The Vampire King’s Rejected Mate

I smoothed the dark silk over my hips and immediately regretted every decision that had led me to this mirror.

The dress was slate gray, simple and close-fitting, with a neckline that dipped just enough to make me wonder whether I had lost my mind.

It was also the exact dress Rowan had noticed three months ago in a shop window in town.

That color would look good on you.

Six words.

I had bought it the next afternoon like an idiot.

“You’re twenty-two years old, Elara,” I told my reflection as I pushed a loose strand of dark hair behind my ear. “You are entirely too old to dress for a man who still steals your car and returns it with an empty tank.”

My reflection remained unconvinced.

Outside my window, the Blackwood packhouse was already coming alive. Doors opened and slammed along the corridor. Footsteps crossed the courtyard below. Somewhere downstairs, someone laughed loud enough to be heard through two floors and closed windows.

Beyond the glass, the full moon hung pale above the trees.

The Moon Ceremony started in less than forty minutes.

I should have been used to it by now.

I wasn’t.

For most of the pack, ceremony night meant cider, music and the possibility of discovering the person the Goddess had apparently decided they belonged with.

For me, it had become an annual reminder of something everyone already knew.

I had no wolf.

At eighteen, I had waited for the fever.

Then the pain.

Then the transformation everyone had spent years warning me about.

Nothing happened.

Four years later, it still hadn’t.

The pack had stopped expecting that to change a long time ago.

I picked up my jacket.

Staying in my room would have been easier. Unfortunately, easier had a habit of looking a lot like surrender around here, and I had given the Blackwood pack enough reasons to pity me already.

They weren’t getting another one tonight.

I opened my bedroom door and stepped into the corridor.

Two women stood near the staircase pinning small silver ribbons to each other’s dresses.

One of them was Brenda.

Of course it was.

Brenda had shifted approximately ten minutes after turning eighteen and had spent the years since behaving as though personal merit had somehow been involved.

Her eyes found me almost immediately.

They moved from my boots to the dress and finally settled on my face.

“Elara.” Her smile appeared half a second too late. “You’re coming to the circle?”

I stopped beside them.

“That was the plan.”

“Oh.” She tilted her head. “Of course. I just think it’s really brave that you keep coming every year.”

There it was.

That tone.

The one people used when they wanted credit for being kind.

Her friend suddenly became fascinated by the ribbon in her hands.

Brenda continued. “I mean, with everyone else…”

“Having wolves?”

Her smile tightened.

“I was going to say participating.”

“Much kinder.”

“Elara, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” I gave her my sweetest smile. “Someone has to keep an eye on the refreshments while the rest of you are running around naked in the woods.”

Her friend made a choking sound that might have been a laugh.

Brenda’s eyes narrowed.

I took that as my cue to leave.

“Have fun tonight,” I said. “And try not to trip over your own tail this year.”

I made it down the stairs before she came up with an answer.

The cold air hit me the moment I stepped through the side door.

Good.

I needed it.

The garden terrace overlooked the forest stretching north toward the ridge. Between the trees, lanterns marked the path leading to the old stone circle. Farther up the mountain, the first slow beat of the ceremonial drum rolled through the valley.

I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself.

“You’re hiding.”

I closed my eyes.

There were very few people who could identify my moods from twenty feet away and sound smug about it.

“You always assume everything I do is dramatic.”

“Because it usually is.”

I turned.

Rowan stood beneath the stone archway.

He wore the formal black coat reserved for the Alpha’s family, the silver clasp at his throat catching the moonlight. His dark hair looked like he had run a hand through it one too many times, which probably meant his father had been talking at him for hours.

That thought made me smile before I could stop myself.

Rowan noticed.

“There she is.”

“Who?”

“The woman who’s been avoiding me since lunch.”

“I have not been avoiding you.”

“You left the kitchen when I walked in.”

“I had somewhere to be.”

“You were making toast.”

“It was urgent toast.”

His mouth twitched.

He crossed the terrace toward me, and something in my shoulders loosened despite myself.

That had always been the problem with Rowan.

He felt familiar.

Too familiar.

We had known each other since we were six, when he pulled one of my shoes out of the creek after I tried to jump between two rocks and missed spectacularly. He had spent most of the following sixteen years alternating between annoying me and making himself indispensable.

Tonight, unfortunately, he also looked unfairly good in formal black.

I decided not to reward him by mentioning it.

His gaze dropped briefly to my dress.

Then stopped.

I suddenly became very aware of my hands.

“So,” I said. “Are you going to say something, or have you forgotten how?”

“You bought it.”

Oh no.

“I buy clothes sometimes. It’s one of my many hobbies.”

“That dress.”

I looked down as though I had never seen it before.

“This old thing?”

“El.”

I hated when he said my name like that.

Mostly because I liked it.

“What?”

His eyes stayed on mine for a moment before dropping back to the dress.

“You look beautiful.”

The words landed somewhere inconveniently low in my stomach.

I forced a shrug.

“You look acceptable.”

“Acceptable?”

“The coat is doing a lot of the work.”

He laughed under his breath and came to lean against the railing beside me.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

The drums sounded again in the distance.

Up close, he looked tired. Not physically exactly. Rowan could go for days on too little sleep and still somehow look annoyingly functional.

This was different.

Tension sat behind his eyes.

“Your father?” I asked.

He exhaled through his nose.

“Two hours.”

“That bad?”

“The words responsibility, leadership and optics have officially lost all meaning.”

I smiled.

Marcus Blackwood had been preparing Rowan to lead the pack since before either of us understood what an Alpha actually did. Every decision Rowan made seemed to pass through his father first.

Who he trained with.

Where he went.

How he spoke at council meetings.

Who he was seen with.

The last one had become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Rowan glanced toward me.

“What?”

I hadn’t realized I was staring.

“Nothing.”

“That’s convincing.”

“I was thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

“See? This is why nobody respects you.”

“Pretty sure most of the pack respects me.”

“They’re frightened of your father. Easy mistake.”

He smiled, but it faded quickly.

His attention drifted toward the moonlit path leading to the ridge.

“Tonight feels strange.”

I followed his gaze.

“Ceremony nerves?”

“I don’t get ceremony nerves.”

“You spent half of last year complaining that Elder Thomas was going to make you give a speech.”

“That was different. Public speaking is unnatural.”

“You’re going to be Alpha.”

“A design flaw in the system.”

I laughed.

He looked at me again, but this time he didn’t join in.

Something about his expression made my smile fade.

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s helpful.”

“Since sundown…” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Everything feels off.”

“Off how?”

He hesitated.

“Sharper.”

The word settled strangely between us.

“Maybe your wolf’s reacting to the moon.”

“Maybe.”

But he didn’t sound convinced.

Neither was I.

Rowan’s wolf had always been unusually responsive to ceremony nights, but there was something different about him now. A restless energy I could almost feel from where I stood.

He looked at me for another second.

Then his gaze shifted down.

To my hand.

His fingers brushed mine.

Barely.

It could have been accidental.

Except he didn’t move away.

Neither did I.

My heartbeat immediately betrayed me.

Ridiculous.

I had spent years teaching myself not to interpret every look, every touch, every late-night drive with Rowan as evidence of something more.

He was my friend.

My closest friend.

The future Alpha.

And I was—

No.

Not tonight.

I refused to finish that thought.

Rowan turned his palm slightly and hooked two fingers around mine.

Not exactly holding my hand.

Not exactly not holding it, either.

“You’re staying close tonight,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a request or an Alpha command?”

“A request.”

“That sounded suspiciously like a command.”

His mouth curved.

“Fine. Would you please stay close tonight?”

“Better.”

“I’m serious, El.”

Something in his voice made me look at him properly.

The teasing had disappeared.

For one reckless second, I wondered if he felt it too.

Whatever had been building between us for months.

Whatever neither of us had been brave enough to name.

Maybe that was why tonight felt different.

Maybe—

The drums suddenly quickened.

Voices called from inside the packhouse.

Rowan glanced toward the doors.

“That’s us.”

He released my fingers.

The loss of contact shouldn’t have bothered me.

It did.

He stepped away from the railing and held out his arm.

“Come on.”

I stared at it.

“Very formal.”

“I’m wearing a ridiculous silver clasp. I have to commit to the role.”

I slipped my hand through the crook of his arm.

His eyes flicked briefly toward me.

Something softened there.

Then we started toward the forest.

Lanterns glowed between the trees, marking the path upward. Wolves moved ahead of us in small groups, their voices carrying through the cold night air.

I could already see the firelight from the stone circle flickering beyond the ridge.

Every sensible part of me knew better than to expect anything from tonight.

Four years had taught me that.

But Rowan’s arm was warm beneath my hand.

He had noticed the dress.

He had told me I was beautiful.

And when his fingers had touched mine, neither of us had moved away.

So as we followed the lanterns into the trees, I let myself do something I had spent years learning not to do.

I hoped.