Where My Scent No Longer Belongs

I came back to life.

The first thing I did was sever the Mate Bond with Alpha Asher.

At his coronation.

In front of thousands.

Last lifetime, he publicly accused me of impersonating his mate in front of everyone, saying I didn't carry a Mate's sweetness but reeked of Wolfsbane that made him sick.

For Elena, his first love, he sent me to the black market where they stripped away my wolf. Without my wolf, I died in a rogue attack shortly after.

This lifetime, when he furrows his brow and tells me to get out of his sight, I don't shed a single tear. I just turn and leave.

He says my existence makes Elena unhappy, so I move to the border cottage.

He says he doesn't want to live in the same Pack with me, so I submit my transfer application.

I thrive in the neighboring Pack and meet a powerful wolf with a hidden identity.

When we appear hand-in-hand at the Northern Alliance Summit, Alpha Asher loses control.

He catches my scent,another male's mark on my skin,and his sanity shatters.

He blocks my path, a low growl rumbling from his chest.

"Wash that male's scent off you, Rhea."

"Weren't you disgusted by me?" I smile and step back.

"Now I belong to someone else, and suddenly I smell good to you?"

...

Staring at the bold sign outside Moonstone Pack's banquet hall, my wolf Lucy releases a long, relieved exhale.

Right now, my own Mate publicly groups me with homeless Rogue wolves.

Pack members around me throw mocking or pitying glances my way, but none of them know how fucking happy I am,because I've been reborn.

I'm back on the day of my fated Mate Alpha Asher's coronation ceremony.

In everyone's eyes, I'm that ungrateful, clingy Omega orphan.

Whether it's bloodline or status, Alpha Asher and I exist in completely different worlds.

He's the heir to a powerful Alpha bloodline. I'm an orphan the former Alpha couple adopted,no background, no one.

Just because we sensed the Mate Bond when I turned eighteen, I thought that meant forever.

Everyone pitied Alpha Asher, thought the Moon Goddess played a cruel joke on him.

He thought so too.

So on his coronation day, he put up that sign,locked me out while I stood there in my best dress, hoping to stand beside him.

"Rhea, this isn't us being difficult. This is Alpha Asher's order."

"You know what today is. Elena's inside. You going in only makes everyone uncomfortable."

Alpha Asher's most loyal Gamma stands at the entrance, his face cold as he delivers the message.

On either side, guards strengthened by Alpha Asher's dominant aura form a defensive line.

All this,this entire fortress of protection,erected to keep out me and an Omega with zero attack power.

Everyone knows Alpha Asher's hatred for me runs bone-deep. So deep he claims I carry the stench of Wolfsbane.

Last lifetime, I didn't enter the banquet either.

Like an abandoned rabbit, I waited outside from daylight to darkness, desperate for even a scrap of warmth from my Mate.

Later, I collapsed from fever in the freezing wind, nearly triggered my wolf's collapse.

When the former Alpha couple found out, they scolded Alpha Asher and tried to force our bonding ceremony.

The day before the ceremony, Alpha Asher's first love Elena suddenly "got poisoned" and collapsed.

In Alpha Asher's eyes and his inner circle's judgment, I was the one who poisoned her. Because I always carried that scent he found revolting.

Alpha Asher wanted revenge for his beloved Elena.

He used his Alpha command to suppress me, severed my connection with anyone in the Pack, locked me in a basement filled with silver dust.

I begged him countless times to break the Mate Bond and let me go. Every time, he refused.

Alpha Asher snarled that if the Moon Goddess cursed him with me, then I had to endure it.

That pain,being rejected by your Mate while silver poison ravaged your body,I lived through it for five whole years.

In the end, my sanity shattered. My wolf Lucy chose self-destruction to protect me, and I followed her into death.

The laughable part? In my final moment, as my wolf dissolved into nothing, I saw Elena.

She was not suffering from poison's aftermath, but glowing with health as the Pack's new Luna.

She was never poisoned. It was all some witch herb she used to frame me.

Her love story with Alpha Asher got celebrated as true love that broke fate's chains.

From beginning to end, I was just the villain blocking their romance.

This time around?

I'm going to live well. I'm going to get far away from Alpha Asher. I'm going to take my wolf Lucy and find real freedom.