My Mate Rejected Me to Make Her His Luna

The fluorescent lights of The Rusty Fang still burned behind my eyelids as I stumbled up the three warped wooden steps to our trailer. Fourteen hours. Fourteen hours of forcing smiles at rogue wolves who could barely afford coffee, let alone tips. My feet screamed in protest with every step, the cheap diner shoes having given up any pretense of support around hour nine.

I fumbled with the keys, my fingers stiff and clumsy. The lock finally gave way with its usual grinding protest, and I pushed inside, immediately hit by the stale air that always seemed to cling to the walls no matter how many windows I opened.

Cairo wasn't home.

I should have felt relief. Instead, a hollow ache settled in my chest as I dropped my purse on the sagging couch and kicked off those torture devices masquerading as shoes. The silence pressed against my ears, broken only by the hum of our ancient refrigerator and the distant sound of someone's television through the thin walls.

I was halfway to the bathroom, already fantasizing about the lukewarm shower our broken water heater would provide, when something white on the kitchen counter caught my eye.

A receipt.

I don't know why I picked it up. Maybe because it was folded in half, like someone had meant to hide it but forgot. Maybe because the paper quality was too nice for anything we normally bought. My fingers unfolded it slowly, and the words swam before my exhausted eyes.

Luxe & Legacy Fine Jewelry.

My heart stuttered.

One 14k Gold Rope Anklet with Heart Charm. $847.99.

The numbers blurred. I blinked hard, trying to make them change, trying to make them make sense. Eight hundred and forty-seven dollars. That was the money I'd been saving for three months. The money I'd earned by taking double shifts, by skipping meals, by selling my grandmother's quilting patterns to other seamstresses. The money for winter heating oil because last February we'd nearly frozen when the temperature dropped to single digits.

My hands started shaking.

The trailer door banged open behind me.

I spun around, the receipt crumpling in my fist. Cairo stood in the doorway, backlit by the dying sun, and for a moment he looked like the Alpha heir I'd agreed to mate three years ago—tall, broad-shouldered, commanding. Then he stepped inside and the illusion shattered. His shirt was wrinkled, his hair disheveled, and the scent hit me like a physical blow.

Expensive cologne. The kind that came in heavy glass bottles from department stores we couldn't afford. And underneath it, woven through it like poison through veins, the unmistakable floral scent of another she-wolf.

Jasmine and vanilla.

"You're home early," he said, his voice carrying that casual dismissiveness that had become his default tone with me.

"Early?" The word came out sharper than I intended. "Cairo, it's almost nine. I left for work at six this morning."

His eyes flicked to the receipt in my hand. Something shifted in his expression—not guilt, but annoyance. Like I'd found something I wasn't supposed to see and now he'd have to deal with it.

"What is this?" I held up the crumpled paper, my voice cracking despite my best efforts. "Eight hundred dollars? That was our heating oil money. That was—"

"An investment." He cut me off, moving past me to grab a beer from the fridge. The casual way he dismissed my panic made my chest tight. "A strategic investment in our future."

"A gold anklet is an investment?"

"You wouldn't understand pack politics, Novalee." He popped the beer cap with his thumb, a casual display of the strength that had been slowly returning to him. Strength I'd helped restore with my healing salves, my endless work, my sacrifice. "I'm building connections. Real connections with wolves who have actual influence. Not like these pathetic rogues you serve coffee to."

The Alpha tone crept into his voice on the last sentence—that commanding resonance that made my wolf-less body want to submit, to bow, to accept. Except I didn't have a wolf to force into submission. I only had my human will, and right now it was screaming.

"Who did you give it to?"

His jaw tightened. "A business partner. Someone who can help me get back to New York, back to my uncle, back to where we belong."

"We?"

"Don't start, Novalee. I'm tired." He moved toward the bedroom, already dismissing me. "You're being paranoid and frankly, ungrateful. I'm trying to build something here, trying to reclaim what was stolen from us, and all you can do is question my methods."

The bedroom door closed between us with a soft click that felt like a death knell.

I stood in the kitchen, still holding the receipt, my entire body trembling. The fluorescent light above flickered, casting shadows that made the small space feel even smaller, even more suffocating.

Eight hundred and forty-seven dollars.

For someone else.

I didn't sleep that night. I lay on the couch—Cairo had claimed the bedroom without discussion—and stared at the water-stained ceiling, listening to his snores through the thin door. The receipt sat on the coffee table in front of me, accusatory in the darkness.

When dawn finally crept through the gaps in our crooked blinds, I dragged myself up and started the morning routine. Laundry. We couldn't afford the laundromat, so I'd rigged up a clothesline between our trailer and the rusted pole that used to hold a satellite dish.

I was hanging one of Cairo's shirts—noting absently that it still smelled like that cologne, that perfume—when I heard the click of high heels on gravel.

Alaiya Robinson emerged from the trailer next door like she was walking a runway instead of navigating the potholed driveway of the rogue sector. Everything about her screamed calculated perfection—the way her blonde hair caught the morning light, the deliberate sway of her hips, the designer jeans that had no business being in this neighborhood.

She saw me watching and her glossed lips curved into a smile that made my stomach drop.

"Morning, Novalee!" Her voice was honey-sweet and sharp as glass. She paused, making a show of adjusting her shoe, lifting her leg in a way that was anything but casual.

The gold caught the sunlight first. Then I saw the delicate rope chain. The small heart charm.

The exact anklet from the receipt.

"Oh, this old thing?" Alaiya's fingers traced the gold at her ankle, her eyes never leaving mine. "Just a little gift from someone who knows quality when he sees it. You know how it is—real Alphas know how to spoil their future Lunas."

The clothespin slipped from my fingers.

She winked, turned on her heel, and sauntered toward the main road, the gold anklet glinting with each step like a beacon of my stupidity.

I stood there, Cairo's shirt still clutched in my hands, and felt something inside me crack. Not break—not yet. But crack. A hairline fracture in the foundation of denial I'd been building for months.

Behind me, I heard our trailer door open. Cairo's footsteps on the wooden steps.

"Novalee, where's my coffee?"

I didn't turn around. I couldn't. Because if I looked at him right now, if I saw his face, I wasn't sure what would come out of my mouth.

The gold anklet disappeared around the corner, taking with it the last shred of my willingness to pretend everything was fine.