my skin, and the kindness on his face has peeled back, and underneath it is something else entirely…Recognition, and hunger.

"Well," Dorian says softly, in a voice that isn't warm at all anymore. "Isn't that interesting?"