The Seventh Time My Alpha Rejected Me, I Walked Away

“Tamsin has returned to the pack. Go ahead and reject me.”

I turned to my Alpha mate, Stellan Voss, my expression blank.

Surprise flickered across his face, but he recovered almost immediately and recited the familiar words of rejection.

“I, Stellan Voss, Alpha of the SilverMoon Pack, reject Elowen Reed as my mate. From this moment, she is no longer my mate.”

The mark on the side of my neck burned, but I kept my voice steady when I gave him my answer.

“I, Elowen Reed, accept Alpha Stellan Voss’s rejection. From this moment, he is no longer my mate.”

The moment the words left my mouth, our mind-link snapped shut.

Deep inside me, my wolf let out an agonized howl. It felt as though my soul had been torn in two.

This was the first time I had ever asked Stellan to reject me.

Still, just as he had the previous six times, Stellan made me another promise as if it cost him nothing.

“When she leaves in a month, we’ll bond again.”

In the past, those words would never have given me the reassurance I needed. I might even have forced him to swear before the Moon Goddess.

This time, I felt nothing at all. I did not even care enough to answer.

“Elowen, are you listening to me?”

Stellan frowned, plainly irritated by my silence.

I gave him a small nod.

“Yes.”

My hands never stopped moving as I folded the last of my clothes into my suitcase.

Whenever Stellan named a date for us to bond again, he kept his word.

He was known throughout the pack as a man who never broke a promise. No one could dispute that.

We went through this ritual twice a year. By now, Stellan had rejected me seven times.

When we were bonded, Stellan kept every promise he made me.

When I said I wanted to fall asleep beneath the full moon, he had a glass-domed lodge built for me on the highest ridge in our territory, framed in moon-veined white oak—the rarest timber in the North. He even set seven sacred moonstones into the headboard, each one glowing only when the moon was full.

When I dreamed of seeing the world beyond the North, he took me from the Scottish Highlands to the Swiss Alps.

At our Marking Ceremony, Stellan had sworn that as long as our mate bond remained intact, he would always put me first.

Technically, he had kept that promise.

Once he rejected me, however, he spent every moment he could with Tamsin.

The entire pack knew I was the Luna expected to step aside whenever she returned.

My composure seemed to unsettle him today.

He could still remember how hysterical I had become during our previous separations, and how close my wolf had come to breaking under the pain.

He watched me pack with even more speed and efficiency than the last time, then spoke with visible discomfort.

“Maybe I should be the one to leave this time—”

My large suitcase clicked shut, cutting him off.

“Sabine and I already made plans. I’m staying with her for a few days.”

Something seemed to occur to Stellan, and his expression darkened further.

“Don’t tell me this is another stunt. Are you planning to apply as my assistant again just so you can keep watch outside my office?”

“Sweetheart, I’ve explained this already. We’ll bond again. There’s more to life than following me around. Can’t you find something else you enjoy?”

I understood exactly what he meant.

He did not want me anywhere near the Pack House while he and Tamsin enjoyed their private reunion.

Tamsin rarely returned to the pack. Naturally, Stellan wanted her beside him at all times, supposedly to help with pack business.

After the second time Stellan rejected me, I had taken a job as his assistant at the Pack House.

One day, I carried his favorite latte to his office and opened the door, eager to surprise him. Tamsin was sitting in his chair, reading confidential pack records that only the Luna was permitted to see.

I stopped in the doorway. “Those records are restricted to the Luna. Please put them down.”

Tamsin’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “I was only trying to help Stellan. I didn’t know you would be angry.”

Her crying drew a crowd outside the office. Everyone still believed I was the Luna, and their expressions toward Tamsin quickly turned contemptuous.

Stellan didn’t want her to become the subject of pack gossip, so he ignored my tearful pleas and addressed the entire crowd in a cold voice.

“Elowen has accepted my rejection. She is no longer my mate, and she is no longer your Luna.”

His declaration tore through the crowd, exposing the humiliating truth of our relationship to everyone within earshot.

From that day on, whenever Stellan rejected me, he summoned members of the pack and announced it publicly.

Everyone knew that whenever Tamsin returned, I would be temporarily stripped of my title as Luna and reduced to a poor she-wolf.

This time, however, his concern was unnecessary.

I picked up my suitcase without hesitation.

“Don’t worry. I won’t bother you again.”

Stellan studied me with suspicion. It was not until I extended the handle and stepped through the doorway that urgency crept into his voice.

“We’ll bond again on the thirteenth of next month. Don’t forget.”

For a moment, I went still. What a coincidence.

I was leaving the pack on the thirteenth too.