He Buried My Heart, I Buried His Empire

"Beta Marcus, I want to reject Alpha Kai and leave this pack forever. Please draft the rejection papers for me."

Marcus's face darkened with worry. His voice was careful, almost fearful.

"Elena, your bond wasn't simple to form. I watched you nearly die three times before your wolf accepted him. Think carefully before you destroy what the Moon Goddess gave you."

I had been Alpha Kai's mate for three years—and his greatest disappointment for just as long.

A month ago, I collapsed during a pack ceremony. My body was shutting down from severe anemia, my wolf so weak she could barely keep me breathing. The pack doctor made seventeen calls to my mate that night, begging him to come to the hospital because shared the same rare AB-negative blood type.

But Kai never answered.

That night, while I was dying alone on a cold hospital bed, my mate was in our bedroom with Sophia, my adopted sister.

Through the mate bond, I felt every moment of passion that should have been mine given to her.

The pack doctor found a traveling healer with compatible blood just in time. But I had already lost so much that my wolf retreated so deep inside me, I thought she was gone forever.

At that moment, everything I had believed in—three years of hoping he could learn to love me died along with the blood pooling beneath me.

I finally woke up from my pathetic dream. And this time, I was ready to disappear for good.

"I've made up my mind," I told Marcus. "And Kai won't fight it. He's been waiting for an excuse to get rid of me since our mating ceremony."

I had always known the truth—not once in three years had my mate looked at me with anything but duty.

But I had loved him since we were children. When the pack elders announced our engagement, I sobbed with happiness, thinking my cursed life had finally found its purpose.

How stupid I had been.

That evening, I returned to the pack house and found Kai in the garden, his large hands carefully cutting white roses.

He had always despised gardening. During our first month as mates, when I planted moonflowers by our bedroom window, he ripped them out the next morning. He said their scent gave him headaches.

But when Sophia mentioned she loved white roses, he enrolled in a gardening course behind my back.

Tonight, he looked up when I approached. "You're late again. Didn't the council meeting end an hour ago?"

Even in dirt-stained clothes, Kai's powerful frame and sharp features made him breathtaking.

I forced my voice to stay calm. "The new pack members needed extra guidance. Their integration is taking longer than expected."

Kai didn't question it. To him, I was always busy with meaningless tasks—perfect cover for why he could ignore his unwanted mate.

"The roses are almost ready. I'm making a bouquet for dinner tonight."

I sat down on the stone bench, watching him work with such gentle care. The sight made my chest cave in with familiar agony.

White roses were Sophia's favorite flower. I was deathly allergic to them.

During our mating ceremony, when the pack decorated our altar with white roses, I had broken out in hives so severe that my face swelled shut. Everyone thought it was nerves. Kai never once asked if I was okay.

Three years of living together, and he still chose flowers that could literally kill me.

If he had paid attention to me even once, he would have remembered watching me nearly suffocate that day.

Kai noticed my silence. "Elena? Why do you look like you're about to cry?"

The irony was too much. I pulled two documents from my bag with trembling hands.

"Before dinner, there are two papers I need you to sign."

Kai hated mixing pack business with personal time. "What's so urgent it can't wait until tomorrow's meeting?"

Before he could reach for the papers, his phone buzzed.

He tried to hide the screen, but I saw the name that lit up his face like sunshine.

Sophia.

Without a word of apology, he stood and walked to the far end of the garden to take her call.

His sudden movement knocked over the glass vase holding his perfect roses. It shattered across the stone path, sending sharp pieces flying.

One shard sliced deep into my wrist, and blood began dripping steadily onto the white petals scattered around my feet.

Kai didn't notice. He was too busy laughing at whatever Sophia was saying, his voice soft and loving in a way he had never spoken to me.

Twenty-five minutes later, he hung up and grabbed his jacket from the garden chair.

"Emergency at Sophia's apartment. Her heating broke and she's terrified to stay alone in the cold. I need to go fix it."

I held up my bleeding wrist. "You haven't signed the papers yet."

He glanced at me with obvious annoyance. Without reading a single word, he flipped to the last pages and scrawled his signature on both documents.

"There. Happy now? Can I go take care of someone who actually needs me?"

I stared at his careless signatures, one rejecting our mate bond, the other transferring his Alpha rights back to me and nodded silently. "Yes. Go to her."

As if staying near me for one more second would poison him, Kai rushed away without a backward glance.

Watching him run to comfort Sophia while I bled alone in his garden, I let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob.

If he had cared about me at all, he would have noticed I was injured.

If he had cared about me at all, he would have read what he was signing.

But Kai had always belonged to Sophia—my adopted sister and everything I could never be.

I was born three months premature, my lungs barely developed, my wolf so weak she could hardly manifest. The doctors told my parents I probably wouldn't live to see my tenth birthday.

They were desperate. Our pack needed a strong heir, someone who could lead when they were gone.

So when I turned five, they adopted Sophia from the Blue Moon Orphanage. She was perfect, healthy, strong and beautiful.

They raised us as sisters, but I always knew the truth. Sophia was their real daughter in every way that mattered. I was just the mistake they had to live with.

When the time came for me to take a mate, they chose Kai—the strongest Alpha in the region. Our union would strengthen both packs, and I would finally be useful for something.

But Kai and Sophia had fallen in love during training sessions. The night before our mating ceremony, I heard them talking in the hallway.

"This is killing me," Sophia had whispered, crying. "I can't watch you mate with her."

"It's just politics," Kai had replied. "You know you're the only one I love. Elena... she's just a duty. A weak little thing who can barely shift. This means nothing, my heart belongs to you. Always."

I had pressed myself against the wall, my weak wolf whimpering in my chest as I listened to my future mate promise his love to my sister.

But I had been so desperate, so pathetic, that I convinced myself things would change, I had been mistaken.

Now, with tears streaming down my face, I pulled out a journal. I had kept a journal of every time they broke my heart, promising myself that when it reached one hundred, I would find the strength to set them free.

Tonight was number ninety-nine.

Tomorrow, when Kai discovered what he had signed, would be one hundred.

I carefully gathered the scattered roses, ignoring how the thorns cut my palms and how the pollen made my throat close up. With my own blood mixing with the flowers, I arranged them in a new vase and placed it on our kitchen table.

My final gift to the man who had never wanted me.

With shaking hands, I picked up my phone and dialed the number I hadn't used in three years.

"Alpha Damon... it's Elena. The rejection cooling-off period ends in thirty days. Please, come take me somewhere I can finally breathe."