Rejected by the Alpha I Saved

"I, Calder Thorne, Alpha of Silverpine, reject you, Laurel, as my mate and as my Luna."

His voice filled the council hall. The elders sat in a stiff row. The guards stood at the walls. Pack members packed the benches, and not one of them looked away.

The words hit like a hook under my ribs.

Something inside me ripped. I felt it go, thread by thread, the warm bond I'd carried for seven years. My knees struck the stone floor.

Inside my head, my wolf howled. Then she whimpered. Then she went quiet, and that was worse.

"Calder." I pressed a hand to my stomach. The old scar was burning, twisting, like the silver was still in there. "Please. Stop."

"It's done." He didn't come down from the dais. "The Pack needs an heir. Five years, Laurel. Five years and nothing."

A murmur rolled through the crowd.

"Barren," someone whispered behind me.

"Poor Alpha," said another.

I planted my palm on the floor and pushed. My legs shook. I got one foot under me, then the other, and for one second I was standing. I lifted my chin.

Then my vision tilted, and I went down again. Hard. My shoulder cracked against the step.

Nobody moved to help me.

"You know why," I said. My voice broke in the middle. "You know why I can't carry a child. You were there."

Calder's jaw shifted. Just slightly.

---

I remembered the snow.

The ambush in the north woods, five winters ago. Rogues in the trees. A flash of silver aimed straight at Calder's back.

I didn't think. I just threw myself in front of him.

The blade went in low. The poison spread fast. I burned with fever for six days, and on the third night, I woke to find him gripping my hand so tightly it hurt.

"I swear on the moon," he'd said, his forehead against my knuckles. "I will never fail you. Never, Laurel. Do you hear me?"

---

"You swore," I said now, tears running hot down my face. "In the healer's den. You held my hand and you swore."

"I remember."

"Then how can you do this?"

He finally walked down the steps. He crouched in front of me, and for a heartbeat he looked like the man from that night.

"Because I'm Alpha," he said quietly. "I don't get to choose what I want. I choose what the Pack needs. You of all people should understand that."

I laughed.

It came out of me like a cough, ugly and wet, and I couldn't stop it. The elders exchanged glances.

"Understand?" I wiped my face with the back of my wrist. "I bled for you. That silver ate my womb because I took it for you. And you want me to understand?"

"Lower your voice."

"Why? They already know everything. You just told them I'm broken."

His mouth flattened. He stood and turned to the hall.

"Laurel will remain at the Luna residence until she recovers," he announced. "She saved my life once. I still respect her. Anyone who disrespects her answers to me."

He looked down at me again. His tone softened, almost gentle.

"No one will bully you. I promise."

A promise. Handed to me like a coin dropped into a beggar's cup.

I didn't answer. I just stared at the hem of his coat until he walked away.

---

Two guards half-carried me back to the residence. Mara, the house omega, brought tea I didn't drink. She kept glancing at the stairs like she wanted to say something.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, Luna." She flinched. "Sorry. Laurel. Just rest."

I lay in the guest room, staring at a ceiling I didn't recognize. My whole body ached. My wolf curled up somewhere deep inside me, barely breathing.

Sometime after midnight, I woke up.

A scent drifted under the door. Cedar and smoke. Calder.

And something sweeter tangled with it. Jasmine.

Then I heard a sound.

A woman's moan, low and long, coming down the hallway.

From the master bedroom.

Our bedroom. The one with the carved bed he'd built for me the spring we were mated.

I sat up. My stomach lurched.

"No," I whispered to the dark. "No, he wouldn't. Not tonight."

Another moan. Louder. Then a man's groan I'd know anywhere.

I swung my legs off the mattress. The floor was cold. My knees buckled, and I caught the doorframe, nails digging into the wood.

Down the hall, one step at a time. My hand dragged along the wall. Every breath scraped my chest raw where the bond used to be.

"Calder," the woman gasped. "Yes. Right there."

I stopped outside the door.

It wasn't locked. It wasn't even fully closed. A thin strip of lamplight spilled across the floorboards.

He hadn't even bothered to hide it.

I put my palm flat on the door and pushed.

It swung open without a sound.

Calder was on the bed, bare shoulders slick with sweat, his hands buried in a tangle of dark hair. A woman arched beneath him, her legs locked around his waist, her nails raking down his back.

She turned her head toward the door.

And I saw her face.

Livia.

The girl who'd grown up beside him. The one who'd hugged me at my mating ceremony and called me sister.

She looked straight at me and smiled.