All Chapters of Claimed By My Mate Rival: Chapter 1 - Chapter 3

Chapter OneThe RejectionThe dress didn't fit right. I'd known that in the mirror this morning, and I knew it worse now, standing at the front of the Presentation Hall with three hundred pairs of eyes deciding the same thing at once.My mother's fingers were wrapped around my wrist, too tight, the way you hold something you're afraid will bolt. "Chin up," she whispered, not because she believed in me. Because the Alpha King was watching, and appearances were the only currency my family had left.Three feet away, Rosalind glowed. Her dress had been cut for her body instead of forced onto mine — silver silk skimming a waist my mother used to measure with her hands and sigh over. She didn't look at me. She didn't have to. The whole room was already doing that for her, comparing, and I was losing before anyone had said a word.I stared at the floor tiles instead. Counted the scuffed ones. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Anything to keep from watching the way people leaned toward each other in their s

Chapter ThreeWhat's Mine to ProtectI woke up not knowing where I was, and for exactly one second, that was a mercy.No ceremony hall. No laughter still ringing in my ears. Just an unfamiliar ceiling, pale morning light through a window that faced the wrong direction, and a half-breath of nothing before memory caught up and slammed back into place like a door blown shut by wind.Silver Wolf territory. Callan's pack. Kade's voice still living somewhere behind my sternum, low and possessive, promising I'd come crawling back.I sat up slowly, and that was when I saw the wardrobe.◆ ◆ ◆Someone had filled it. Not with the kind of clothes that got handed to me back home — things bought for a smaller sister and let out at the seams, apologetic fabric that always seemed to be sorry for the body it was covering. These were mine, actually mine, cut for someone my size instead of adjusted for it. No begging fabric. No safety pins hidden at the waistband.I stood in front of it for a long time