The Rejected Female Alpha

I had been standing at the back of the Moon Ceremony for almost an hour, which was exactly where my father had told me to stay, and judging by the way he had looked at me before walking away, I was apparently supposed to be grateful that he had allowed me to attend at all.

“Stay there, Elena,” Garrick had said, pointing toward the far side of the clearing as though he were sending a servant away. “Do not wander around, do not go near the Alpha, and for once in your life, do not give people another reason to talk about this family.”

Another reason.

I almost laughed when he said it because people had been talking about this family since long before I was born, but every ugly thing that happened inside the Blackwood house had somehow become my fault, so there was no point arguing.

I stayed where he put me.

The ceremony was packed with hundreds of wolves from Blood Moon Pack, all dressed like they had spent half their monthly allowance trying to impress someone important, and the clearing was so crowded that I could barely see the ceremonial fire in the middle. Women whispered behind their hands, men kept glancing toward the entrance, children were being dragged back by irritated parents, and somewhere near the front, Rosalie my fucking stepsister, was laughing loudly enough for half the pack to hear her.

Of course she was.

Rosalie had been waiting for tonight for weeks.

She stood beside her mother Seraphina in a dress that probably cost more than everything in my wardrobe combined, with her blonde hair curled perfectly over her shoulders and a smile that made it painfully obvious she had already decided how this night would end.

Everyone knew what she wanted.

Everyone knew what they expected.

Alpha Adrian Blackthorn was supposed to choose his mate tonight, and Rosalie had spent the past few weeks behaving as though the Moon Goddess had personally sent her a letter confirming that she would be Luna.

She had even started correcting people whenever they called her Rosalie.

Apparently, “future Luna” was more appropriate.

I had watched her do it yesterday and nearly choked on my drink.

Now she was standing there surrounded by her friends, smiling at every person who looked her way, while I was stuck behind a row of trees because my father thought my face might ruin the ceremony.

Fine.

I could survive one evening. I pulled my sleeves over my hands and looked toward the entrance when the ceremonial drums suddenly began.

The entire clearing changed.

Conversations died down one after another as people turned toward the huge wooden gates, and even Rosalie stopped talking.

Then Adrian Blackthorn walked in.

I had seen him before, but never this close.

He looked exactly like the stories said he did, tall and broad enough to make the warriors beside him look smaller than they probably were, dressed in black from his boots to the fitted jacket across his shoulders. His dark hair was pushed back from his face, and there was something hard about his expression that made people move aside before he even reached them.

His Beta and Gamma followed behind him, but nobody paid much attention to them because Adrian was the only person anyone cared about.

Rosalie straightened and her entire face lit up.

I looked away because watching her practically throw herself at him from twenty feet away was embarrassing enough without me being forced to witness the rest.

The elder began the ceremony, speaking about the Moon Goddess, mates, loyalty, bloodlines, and all the other things people apparently loved hearing every year even though none of them could control who they ended up bonded to.

I wasn't listening anymore.

I was staring at the ground when the crowd suddenly became strangely quiet.

I lifted my head. Adrian was looking at me then I glanced behind myself but there was nobody there.

When I looked back, he was still staring. I frowned because I couldn't understand what he wanted, and before I could look away again, he started walking straight toward me.

My stomach tightened.

People began turning to follow his path.

I could hear whispers spreading through the crowd, getting louder with every step he took.

“Is he coming over here?”

“Who is he looking at?”

“Wait, is that Elena?”

I wanted the ground to open and swallow me.

Adrian kept coming. He walked past Rosalie without even looking at her.

That was when the smile disappeared from her face.

I barely had time to wonder what was happening before Adrian reached me and grabbed my wrist. The mate bond slammed into me so violently that my knees nearly gave out.

I sucked in a breath as heat rushed through my body, sharp and overwhelming, and Adrian's grip tightened around my wrist as though he had felt the same thing.

The clearing erupted. People shouted.

Someone dropped a glass. Someone else screamed that the Alpha had found his mate.

I couldn't hear everything because my heart was beating so hard that it felt like it was trying to break through my ribs.

I looked at Adrian. He was staring at me like he couldn't understand what had just happened either.

For one stupid second, I forgot that half the pack was watching us.

I forgot Rosalie.

I forgot my father. I forgot every insult I had swallowed over the years.

I just stood there looking at the man who had somehow become tied to me in the middle of hundreds of people.

Then Adrian released my wrist. The warmth disappeared so quickly that I nearly stumbled.

His face hardened.

“I, Adrian Blackthorn, Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack, reject you as my mate.”

The words hit harder than the bond had.

My knees struck the ground. Someone gasped, and then the whispers came rushing back, louder than before.

I pressed a hand against my chest because something inside me felt like it was being ripped apart, and when I looked up, Adrian was still standing there as though he had not just destroyed me in front of the entire pack.

“You will not become my Luna,” he continued, his voice carrying across the clearing. “I will not accept a mate who cannot stand beside me, and I will not allow the pack to be weakened because of a bond I never asked for.”

I stared at him through the tears gathering in my eyes. I wanted to ask him what gave him the right to decide what I was worth.

I wanted to scream at him.

Instead, my mouth opened and nothing came out because the pain was too much and the entire pack was watching me fall apart.

Then Rosalie started walking toward me.

Her heels clicked against the stone as she approached, and the smile slowly returned to her face.

She crouched in front of me, looking at me like she had just been handed the best gift of her life.

“You really thought he was going to choose you?” she asked, loud enough for the people around us to hear. “You stood there looking so pleased with yourself, Elena, as if being his mate suddenly made you important, but look at you now.”

I wiped at my cheek with the back of my hand.

Rosalie laughed.

“You should have known better than to reach for something that was never meant for you, because now the whole pack has watched Adrian reject you in front of everyone, and I promise you, nobody is going to forget this tomorrow.”

“Get away from me.”

My voice came out weaker than I wanted.

Rosalie leaned closer.

“No, I think I will stay right here, because I have waited too long to see you finally get what you deserve.”

Her fingers caught my chin before I could pull away.

“You have spent years pretending you were better than everyone because you were Garrick Blackwood's daughter, but tonight everybody finally gets to see exactly where you belong.”

I slapped her hand away. Her expression changed instantly.

Seraphina shouted my name from somewhere behind her, and my father started moving toward us, but Rosalie was already standing, staring down at me with fury.

“You disgusting little whore,” she snapped. “You really thought you could throw yourself at an Alpha and steal what belongs to me?”

The clearing went silent again. I looked past her and drian was still there. He had not even looked away. And somehow that made everything worse.

Rosalie was still talking, still throwing words at me like stones, but I barely heard her anymore because Adrian had not looked away from me, and there was something strange about the way he was staring that made my stomach twist even through the pain of the rejection. I couldn't understand why he looked so angry when he was the one who had just rejected me, or why his hand had curled into a fist at his side as though he was fighting the urge to do something neither of us understood.

Then he turned away from me.

And walked straight toward Rosalie.