THE LYCAN KING'S REJECTED MATE AND HER FIVE PUPS

*CHAPTER 1: BARREN TRASH*

The night I was supposed to be crowned Luna, my mate tore his mark from my neck, called me barren trash in front of five hundred wolves, and ordered his guards to chain me in wolfsbane silver and leave me to freeze to death in a snowstorm while I was pregnant with his five pups.

My name is Chine. I was eighteen. An Omega with no family and no wolf or so they thought.

The great hall of Blood Moon was dressed for me. White moon-blossoms hung from every pillar, their glow soft. Gold silk covered the Luna throne. The air smelled of cedarwood and rain his scent. Five hundred Lycans in black gowns and suits held champagne, smiling at me in my white dress.

I stood on the stage, hand on my stomach, hiding the biggest secret of my life. That morning, a human doctor in the city had looked at the screen and gone pale.

Five heartbeats," she whispered. "Five pups. How is that possible?"

Five. Five tiny lights fluttering inside me. Five miracles. I hadn't told anyone. I was going to tell Emeka tonight, after he crowned me. I imagined his cold amber eyes softening. I imagined him picking me up and growling "mine" against my neck.

Emeka Okafor, Apex Warlord of Blood Moon, stood beside me in a black suit that strained over his six-foot-five frame. Scar on his left eyebrow. Claws hidden. The most feared Alpha on the continent. My mate. He did not touch me. He did not look at me. He had not looked at me in three days, not since his mother returned from the South.

His mother, Lady Nneoma, stood on his other side in heavy gold furs, her smile sharp, her eyes on the projector remote in her hand.

Before we crown a Luna, we must cleanse this pack of lies and witches," Emeka said. His Alpha voice made the champagne glasses shake. The hall went dead silent.

The projector turned on.

On the screen behind the throne, where my face should have been as Luna, there were photos. Me. In a hotel bed. With a man. The Southern Alpha, Kael. My dress off. His hands on me. Kissing. The date stamped: three months ago. The night Emeka was at war in the North.

The hall exploded. Gasps. Shouts. Phones out. Whispers like fire spreading.

No!" I screamed, hands flying to mouth, white dress shaking. "No! That's not me! That's not me! Emeka, that's fake! I have never met that man! I swear on the Moon Goddess, I have never"

Silence, barren wh*r*!" Nneoma shrieked, her voice high and triumphant, pointing a long gold nail at me. "We have proof! You have been opening your legs for Southern Alpha to give us a fake heir because your cursed womb cannot give Warlord a real one! The Elders checked you! You have no pup! You are empty! You are cursed! You have no wolf!"

She is barren!" Elder Okoro shouted from front row, holding up a paper. "We did scan! No pup will ever grow in this Omega! She is cursed by the goddess!"

Five heartbeats fluttered inside me, terrified. I grabbed Emeka's arm, tears pouring, my knees giving out.

Emeka, please, feel our bond! You know me! You marked me! I would never I am pregnant! I'm pregnant with yours! Please, call a healer, call any healer, check me right now! I'm carrying your pups!"

He looked down at my hand on his sleeve like it was disease. Then he grabbed my neck, his claws extending, black claws, and ripped his mark from my skin.

The pain was white, blinding. Blood poured down my white dress, hot, staining the silk red. I screamed, holding my stomach, protecting them, protecting five heartbeats only I could hear.

You embarrass me," he growled, his amber eyes turning black, disgusted, his voice so cold the air frosted. "You, an orphan Omega with no bloodline, thought you could trick a Warlord? You thought you could bring another Alpha's child into my house and call it heir to Blood Moon? You are barren. You are trash. You are nothing. You are not Luna."

Emeka, please, I'm pregnant I choked on blood.

Take her to the border," Emeka ordered to his enforcers, turning his back on me, wiping my blood off his claws with a white napkin like I was garbage. "Chain her with wolfsbane silver. Leave her where rogue trash belongs. She is banished from Blood Moon. If she ever steps foot on my territory again, kill her on sight. No grave."

Emeka!" I screamed as two huge enforcers grabbed my arms, dragging me off stage, my white dress tearing, my bare feet scraping marble.Emeka, I'm pregnant! Five! Five pups! Emeka! Don't do this! Emeka, please!"

He didn't turn around. He didn't flinch. Nneoma clapped, loud, delighted. The crowd clapped with her. Someone threw champagne in my face. Someone laughed.

Amara Dike, Southern Alpha's daughter, stood in the shadows in a red dress that was supposed to be mine, my backup coronation dress. She stepped onto the stage and linked her arm through Emeka's. She leaned and whispered just loud enough for me to hear as I was dragged past:

Good riddance, barren trash. He was always going to be mine."

They dragged me through the great hall, through the kitchen where omegas stared at floor, through the back door, out into the blizzard.

The snow was up to my knees. Wind like knives cutting my torn white dress. My bare feet went numb instantly. My blood froze on my neck.

At the southern cliff border, where moon-blossoms grow white under full moon, they chained me to the border post. Wolfsbane silver, forged by Elders in sacred fires, laced to burn witches and rogues. It hissed against my wrists, thin smoke curling, flesh sizzling. I screamed, but not from chains from the five heartbeats inside me flickering, slowing from cold and silver poisoning.

Please," I begged the enforcer, crying, snow in my eyelashes, blood in my mouth. "Please, I'm pregnant. My babies will die. Please don't leave us."

Barren trash cannot be pregnant," he laughed, and kicked snow onto my bloody dress. "Die like the stray you are. Warlord doesn't want you."

They left me.

I knelt in the snowstorm, alone, bleeding from the neck where his mark was torn, wrists burning, white dress red and brown with blood and mud, bare feet blue, hair frozen to my face. Snow fell hard, covering my shoulders. Wind howled like wolves laughing.

I put both hands on my stomach, sobbing so hard my chest hurt.

No, no, no, babies, please stay," I whispered, voice broken, snow melting on my cheeks, mixing with blood and tears. "Stay, my loves. Mummy is here. Mummy won't let go. Please stay with Mummy. Please, please stay."

One heartbeat stuttered. Then another.

And then my Aje magic woke for the first time in my life.

The ancient golden power of my mother's bloodline, the Matriarch power the Elders said was a myth, a fairy tale to scare pups, the power I never knew I had because I was told I had no wolf, no power, nothing it roared because its pups were dying.

Gold light exploded from my chest, bright as sun in snowstorm, wrapping my womb, wrapping five tiny heartbeats in warm, humming shield. The silver chains shattered off my wrists, melted to nothing, dripping smoking metal into snow. The snow around me melted in a ten-foot circle, steam rising, moon-blossoms glowing white around me like they knew their queen.

I gasped, my eyes glowing gold for the first time, seeing my hands dripping gold fire that did not burn me.

I was not barren. I was not empty. I was not cursed. I was Aje. Matriarch. Mother of five. Queen of gold fire.

I stood up in that snowstorm, blood running down my neck, white dress torn to rags, bare feet bleeding, gold light dripping from my hands and wrapping my belly where five heartbeats were now strong, steady, safe.

I looked back at the glowing lights of Blood Moon castle on the mountain where he was crowning another woman in my red dress, where they were drinking champagne while I bled in snow, and I made a vow that shook the snow off the pine trees, that made the wolves in the forest stop howling and listen.

Emeka Okafor!" I screamed into the storm, my voice echoing with ancient power, with five heartbeats, with gold fire. "You threw away your fated mate pregnant in a snowstorm and called me barren trash while I carried your five heirs! You let your mother call me cursed! You tore your mark from me while I carried your bloodline! I will survive! I will raise them without you in the human world! I will make them strong, more powerful than you! And one day, I swear on my mother's grave and on these five heartbeats, I will return! And I will make you kneel in the same snow you left me to die in! You will kneel, Warlord, and you will know what barren really means when I take everything your pack, your throne, your future!"

The wind carried my vow up the mountain, through his windows, into his hall.

I turned and walked away from Blood Moon border, barefoot, bleeding, gold light keeping my five pups alive inside me, into the human city, into exile, into five years of hiding, of selling potions disguised as tea, of telling my five miracles their father was a dead warrior because the truth would poison them.

That night, Chine died. And the Aje Queen was born.

Five years later, I would return for moon-blossom tea to save my son's life. And he would be waiting in silver chains.

CHAPTER 2: THE WARLORD'S PRISONER

Five years after he left me to die in the snow while pregnant, the silver chains were supposed to burn me alive again.

They hissed against my wrists in his dungeon, deep below the pack house I once called home. Thin smoke curled where metal kissed skin. The smell of burning ozone filled my small cell. Damp stone walls sweated around me, cold seeping into my bare feet. Snow still melting off my ankles.

Outside my cell, three enforcers stood watching me. Black tactical gear straining over massive shoulders. Yellow eyes glowing in the dark. Blood Moon elite. The Warlord's personal hounds. The same kind who dragged me to the border five years ago while his mother clapped.

She will scream soon, one muttered, arms crossed. They all scream when silver bites. Especially the pretty rogues. Give her ten minutes and she will beg.

Give her ten minutes, another laughed, leaning against iron bars. The Warlord wants her awake f