Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Painful Rejection

WREN'S POV

A laugh cut through the room before Julian could answer, sharp and delighted. One of Ivy's friends leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, clearly enjoying the show. "Goddess, how did you not notice your mate was taken for months? That's almost impressive."

Months.

The word hit me somewhere below my ribs. My knees felt unsteady beneath me, my hands curling into fists at my sides before I even realized I'd moved.

I turned back to Julian, searching his face for anything that might tell me this was some cruel joke. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

Ivy shifted against him, tilting her head with a mocking pout. "Oops. Guess the secret's out." Her fingers trailed slowly down his chest. "No more pretending, I suppose."

My stomach turned over. "Julian." My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "Tell me what's going on."

He finally looked at me, but there was no apology in it, only a tired kind of resignation, like I was an inconvenience he'd been putting off. "Wren." He exhaled. "Ivy's my mate."

Ivy made a show of pouting, tracing lazy circles against his skin. "Oh, baby, should we just tell her everything?" Her eyes cut to me, glittering with something close to cruelty. "Though first, she really should shower. She smells like spoiled milk."

Laughter rippled through the doorway behind me. Heat crawled up my neck and into my face. My humiliation was a show, and everyone had front row seats.

Julian dragged a hand through his hair like this conversation was exhausting him. "I want Ivy," he said simply, no hesitation in it at all.

The words sliced clean through me.

"No." I shook my head, my whole body trembling now. "I'm your mate. The bond chose me." My voice cracked on the last word, the weight of it pressing down on my chest until I could barely breathe.

Ivy rose from the bed, stretching like she had all the time in the world, her heels clicking slow and deliberate against the floor as she crossed toward me. She stopped just short of arm's reach, her eyes glittering with something ugly.

"How exactly did you think this would end?" she asked, almost gentle, almost kind, which somehow made it worse. "You don't even have a wolf, Wren. You're playing dress up in a life that was never going to be yours."

The room tilted. My pulse pounded so loud in my ears I could barely hear anything else.

Julian said nothing.

He didn't defend me.

He just watched, like this was something happening to someone else entirely.

Something inside me snapped, and I shoved Ivy backward before I could stop myself. She stumbled, her smirk faltering for half a second before twisting into something sharper.

Julian was on his feet in an instant, fury flashing across his face. "Enough." His voice boomed through the room, making my chest ache all over again. "I'm Alpha as of tonight. I won't have you disrespecting my mate."

His mate.

The words landed harder than anything Ivy had said.

He stepped closer, his expression cold in a way I'd never seen directed at me before. "Be honest with yourself, Wren. Did you really think I'd spend my life bound to someone who can't even shift?"

The floor seemed to disappear beneath me. The pain in my chest was unbearable, like something inside me was being torn out by the root.

Ivy pressed a hand to her chest, feigning sympathy. "Poor thing actually believed she had a chance."

Laughter erupted from the hallway behind me.

I clenched my fists, my vision blurring at the edges. The boy who was supposed to love me, protect me, stood beside the girl who'd spent years making my life miserable, and he wasn't even looking at me anymore.

Julian's voice turned flat, almost bored. "You don't have a wolf. I'd rather die than be tied to someone broken like you."

Then his next words tore the last of me apart.

"Wren Ashby, by the Moon Goddess's light, I reject you as my mate."

Pain exploded through my chest, hot and searing, claws dragging through something deep inside me. I choked on a sob, my knees buckling, my hands pressed to my heart like I could physically hold myself together. Nothing helped. The agony spread through every inch of me, relentless.

Julian stood over me now, unmoved. "Accept it. The pain stops the moment you do."

"I won't get another mate," I whispered, my voice barely holding. "You told me you loved me."

He scoffed, arms crossed. "Come on, Wren. There's a difference between love and pity. You should know that by now."

My heart shattered into more pieces than I could count.

Ivy giggled somewhere behind him. "This is getting sad. Just accept it already. You were never going to be anyone's real mate."

The whispers around me grew louder, the crowd gathered at the door, watching, delighting in it. I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste blood, fighting the sobs threatening to break loose, but the pain only kept building, and I knew there was only one way to make it stop.

So I forced the words out on a broken breath.

"I accept your rejection."

The moment they left my mouth, one final wave of pain tore through me, severing whatever thread had connected me to Julian, leaving nothing behind but emptiness.

I felt hollow.

Gone, somehow, even though I was still standing.

Julian barely spared me a glance as he turned back to Ivy, wrapping an arm around her waist. She leaned into him, grinning as if she'd just won something.

The crowd in the doorway cheered.

I could hear them.

"She actually thought she'd be Luna."

"A wolfless mate. The Goddess really did make a mistake with that one."

"Pathetic."

I couldn't stay in that room a second longer.

I pushed myself up on shaking legs and ran, shoving past the bodies crowding the doorway, my vision blurred with tears, my chest still aching from the bond tearing itself apart. I had lost everything I thought I had.

I wasn't just alone.

I was nothing.

I reached the doors leading outside, desperate for air, for space, for anything that wasn't the sound of my own pack laughing at me.

And slammed straight into something solid.

Strong hands caught me before I hit the ground, steadying me by the arms.

I looked up.

And froze.