All Chapters of Rejecting My Alpha: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Dimitri POVThe first thing I want to do is question Athena.There are too many things I need to know. Too many questions that have been waiting inside me since the moment she walked into Blackridge carrying our son.But I am not reckless.One wrong question. One wrong word. One moment of anger, and she could decide that Blackridge is no longer a place she needs to remain.She is here for a week.Seven days.I can use seven days.So I keep every question behind my teeth and give her the space she needs to stay without feeling cornered.It takes more restraint than I am accustomed to.Especially when my wolf keeps reminding me that my son is only a few walls away.I notice him everywhere.Sometimes it is the faint scent of him drifting through the corridor after Athena passes. Sometimes it is the sound of a soft laugh carried from the packhouse. Sometimes it is simply the knowledge that he is somewhere inside the same roof as me.My attention shifts toward him before I even realize I a

Dimitri's POVI have been standing in the doorway for several minutes.I could have intervened the moment I walked in.These are my pack members, and what Gemma did is something I would address myself under other circumstances.I have never allowed anyone to mistreat the wolves under my protection simply because of rank. I would have stopped Gemma before she could make that omega lower his head in shame.But something in the way Athena moves stops me from stepping forward.She does not hesitate.She does not raise her voice.She simply stepped between Gemma and one of my wolves and made it clear that no one would be humiliated in her presence.The way she took a stand for my pack member, the way she protected him, does something in my chest.Something I do not have a name for.She is still protective what belongs to me.My pack.My people.And somehow, watching her do it feels different from anything I expected.No one notices me.My attention is fixed on Athena.She is sitting in my

Athena's POVI noticed it on the first day.Dimitri positioned himself at the edge of the training field when Augustus was there. He chose a spot where the angle gave him a clear line of sight to the car seat without making it obvious that he was watching.At least, that was probably what he thought.I notice everything about him.I notice where he stands. Where his eyes go. How his posture changes whenever Augustus makes a sound. How his attention shifts even when he is speaking to someone else.And even today, I watch him from the corner of my eye while I run the fighters through the drills.His body is the way it always is, controlled and contained, giving very little away on the surface. His face remains unreadable. His arms are folded across his chest as he watches the training.But underneath all of that, his wolf is straining forward.I can feel it from twenty feet away.It is the particular tension of a wolf who wants to be somewhere he has not been given permission to go.Clo

Dimitri's POVI stand in the infirmary for a moment after she leaves.The door closes behind Athena with a quiet sound that seems louder than it should.The doctor busies himself with clearing the instruments from the tray. The nurse strips the paper from the bed and gathers the used supplies. Neither of them looks at me.They have enough sense not to bother me.For a few seconds, I simply stare at the closed door.I can still picture her walking through it.Her injured arm held close to her body.Her face composed.Her steps slightly slower than usual, but still carrying the same certainty she brings into everything she does.Thank you for your help, Alpha.The words remain in my mind.Polite.Distant.As though I am a stranger who happened to be there when she needed assistance.I turn away from the door.The corridor outside the infirmary is quiet. Late afternoon light comes through the windows at the far end and falls across the stone floor in long, thin rectangles. I walk through

Athena's POVAs I near Dimitri's room, my feet suddenly stall.The unmistakable scent of Gemma reaches me first, sharp enough to cut through everything else that is registering my senses. I know that scent immediately, lingering fresh enough that I understand she's been here recently, and a moment later I catch the sound of her moving somewhere further down the hall, toward his wing.My wolf stirs at the recognition.She doesn't growl. She doesn't bristle the way I half expect her to. There's no anger in her at all, which somehow unsettles me more than anger would have.Something quieter settles inside me instead. Something closer to exhaustion than to hurt, a kind of resignation that's been building slowly over the past year, layer by layer, until it's become simply part of how I understand my life now. Gemma exists in his life, a life I don't have any right on.Maybe I shouldn't have come here at this hour.Augustus shifts in my arms, pulling my attention away from the thought befor