After My Alpha Rejected Me, I Awakened as Royalty

I stopped eating their food on the third day.

Not dramatically. Not with an announcement. I just stopped. When the tray arrived that evening—delivered by a young delta who wouldn't meet my eyes—I waited until his footsteps faded down the corridor, then carried the entire meal to the narrow window and dumped it into the overgrown weeds below. Soup, bread, the small cup of broth that always carried that faint herbal bitterness I knew too well.

Gone.

Mary brought me dried meat that night. Strips of venison wrapped in cloth, hidden in the pocket of her apron. A tin cup of water from the courtyard tap, cold and clean. She didn't ask why I'd stopped eating the pack house meals. She just set the food on the cot and left.

I ate slowly, chewing each piece until it dissolved. The water tasted sharper than it should have. Cleaner. I pressed my hand to my sternum and waited.

Nothing.

But the silence in my chest felt different. Less empty. More like something waiting.

I filed that away and kept going.

---

By the fifth day, my sense of smell had sharpened.

I noticed it when Mary came at dawn with more dried meat and a handful of herbs she'd foraged from the garden's edge—the part Giselle's warriors hadn't reached yet. The scent of rosemary hit me before Mary was through the door. Sharp. Green. Distinct.

I blinked.

Mary set the herbs on the cot. "For tea," she said. "If you can boil water."

"I can," I said quietly.

She nodded and turned to leave, then paused. "Giselle's asking questions. About why you're not finishing your meals."

I looked at her. "What did you tell her?"

"That grief kills appetite." Mary's face was unreadable. "She believed it."

She left.

I pressed my hand to my sternum again, harder this time, searching for that current I'd felt when Blake's aura pressed down on me. It was there—faint, barely perceptible, like something stirring beneath frozen water.

Seren?

No response.

But the warmth in my chest stayed.

I made tea from the rosemary and drank it slowly, tasting every note. The bitterness. The faint sweetness underneath. The clarity.

The wolfsbane was leaving my system. I could feel it.

I didn't tell anyone.

---

Giselle summoned Mary on the seventh day.

I was at the window when I saw them cross the courtyard—Giselle in a cream dress, two warriors flanking her, and Mary walking between them with her back straight and her hands loose at her sides. They entered the pack house through the kitchen door.

I couldn't see what happened inside.

But I heard it.

The sound carried through the open window—a sharp crack, then the scrape of something heavy hitting a counter. Voices raised. Giselle's, clear and pleasant. Mary's, lower and steady.

Then silence.

I gripped the windowsill and waited.

Five minutes later, the kitchen door opened. Giselle emerged first, smoothing her dress. The warriors followed. Then Mary.

She was holding her hand to her mouth. Blood seeped between her fingers.

I was at the door before I realized I'd moved. My leg brace caught on the threshold and I stumbled, caught myself on the frame, kept going. The corridor was empty. I reached the kitchen in less than a minute.

Mary was at the basin, rinsing her mouth. The water ran pink.

Giselle stood at the center of the room with Dara Whitfield at her right and another warrior I didn't know at her left. A meal tray sat on the counter between us.

"Eliza," Giselle said pleasantly. "How kind of you to join us."

I looked at Mary. Her lip was split. Blood still dripped from the corner of her mouth. She met my eyes and shook her head once—a tiny, deliberate movement.

Don't.

I looked back at Giselle.

"Mary has been accused of divided loyalty," Giselle said, her tone light and conversational. "Serving a rejected she-wolf instead of her Luna. I thought it was time to clarify where her priorities lie."

"She serves where she chooses," I said quietly.

Giselle smiled. "Does she?"

She turned to Dara Whitfield and nodded once.

Dara moved.

She crossed the kitchen in two strides and struck Mary across the face with the back of her hand—hard, deliberate, the sound sharp and ugly in the small space. Mary's head snapped to the side. She staggered into the counter, her hand flying out to catch herself. Blood appeared at the corner of her mouth again, brighter this time.

I lunged forward.

Two warriors seized me immediately. One caught my arms, the other grabbed my brace and twisted. Pain shot up my leg and I gasped, my knees buckling. They held me upright by force.

Giselle walked to the counter and retrieved a small glass vial from her apron pocket. She held it up to the light. The liquid inside was pale green and viscous.

Wolfsbane tincture.

She uncorked it slowly, her movements deliberate, and poured the entire contents into the meal tray on the counter. The liquid spread across the soup in thin, oily streaks. She set the empty vial down and turned to me.

"Eat," she said.

I stared at her.

She smiled. "Or Mary will."

The warriors holding me tightened their grip. My leg brace dug into my calf. The bond-mark on my neck throbbed.

I looked past Giselle to the doorway.

Blake was there.

He stood in the frame with his arms crossed, his face unreadable. Our eyes met for half a second. I waited for him to say something. To do something.

He turned and walked away.

The sound of his footsteps faded down the corridor.

I looked back at Giselle. At the tray. At Mary, still gripping the counter with blood on her mouth.

Something in my chest that had been bending for five years went still.

Not broken. Not collapsed.

Still.

I stopped trying to pull free. I stopped struggling. The warriors holding me shifted uncertainly.

"Let her go," Giselle said.

They released me. I caught myself on the counter, my leg screaming. I straightened slowly and met Giselle's eyes.

"I'll eat," I said.

Giselle's smile widened.

I picked up the tray. The soup sloshed, the wolfsbane streaks glinting in the afternoon light. I looked at it for a long moment.

Then I looked at Mary.

She was watching me with something in her eyes I couldn't name. Not fear. Not pity.

Recognition.

I set the tray back down on the counter.

"No," I said quietly.

Giselle's smile vanished.

I turned and walked out of the kitchen. My leg brace scraped the floor with every step. The warriors didn't follow. No one stopped me.

I made it back to my room, closed the door, and pressed my back against the wall.

My hands were shaking. My leg was screaming. The bond-mark on my neck throbbed in time with my pulse.

But the current in my chest was stronger now. Warmer. Closer to the surface.

I pressed my hand to my sternum and listened.

Deep in the silence, something stirred.

Not Seren. Not yet.

But something.

I closed my eyes and made a decision that had no anger in it at all.

Only precision.