The Dormant Wolf: Rejected By My Alpha Husband

I took a silver bullet for my fated mate, Derek, and fell into a coma for five years.

When I finally opened my eyes, I wasn't greeted as a hero. I was handed a deportation order.

Because I had burned out my wolf spirit to save his life, I was now "human" and useless to the pack. My marriage had been annulled years ago without my consent.

I dragged my atrophied body to our home, only to find Derek with Anjelica, a woman I once called a friend. She was wearing my jewelry and carrying his heir.

But the knife in my heart wasn't seeing them together. It was my son.

My five-year-old boy, Errol, didn't run to me. He screamed in terror and sprayed me with a bottle of liquid he had been hiding.

It hissed against my skin. Wolfsbane.

"Go away, monster!" he sobbed, pointing the bottle at me like a weapon. "Mommy Anjelica said this burns the bad things!"

I had lost my wolf, my husband, and my child. But they weren't done taking from me.

When Anjelica faked a medical emergency, Derek signed a general proxy form. I was dragged into surgery, not as a patient, but as a harvest.

I heard the doctor whisper, "She wants her dry."

They thought draining my blood would kill me. They didn't know that my "human" shell was just a cocoon for something ancient.

I escaped the hospital that night. Standing by the ocean, I threw my wedding ring into the waves.

"I, Catherine, reject the bond."

Miles away, Derek fell to his knees, vomiting blood as the connection snapped.

He thought I was dead. He didn't know the White Wolf had just awakened.

Chapter 1

Catherine POV:

The silence was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

For twenty-three years, my mind had been a riot of noise—a sanctuary shared with a wolf spirit who growled at danger and purred at the moon. Now, opening my eyes in the sterile white room of the pack hospital, there was only a hollow echo.

My wolf was gone.

"Dormant," the doctor said, barely looking up from his chart. "You burned through her life force to survive the impact, Catherine. You are... essentially human now."

Human. In the Moonstone Pack, that was a fate worse than death. It meant I was a static channel on a radio that everyone else could hear.

I sat up, my body screaming. The calendar on the wall said 2024. Five years. I had been a vegetable for five years.

I had sacrificed everything to push Derek out of the way of that silver bullet. I took the hit. I took the coma.

And this was my reward.

I walked out of the hospital on trembling legs. No one offered a ride. No one bowed. The nurses didn't look at me with disdain; they looked at me like I was already a ghost.

I made my way to the Pack Administration Hall. The clerk, a young Omega who used to tremble in my presence, popped a bubble of gum and slid a piece of paper across the counter.

"You're not in the system, sweetie," she said. "Check the 'Rogue' registry."

My hands shook as I picked up the document.

Name: Catherine Hale.

Status: Rogue / Human.

Pack Membership: Revoked.

Reason: Inability to fulfill duties. No wolf spirit detected.

Authorized by: Alpha Derek Alexander.

Witnessed by: Elders John and Mary Hale.

My parents. My mate.

They had thrown me out with the trash while I slept. Making a former Luna a Rogue wasn't just an insult; it was an act of war against my dignity.

I had to go to the Manor. I had to hear him say it.

The walk was grueling. As I approached the grand gates, a scent hit me. Not the wild jasmine and rain that used to mark this territory as mine, but a cloying, chemical vanilla.

It smelled like a cheap air freshener trying to cover up a crime scene.

And then I saw them.

Derek stood on the front lawn. He looked older, harder, his eyes glazed with a strange, dull film. Clinging to his arm was Anjelica. The Beta female who had been in the car behind us that day.

But what froze my blood was the small boy running between them.

He had Derek's hair and my eyes. Errol. He was a toddler when I went under. Now he was a child.

"Mommy!" Errol shouted.

My heart leaped. "Errol..."

But he ran past me. He ran straight into Anjelica's open arms.

Anjelica lifted him up, spinning him around. She looked at me over Errol's shoulder, her blue eyes gleaming.

"Oh, look, Derek," she cooed. "The invalid is awake."

Derek turned. His eyes, usually the color of storm clouds, looked... dilated. Unfocused. He blinked, as if trying to clear a fog.

"Catherine," he said. His voice was flat. "You shouldn't be here. This is pack territory."

"I am your Mate," I whispered. "I am the mother of your son."

Errol squirmed in Anjelica's arms. He looked at me, confusion warring with fear on his face.

"She smells like the hospital," Errol whispered to Anjelica. "Make her go away."

Anjelica whispered something in his ear, and the boy flinched.

Go away, a voice echoed in my head. A Mind-Link. Errol's Alpha blood allowed him to force thoughts into my unprotected mind.

You aren't my mom. My mom is strong. You are nothing.

I staggered back.

My parents stepped out from the porch. They stood behind Derek, arms crossed.

"You are embarrassing us, Catherine," my mother said. "Accept the settlement. Derek is paying your bills. Go."

My phone buzzed. A burner I'd hidden in my hospital bag years ago.

"Is this the White Wolf?" a distorted voice asked.

"There is no wolf here," I replied, my voice dead. "Just Kate."

"Good enough," said Kaden, Alpha of the Silver Claws in Zurich. "The offer stands, Kate. Victim or survivor? Choose."

I looked at my reflection in a car mirror. Pale, hollow.

"I want to bury Catherine," I told him. "She died five years ago."