All Chapters of Rejected By My Alpha, Chosen By The Lycan King: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I wore my best dress that night.It was a simple white gown, nothing too fancy, but my mother had pressed it carefully that morning and told me I looked beautiful. I believed her. For the first time in a long time, I actually believed her.Tonight was my twenty first birthday.Tonight was the night I would meet my mate.Every wolf in Mooncrest knew what the mate ceremony meant. It was the most important night of your life. The moon goddess herself would draw two souls together and nothing in the world could feel more right than that moment. That one perfect moment when your eyes meet and your wolf goes still and you just know.I had been waiting for this my whole life.I stood at the edge of the ceremonial grounds and looked around at the crowd. Lanterns were hung between the trees. The night air smelled like pine and something sweet I could not name. Pack members were laughing and talking and the energy around me felt warm and alive.I tried to calm myself down.My wolf was already r

I walked for a long time before I let myself think.That was the only way I knew how to manage it. Keep moving. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and do not let your mind settle on any one thing for too long or it will pull you under. I had learned that about myself a long time ago. Stillness was dangerous when everything hurt.The pack lands ended at the old stone bridge on the east road. I had crossed it a hundred times before but always coming back. Never leaving for good. I stopped in the middle of it and looked down at the water moving below and I stayed there for a moment just breathing.Then I crossed to the other side and kept walking.The east road was quiet. It wound through thick forest for the first several miles before opening out into the wider territory that sat between Mooncrest and the nearest human town. I had no plan beyond that. I knew I could not stay in wolf territory, not any territory connected to Mooncrest anyway, because word traveled fast among pac

A week passed.Then another.I settled into a rhythm that was simple and manageable and asked nothing complicated of me. Wake up. Eat Marta's breakfast. Walk the town. Work the evening shift at the Grey Oak. Sleep. Do it again.It was not a big life. But it was mine and nobody was taking anything from it and that mattered more than I expected it to.Donal turned out to be a decent man to work for. He did not talk much but he was fair and he paid on time and when a customer gave me trouble one evening he appeared at my shoulder so quickly and so quietly that the man nearly fell off his stool in fright. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be. The customer apologized and left and Donal went back to the counter like nothing had happened.I worked harder after that.The other person I came to know was a girl named Peta who worked the morning shift at the inn and who had the kind of personality that filled a room without trying. She was small and quick and talked constantly and somehow neve

He did not move toward me right away.He just stood there at the end of the lane with his hands loose at his sides and looked at me with that expression I could not quite name. Not concern exactly. Not coldness either. Something in between that I did not have a word for yet.I got to my feet slowly. My knee was stinging and my hands were dirty from the cobblestones but I was steady and I made sure that was visible. I was not going to be found on the ground by anyone else tonight."Are you hurt?" he asked.His voice was low and even. The kind of voice that did not need to rise to carry weight."I am fine," I said.He looked at my knee. The tear in my trousers was visible and there was a thin line of blood showing through it. He looked back at my face."You are not fine," he said. Not unkind. Just accurate."I have had worse," I told him.Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile. More like the idea of one that he had decided against at the last moment. He looked back towar

We left the next morning.I told Donal that evening that I would not be coming back. He looked at me from across the bar counter with those steady eyes of his and nodded once like he had been expecting it. He counted out my remaining wages and put them on the counter and then he reached under the bar and put a small wrapped parcel next to the coins."Food for the road," he said.That was all. No questions, no speech, no advice I had not asked for. I picked up the coins and the parcel and said thank you and he was already turned back to his work before I reached the door.I would miss him, I thought. In the quiet uncomplicated way you miss someone who treated you decently when they had no particular reason to.Peta was harder.She was waiting outside the inn when I came back, sitting on the front step like she had known I was coming and had decided to be there anyway. When she saw my face she stood up and crossed her arms and looked at me with those quick bright eyes."You are leaving,