Let me go, Alpha!

Kaylee’s POV

"Eww, no way. I don't want someone like her as my mate," Colt said, extreme disgust filling his eyes.

His gaze slowly moved from my head to my feet, looking at me as though I were nothing more than a piece of sh*t.

Oh well, today was my birthday.

Today was supposed to be the best day of my life, but it had somehow become the worst.

Today, I had finally turned eighteen, the age when every werewolf was supposed to meet their mate and finally be ready to be bonded with them for life.

I had imagined this moment countless times. I had imagined the look in his eyes when he realized I was the one he had been waiting for. I had imagined his arms around me, promising that we would spend the rest of our lives together.

What I had never imagined was being paired with Colt Mikelson, the Beta of our pack.

Colt had never really liked me, right from the beginning. He had often gone out of his way to make me feel unwanted.

Whenever I walked into a room, his expression would immediately change. Whenever I tried talking to him, he would either ignore me or find an excuse to leave.

And now, standing before the entire pack, he was looking at me as though the Moon Goddess herself had cursed him.

"Colt, but there is nothing wrong with her," his mother said, trying to reason with him.

"I know," Colt replied coldly. "I know. But I still don't want her. I'm the Beta, for Goddess' sake."

Angela stood just behind him, the girl he'd been going out with for months. He pulled her closer, with a gaze full of love, a stark contrast to how he had just looked at me a few seconds ago, his voice softening into something tender as he spoke, "I deserve a mate I can actually be proud of, not a grotesque, oversized… object."

A wave of shocked gasps rippled through the gathered crowd, followed by a few muted, cruel snickers from the girls standing near Angela.

I closed my eyes for a brief second, his words landing like a slap to my face.

Yes, you heard that right.

I was not your usual slim, hourglass-shaped girl with a tiny waist and delicate curves that made every man turn his head. No. I was curvy.

And by curvy, I meant I had curves in places most girls would kill to have. My thighs were thick, my hips were wide, my breasts were full, and my stomach wasn't flat enough to make me look like I'd never seen a plate of food in my life. I knew I wasn't skinny. I had known that for years.

But hearing Colt say that right to my face—right in front of everyone—made something in me crack.

My wolf whimpered inside me, and I fought with everything I had to push back the tears threatening to fall.

So foolish of me to think that my mate would ever choose me. No one would ever love someone like me.

The pack around us went quiet. Dozens of eyes moved between Colt and me, waiting to see what I would do.

I forced my chin up. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of watching me break or cry.

"Fine," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "If that's the case, let's get this over with."

Before Colt could even open his mouth, I stepped toward the pack elder to make it official, then turned and locked eyes directly with Colt.

"I, Kaylee Whitmore, reject you, Colt Mikelson, as my mate."

Gasps rippled through the clearing, and my mother screamed from somewhere behind me, absolute shock in her voice.

"Kaylee, stop this madness!" She shoved her way through the front row of onlookers, her face pale with fury. She grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in so hard they bruised. "You do not reject the Beta's son! Apologize to Colt right now and beg for his forgiveness!"

I looked down at my mother’s hand on my arm, then up into her panicked, disappointed eyes. Not a single trace of concern for me. Not a second of comfort for her daughter, who had just been called a grotesque piece of trash in front of everyone she grew up with. Only concern for the pack’s hierarchy.

I pulled my arm out of her grip. "No," I said, my voice echoing across the silent clearing. "I won't beg anyone to want me."

I turned my full attention back to Colt, refusing to look back at my mother. My mind was made up.

Shock was the first emotion to wash over his face. Then came pure, unfiltered anger. But for a split second, beneath all of that, I could have sworn I saw a trace of hesitation in his eyes.

Or maybe I was just imagining it. I didn't even know anymore.

The pack elder stepped forward, his heavy voice cutting through the tension. "The rejection has been spoken. Do you accept it, Colt?"

He didn't answer right away. His jaw tightened, and his eyes lingered on mine a second too long.

"What are you waiting for?" Angela whispered, leaning into Colt with an artificial, honey-sweet smile. "Accept it, Colt."

That snapped him out of it. As if to prove a point, Colt wrapped his arm around Angela's waist, pulling the slender girl against him. She flashed a smug smile, her thick red lipstick gleaming in the light.

"I accept your rejection," Colt said, his voice cold and loud enough for everyone to hear.

He turned toward the pack, tightening his grip on Angela's hip. “From this moment on, Angela will be my mate. She is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

He said it with such absolute certainty, as though he were making sure every single person standing in that clearing understood that he was choosing her over me.

Angela didn't miss her moment either. She threw me a cruel, triumphant smirk and flipped her long hair over her shoulder before they both turned their backs on me. They walked straight to their car and drove off, tires kicking up dirt, without looking back once.

The moment their taillights disappeared, the quiet shattered. The whispers around me grew into a deafening roar.

"She actually thought he would want her."

"Did you see how quickly he chose Angela?"

Someone near the back laughed.

Another person muttered something under their breath, and soon, the entire clearing seemed to be buzzing with cruel whispers and judgmental stares.

I stood there rooted to the spot as everyone around me went on with their lives as though I hadn't just had my heart ripped apart in front of the entire pack.

My mother looked at me and gave me a long, disappointed stare before turning away.

She didn't bother saying a word, but she didn't need to. Her expression had already said a million things.

I stood there, staring into space, but I wasn't really seeing anything.

My vision began to blur, and my head started spinning slowly. The pain in my chest grew heavier with every passing second, but I refused to let it show.

No one cared.

No one was going to come over and ask if I was okay. No one would bother checking on me. That was the weight of invisibility.

Everyone was too busy wrapped up in their own perfect little worlds to notice when someone else was falling apart.

Somehow, my legs carried me away from the clearing before my knees gave out completely.

I didn't remember the walk back to my house.

One second I was standing in front of the entire pack, and the next I was pushing open my bedroom door, my hands shaking so badly I could barely turn the handle.

I made it halfway across the room before I collapsed onto the floor, and the pain hit me all at once.

It wasn't just the burning agony of the broken bond tearing through my chest, but everything underneath it. Years of being overlooked.

Years of watching other girls get chosen while I stood on the sidelines, telling myself it didn't matter. I had spent so long believing my mate would be different—that he would see me the way no one else had.

I was wrong.

The tears I'd refused to let fall in front of the pack came now—heavy, ugly, and soaking into the fabric of my dress. I didn't bother wiping them away. There was no one here to perform strength for anymore.

Deep inside me, my wolf curled in on herself, whimpering low and wounded in a way I didn't have words for. Some stupid, primal part of her had wanted him—bond or no bond—and now there was nothing left but a raw, hollow space where that connection was supposed to live.

I didn't know how long I sat there on the cold floor. Minutes. Maybe for a few hours.

The sudden sound of footsteps outside my door snapped me out of the haze, followed by a quiet knock.

I froze, sure I'd imagined it. But the knock came again—steady this time.

I wasn't expecting anyone. My mother never knocked, and after the humiliation in the clearing, I doubted she could even stand to look at me right now.

Forcing myself up off the floor, my legs felt stiff and unsteady beneath me. I walked over to the mirror first, refusing to let anyone see me broken. Face blotchy. Eyes swollen and red. I wiped beneath my eyes with the back of my hand, smoothed down my hair, and straightened my dress, as if adjusting the fabric could somehow patch together everything else that had just shattered.

Whoever was on the other side of that door didn't need to know I'd been crying on the floor five minutes ago.

I took a deep breath, walked over, and pulled the door open.

The moment I saw who was standing there, my jaw dropped.

I blinked, sure my eyes were playing tricks on me. Alpha Ryker Vance—the Lycan King's son—was standing right on my threshold.

This had to be a dream. There was no other logical explanation.

He stood in my doorway with his hands shoved casually into his pockets, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite place. Amused. Focused. Like he'd arrived expecting to find exactly what he was looking at.

"Kaylee."

My name came out low, almost careless, but the sound of it still echoed somewhere deep in my chest.

I hadn't even known he knew my name. We had never spoken—not once in my eighteen years of living in this pack. So why was he standing at my door tonight of all nights?

Was this some kind of cruel joke? Had Colt, his friend, sent him to finish what he started?

Before I could ask, Ryker stepped across the threshold without waiting for an invitation. The remaining space between us shrank until there was barely an inch left. His scent reached me first, a suffocating blend of warm smoke, dark pine, and raw power that stuck to the back of my throat. I couldn't tell if I wanted to lean into it or scramble backward.

He didn't say anything at first. He just looked down at me, and for the first time in my life, I understood what people meant when they said an Alpha could make you feel like prey.

Then he crouched slightly, dropping his posture until we were staring dead in the eye. Whatever amusement had been on his face a second ago vanished into something dangerous and consuming.

"He did you a favor by rejecting you," he said.

The words hit me like a physical blow. A sudden, violent surge of hurt burst through my chest. It felt like another slap—another insult wrapped up in a sentence, just like Colt's had been. I thought he was mocking me, coming here to rub dirt into an open wound.

The tears I had fought so hard to hold back finally spilled over, and I couldn't stop them anymore. A shuddering sob escaped my throat, and my entire body trembled as the dam broke.

"Why would you say that to me?" My voice cracked, raw and small, soaked in tears.

"Haven't I been humiliated enough tonight?"

Ryker didn't flinch, nor did he pull back. He reached out, his long fingers catching my chin to lift my face, forcing my tear-filled eyes to meet his intense gaze.

"You didn't let me finish," he said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous growl, "...because if he had put his mark on you... I would have torn his throat out before the sun came up.”

"Business meeting adjourned."

The moment those words left my father's mouth, I leaned back in my leather chair and released a slow, heavy breath. Eight hours. Eight f*ck*ng hours of sitting in this boardroom, listening to old men argue over numbers, land developments, and territory deals that could have been settled in twenty minutes.

My fingers tapped impatiently against the armrest as everyone gathered their documents. Finally.

I glanced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sun had already begun sinking beyond the skyline, painting the city in bleeding shades of orange and gold. I had spent the entire day trapped in this tower, and all I could think about was getting back to the pack.

With the leadership transition approaching, my father had become increasingly demanding. He wanted me present for every meeting, every council, every mindless ceremony. Apparently, being the future Alpha meant I no longer had the luxury of staying away.

"You're free