AfterMyRejectionIMarriedHisUncle

MALAKAR'S POV

Wow. That's cold.

I hadn't planned on staying for the whole ceremony. Politics dragged me to Emberclaw more often than I liked, and my nephew's bonding was the kind of event I could have skipped without anyone missing me. But my brother had insisted, and there was little point arguing with the Alpha King when he wanted his family paraded in front of the pack.

So I stood at the edge of the courtyard, arms crossed, and watched Ravion reject a girl in front of three hundred witnesses like he was declining a second helping of wine.

She didn't move. That was the first thing I noticed. Most people, rejected like that, at least flinch. She just stood there in her pale dress, hands loose at her sides, staring at him like she was waiting for the rest of the sentence.

But it never came and it seemed like she didn't know what to do with that. 

"Rough," Kael murmured beside me. My beta had a talent for understatement.

"Mm." I nodded without saying anything. 

The courtyard hadn't decided how to react yet. Everyone had gone quiet and there was this complete hush that had everyone just staring at the scene in front of them. 

Then someone laughed.

It started as a chuckle, something loud enough to be heard, but low enough to not carry around the room yet. And that seemed to break whatever held the rest of them back, because the whispering started immediately after, everyone seeming to have one opinion about the scene in front of them. 

And it wasn't pretty. 

"—always knew the Serath girl wasn't enough—"

"—can't even keep a mate for five minutes—"

"—did you see her face—"

I watched the girl's spine stay straight through all of it. Whatever was happening behind her eyes, she wasn't letting it show on the surface. I respected that honestly. 

She was hurt. That much was evident, but she did not say any thing. 

Then her mother stepped forward. "Get up," the woman hissed, low enough that I only caught it because I was close and my hearing was better than most. "You're embarrassing us."

The girl said something back, too quiet for me to hear, and whatever it was, it earned her a slap across the face hard enough to snap her head sideways.

The courtyard went dead silent.

"Alpha." Kael's voice, tight, right at my shoulder. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"I know that look." He hissed. 

I hadn't realized my face was doing anything. I unfolded my arms.

"This isn't ours to interfere with," Kael said, quieter now and more urgent. "It's Serath business. Pack business. If you step in—"

"She's still standing there."

"That's not the point. The point is if the Alpha of Vargulf Valley steps into a rejection ceremony that isn't his, you're making a statement you can't take back. Ravion will take it as an insult. The Seraths will take it as pity. Either way you're starting something."

He wasn't wrong. He was rarely wrong, which was most of why I kept him close.

The girl still hadn't moved. A red mark bloomed across her cheek where her mother had struck her, and she stood there with tears running freely now, not bothering to wipe them. She was not bothering to look at anyone, just staring at some fixed point past the whole crowd like if she looked hard enough at nothing, maybe all this would turn out to be a dream. 

"Alpha," Kael said again.

"I heard you the first time."

I crossed the courtyard anyway.

The whispering died as I walked, replaced by something more quiet and more nervous — the kind of silence reserved for an Alpha nobody in that courtyard had expected to see move. 

I felt eyes track me the whole way, felt the weight of my brother's gaze from across the crowd, felt Ravion's attention snap toward me like he'd only just registered I was there at all.

I stopped in front of the girl. Up close, she was younger than I'd assumed from across the courtyard, and the mark on her face was already darkening.

She looked up at me like she wasn't entirely sure I was real.

"Axira Serath," I called out her name, my voice loud and filled with authority. I already knew her name — everyone in the territory had known it for weeks, the girl the goddess supposedly chose for the Alpha's son.

"Yes," she said, voice cracking on the single syllable.

I turned to face the crowd. Her mother. Her father, a few feet back, his expression caught somewhere between fury and calculation. Ravion, still standing at the altar like he hadn't quite finished being the center of attention and resented having it taken from him this fast.

"She's rejected," I said, loud enough to carry. "Which means she's unclaimed."

Nobody answered and it was mostly because nobody dared to.

"I'll take her."

The courtyard erupted instantly. There wasn't any loud protests — nobody was foolish enough to shout over an Alpha — but the collective intake of breath was audible, a sound like the whole crowd had been struck at once, followed immediately by a low roar of whispers even faster and hungrier than the ones before.

I didn't wait for permission because I hadn't asked for any.

Behind me, close enough that only I could hear it, Kael exhaled something that sounded like a curse.

"You've just made this so much worse," he muttered.

Maybe he was right. 

But I wasn't about to watch a young girl become the object of ridicule. 

It shouldn't have been any of my business — but somehow, I just made it mine.