My Mate Rejected Me for His Pregnant Mistress

Valentin didn't answer my question.

He stepped fully into the corridor, his hand still on the chamber door, and his eyes moved past me like I was furniture.

"Marcus," he said, his voice carrying the Alpha tone that made the walls hum. "Dirk. Get here. Now."

I stayed where I was, standing in the doorway, my gaze locked on Hailey's marked throat. The bite was fresh. Days old, maybe a week. The skin around it still carried the faint bruising of a completed bond.

Six years.

Six years I'd waited for that mark.

And he'd given it to her.

Footsteps echoed down the hall. Beta Marcus Cole arrived first, his shirt half-buttoned, his expression confused. Gamma Dirk followed a beat later, tugging his jacket on, his brow furrowed.

"Alpha?" Marcus said carefully, his eyes flicking between Valentin and me.

Valentin straightened. His face was blank now, wiped clean of anything resembling discomfort or guilt. He looked like he was about to deliver a report.

"I need witnesses," he said.

My stomach dropped.

Marcus went still. Dirk's confusion deepened, but he didn't speak.

Valentin turned to face me fully. His jaw was set. His hands were loose at his sides. He looked calm. Practiced.

Like he'd rehearsed this.

"I, Valentin Shaw, Alpha of Nighthollow," he began, his voice formal and cold, "reject you, Fiona West, as my mate."

The bond snapped.

It wasn't gradual. It wasn't a slow unraveling. It was a whip crack across every nerve in my body, white-hot and total, and the pain drove me to my knees before I could stop myself.

I hit the stone floor hard, my palms slapping against the cold surface, my breath punching out of my lungs in a sound I didn't recognize.

My wolf howled.

Then she went silent.

Completely, utterly silent.

The connection I'd felt for six years — faint, incomplete, always just out of reach — vanished. Not severed. Smothered. Like someone had pressed a pillow over a candle and held it there until the flame died.

I couldn't breathe.

I pressed my forehead to the floor, my fingers curling against the stone, trying to ground myself, trying to pull air into my lungs past the crushing weight in my chest.

Valentin's shoes appeared in my line of vision.

He stepped over me.

Literally stepped over me, one polished shoe passing inches from my hand, and kept walking.

"You were never worthy of a Luna's title," he said, his voice flat. "You should have known that."

The chamber door closed behind him with a soft, final click.

I stayed on the floor.

My hands were shaking now. My whole body was shaking. The pain was receding, leaving behind something worse — a hollow, echoing emptiness where the bond had been, where my wolf had been.

I tried to reach for her.

Nothing.

Just silence.

I forced myself to lift my head.

Marcus was still standing against the corridor wall, his face unreadable. His eyes met mine for a single, long moment.

He didn't move to help me.

He didn't say anything.

He just… looked at me.

Then he turned and walked away, Dirk following a step behind, their footsteps fading down the hall.

I was alone.

I don't know how long I stayed there. Long enough for the stone to leech the warmth from my palms. Long enough for my breathing to steady into something that resembled normal.

Then I stood.

My legs were unsteady, but they held.

I didn't knock on the chamber door. I didn't ask to be let back in.

I turned and walked back down the corridor, my footsteps silent on the runner carpet, my hands still trembling faintly at my sides.

My room was exactly as I'd left it.

The bed was made. The small wind-chime hung outside the open window, tinkling softly in the night breeze. My battered field journal sat on the desk where I'd moved it this morning, the leather cover worn smooth from years of handling.

I picked it up.

Six years of work. Every strategy. Every treaty clause. Every tactical decision that built Nighthollow's reputation. All of it documented in my shorthand, the coded language only I could read.

I wrapped it under my arm.

Then I reached for the wind-chime, lifting it carefully off its hook, the delicate glass pieces clinking softly together.

I didn't pack anything else.

No clothes. No personal items. Nothing that would slow me down.

I walked out of my room, down the back staircase, through the kitchen where two Omegas were still cleaning dishes from the anniversary dinner that never happened.

They looked up when I passed.

I didn't stop.

The pack house doors were unlocked.

I stepped out into the cool night air, the wind catching my hair, the field journal solid and heavy under my arm.

The healing vial I'd brought for Valentin was still sitting on the main hall table where I'd left it.

I picked it up on my way out.

Then I walked down the front steps, uncapped the vial, and poured its contents onto the stone.

The liquid spread slowly, dark and viscous, soaking into the cracks.

Two months of work. The only compound that worked on his chronic shoulder injury.

The last remedy I would ever make for him.

I set the empty vial on the bottom step and kept walking.

The Nighthollow territory border was three miles on foot.

I crossed it before midnight.

My wolf stayed silent the entire way.