Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the King

The steady beep of the heart monitor had become my world—a mechanical rhythm that marked what little time we had left. I pressed my palm against Tobias's chest, feeling the shallow rise and fall beneath the hospital gown that hung loose on his once-powerful frame. Three months. That's all we'd had since Dr. Marcus delivered the diagnosis that shattered our universe: late-stage pancreatic cancer, inoperable, terminal.

My mate's face was gaunt now, his Alpha strength reduced to paper-thin skin and hollow cheeks. But his eyes—those deep brown eyes that had watched over me since I was seven—still held that gentle warmth whenever they found mine.

"Sky," he whispered, his voice barely audible above the hum of machines. His fingers twitched against mine, and I immediately laced our hands together, squeezing gently.

"I'm here," I murmured, leaning closer so he could see my face clearly. "I'm right here, my love. Always."

The mate bond between us had grown thin these past weeks, like a thread stretched to its breaking point. Where once I could feel his every emotion as clearly as my own, now there were only faint echoes—whispers of pain he tried to hide, flickers of love that still burned despite everything.

Tobias's breathing grew more labored, each exhale seeming to take more effort than the last. I smoothed his dark hair back from his forehead, the gesture as natural as breathing after all our years together. First as the orphaned girl he'd protected, then as his childhood friend, and finally as his mate—his Luna.

"Do you remember," I said softly, "when we used to talk about running in the Swiss mountains? Just the two of us, wolves racing through the snow?"

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "The... the dream," he managed.

"We'll get there someday," I promised, though my voice cracked. "When you're better, we'll—"

"Skyler." His grip on my hand tightened with surprising strength. "I need... need to tell you..."

But then his eyes rolled back, and the machines began their frantic chorus of alarms. I felt it through our bond—the sudden, terrifying emptiness where his presence used to be. Not gone, but fading fast, like a candle guttering in the wind.

"Tobias!" I pressed both hands to his chest, as if I could somehow anchor his soul to his body. "Don't you dare leave me. Don't you—"

That's when I heard it. Not spoken aloud, but whispered directly into my mind through our dying mate bond—words that would haunt me forever.

*Serenity... I should have chosen you... forgive me, my love.*

The world tilted. Ice flooded my veins as his thoughts, meant for another, echoed in my head. Serenity. The she-wolf from his college years, the one who'd gone abroad just before we'd finally accepted our mate bond. The one whose name he'd sometimes murmur in his sleep, whose memory had always stood between us like a shadow I could never quite banish.

Even now, at the very end, it was her name on his lips. Her forgiveness he sought.

The heart monitor flatlined with a sound that split my soul in two. Medical staff rushed in, but I barely registered their presence as they worked over his still form. The mate bond snapped—a brutal severing that left me gasping, clutching my chest as if someone had torn my heart from my body.

Through it all, those final words replayed in my mind: *I should have chosen you.*

Not me. Never me.

I had been his mate, his Luna, the woman who'd loved him since childhood and stood by him through everything. But his heart—his heart had always belonged to her.

The machines fell silent. Someone was speaking to me, gentle words about time of death and arrangements, but I couldn't hear them over the roaring in my ears. I stared at Tobias's peaceful face, finally free from pain, and felt something inside me shatter beyond repair.

He was gone. And his last conscious thought hadn't been of our love, our bond, or even our shared dreams of Swiss mountains. It had been of her—the she-wolf he'd truly wanted but never had the chance to choose.

I pressed my face against his still chest and sobbed, the sound raw and broken in the sterile hospital room. The mate bond was gone, leaving behind an aching void where his presence used to live. But worse than the emptiness was the knowledge that would torment me forever:

I had never truly been enough.