Chapter 1
“I, Alpha Jack, reject you, Alecia Moore, as my mate.”
The words did not rip through me the way rejection was supposed to. There was no supernatural pain, no mate bond snapping, no unbearable agony tearing my soul apart.
There was only my heart.
Breaking.
Slowly, quietly, painfully human.
I stood in the great hall of Hillcrest Pack, surrounded by wolves who had once bowed to me, who had once called me Luna, who had once celebrated my mating ceremony with pride.
Now, they watched me with curiosity, judgment, and something dangerously close to relief. Jack did not look at me when he said it. He stood tall on the Alpha dais, his posture rigid, his face hard, as though he were delivering a sentence rather than destroying a life.
Three years.
We had been mated for three years. Three years of shared nights, shared plans, shared promises that dissolved in a single sentence. Beside him stood Mara.
My cousin.
Her hand rested on her swollen belly, her body angled slightly toward him in a way that spoke of possession. She was smiling, not softly, not apologetically, but with quiet triumph, as though this moment belonged to her.
Six months ago, I had walked into Jack’s room without knocking, my arms full of laundry, my heart full of trust. I remembered the strange stillness in the corridor, the door not fully closed, the way my instincts whispered a warning I ignored. The sounds reached me first. Then the sight. Jack in our bed. Mara beneath him. My world collapsing without mercy.
I remembered dropping everything, remembered the way Jack had scrambled away from her, panic written all over his face as he called my name. I remembered how Mara had not even bothered to hide herself, how she had looked at me with a smile that promised this was not over.
That night, Jack had begged.
The Alpha of Hillcrest Pack had knelt before me, swearing it was a mistake, that it meant nothing, that I was his mate, his future, his choice. I had forgiven him because I loved him, because I believed in the sacredness of mates, because I wanted to believe I was not replaceable.Now, six months later, he was rejecting me publicly, officially, permanently.
“Alecia Moore,” Elder Ronan said, his voice carefully neutral, “do you accept this rejection?”
My head lifted slowly.
“No,” I said, my voice trembling but firm.
“I do not.” A murmur swept through the hall.
Jack finally looked at me, and whatever I had hoped to see in his eyes—guilt, hesitation, regret—was not there. “Do not make this difficult,” he said coldly. Difficult. I took a step forward, my heart pounding.
“You promised me,” I said. “You told me I was enough. You told me she meant nothing.”Mara laughed softly beside him, her hand stroking her belly in deliberate provocation.
“You believed that?” she asked. “An Alpha needs an heir, cousin. Not a barren human who cannot give him one.” The word hit me like a slap.
“I am not barren,” I whispered.
She tilted her head, smiling wider.
“Then where is your child?” she asked. “Because this one is Jack’s.”
The hall erupted into whispers.
I waited for pain that never came, waited for the mate bond to retaliate, to punish him for rejecting me. But nothing happened beyond heartbreak, because I was human.
Everyone in Hillcrest knew it.
My parents had found me as a baby in the forest and raised me as their own. I had trained with the pack, lived among them, loved one of them. When Jack chose me as his mate three years ago, I thought I had finally earned my place. I had been wrong. My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor, pride forgotten.
I crawled toward him, clutching at his clothes, my voice breaking as I begged.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Please, Jack. I will endure it. I will accept the shame. Just do not reject me. Do not throw me away.”
He looked down at me with indifference.
“Guards,” he said calmly. “Remove her.” Hands grabbed me, dragged me across the marble floor as my sobs echoed through the hall.
I screamed his name until my throat burned, until the doors closed behind me and cut off the sound of my heartbreak.---I went to my parents’ house because I had nowhere else to go.
They had been gone for five years, and the house no longer felt like mine, but it was the only place that still carried echoes of safety. I knocked weakly, my body trembling from exhaustion and grief. The door flew open. My aunt stood there, Mara’s mother, her eyes sharp with satisfaction.
“So,” she sneered, “the rejected mate finally shows her face.”
“I just need a place to stay,” I whispered.
She grabbed my hair and yanked me inside before I could react, shoving me to the floor. Pain shot through my palms as I cried out.
“You stopped belonging here years ago when your parents died,” she said cruelly. “And now you do not belong to the pack either.” She dragged me across the floor toward the door, her grip unforgiving, her insults relentless. She called me useless. She called me a disgrace. She reminded me that her daughter would be Luna, that I had been nothing more than a placeholder.
Then she threw me out.
The door slammed shut behind me, final and merciless.
I lay on the ground for a moment, staring at the dirt beneath my fingers, my chest heaving. I had no parents.
No mate. No home. No pack.
I got up and walked.
I did not know where I was going. I only knew I could not stay. I wandered beyond familiar paths, beyond Hillcrest’s borders, until the pack scent disappeared and the forest swallowed me whole. The night was quiet in a way that felt wrong.
Then I heard footsteps. Three wolves emerged from the shadows, unfamiliar, dangerous. One shifted before my eyes, his expression hard as he looked me over.
“What is a human doing here?”
“I am not a rogue,” I said quickly. “I belong to Hillcrest Pack.”
“Not anymore,” he replied coldly.
Before I could react, my arms were seized, my wrists bound. Panic flooded me as they dragged me deeper into the forest.
As Hillcrest disappeared behind me, one terrifying truth settled in my chest.
Jack’s rejection had broken my heart.
But leaving the pack had just placed my life in danger.
And whatever waited ahead of me was far worse than being unwanted.
