Rejected But Now Desired

Lia

I take a steadying breath and shoulder through the swinging door into the great room. Beer is already sloshing over the brim of the pitchers. I'm going to get dirty looks for that.

Kian's lieutenants don't think much of me. They respect strength. Dominance. The wolf. I've got none of that.

Well, I do have a wolf. I can feel her. But for some reason, I've never gone into heat, so I've never shifted.

I want to meet my wolf. But what if I never get the chance to? I don't mind since the alternative is mating with one of these monsters.

They avert their eyes as I pass, otherwise ignoring me. Which is fine. I feel bad for their mates, stuck on their laps or crushed to their sides, forced to listen to them recount old fights in excruciating detail—for the umpteenth time.

Kian watches, fingers steepled, gaze flickering from male to male. Our king. He's wearing a plain white tank top, faded jeans, and tan work boots. Kian should look basic, but he doesn't.

His shirt clings to every defined muscle, and like his gargantuan wolf, he's in a whole other weight class than the other males. His jeans hug his thighs, and they're more solid, too. His sculpted shoulders are broader, his posture more arrogant, his dusky red-brown eyes darker. He is strong but not attractive. He looks mean—which is what he's always been.

Ugh. I press my legs tight together. Sweat is dribbling down my inner thighs and tickling the back of my knees. And my stomach's doing something weird. Do I have a fever? I can't get sick. I take a step toward the kitchen, but before I head back, I glance up at the dais. I have to. I'm called. It's instinct even though no one said my name.

But there's only Kian, staring at me.

Heat bursts from my core, surging down my limbs and leaving my toes and fingertips tingling. I hold onto the empty tray for dear life. Why is he checking me out? My heart thumps, echoing in my ears. And there's a new delicious aroma weaving through the usual beer and roast meat and other earthy pack smells. It teases my nose, warm and sweet and sticky in the best possible way. It's not coming from the kitchen. It's—I don't know where it's coming from.

I inhale deeply, trying to shake off this weirdness, but now the lush, decadent scent is in my lungs. Excitement shoots through my veins, a flood of heat rising up and cresting, crashing through me.

Heat.

Of course. Oh, Fate, it's beyond obvious. That's why my brain is so slow.

I'm going into heat.

My wolf's ears shoot up. She yips and chases her tail. She's not moving—it's how she feels. I'm anthropomorphizing her emotions. She's ecstatic. She can finally come out and play. She's demanding. Whining.

Outside, outside, outside.

And then she changes her mind. No, him, him, him, him.

I raise my eyes to Kian's, and even though I know better, I can't force my gaze to lower. You don't meet an alpha's eyes. Mine, mine, mine.

My wolf paws at my ribs. She wants out. I don't know how to let her, and this is crazy. I'm scared and shaking, but wild horses couldn't tear me away from devouring my alpha with my eyes. I need him.

Mate.

My eyes prickle. I'm going to shift. Finally. I need to get out of here. I need wide open spaces, room to run, and—

Out of nowhere, without waiting for his nod of approval, Tasha saunters to the dais, steps up to Kian, wraps her arms around his neck, and shoves her chest into his side. Then she rises on her tiptoes and kisses him full on the mouth. He goes rigid.

He doesn't avert his eyes. He's looking at me while she does this.

No.

Ours.

An inhuman wail—both a yowl and a roar—fills my ears from inside my skull.

My spine rips out of my skin.

I scream, collapsing to the ground. My joints break with a sick pop, and I lay powerless against the contortions, staring unblinkingly at the dais. Tasha's jaw has dropped. Kian's—holding himself back?

I leap, baring my fangs, snarling, every movement an agony as my body tries to reknit mid-motion, joints, and sinews mending as I simultaneously rip them anew. I mean to lunge, as I go for that b*tch, snapping my teeth.

He's mine.

I raise my muzzle and howl.

I bark at her. Shift, b*tch. Fight me. Let him go and come. I'll tear your pelt from your hide. I'll destroy you for touching my mate.

She snarls. Someone snaps, "No!" But in a moment, she's gone, and in her place, a snow-white she-wolf is looming over me.

She's big. Three times my size, at least.

She doesn't hesitate. She goes for my throat. Her fangs sink into my collarbone, a new, searing pain exploding through my already reeling brain, and I struggle, I fight like hell, but she's so much stronger, and I'm a mess.

She rips a hunk of flesh from the bone, and I scream. She doesn't let go, flinging me side to side, slamming me against the floor.

I snap my teeth, but my mouth closes on air. My claws glance off her thick coat and tough hide.

I'm losing blood, fading by the second. The stink of copper is everywhere. My pack is going to let me die. They're going to watch me bleed out while they sop their dinner plates clean with bread I baked.

"Enough," Kian roars.

"Shift," he commands.

My bones instantly obey, cracking again, even the broken ones, snapping back into place. For a few seconds, the pain dims everything.

Tasha smirks, licking blood from her lips.

I'm on the ground in a pool of blood. Scraps of my red-soaked shirt and pants litter the floor. I'm shaking hard, my teeth clattering. I struggle to sit, but I can't get my muscles to contract. Nothing's attached right, and I'm so weak.

My wolf mewls for him.

Help.

His lip curls in disgust, but his eyes flicker blue to gold.

"Stand up," he snarls.

I can't. I don't have the strength, and everyone will see everything.

"Stand up, or I'll drag you up."

Summoning every scrap of energy I have left, I roll to my stomach and push up. I can't just stand; I think I have sprained my left knee.

I stagger to my feet, exposing my butt, my belly, the wicked scraps on my thighs and calves. The shame scalds as hot as fire.

"Why attack Tasha?" he demands.

He knows why.

Kian lets out a growl that makes the tables wobble on their wheels. He's losing patience.

"Speak for yourself," he says.

"You know why I did." It's almost a whisper.

He stalks down from his table to stand above me, stance wide and arrogant. I lick my lips.

"Humor me," he says.

Kian cocks his head expectantly.

"You're my mate," I say.

It had gotten almost quiet in the great room, but at my words, a wave of gasps, and a few sputtering laughs, ripple through the crowd. I hug an arm around my bareness,but it's fully bright. Everyone can stare at my nakedness at their leisure.

"What was that?" Kian arches a brow, his dusky blue eyes daring me.

"You're my mate."

I know it like I know how to breathe. My wolf is even more certain. She's frantic, howling for acknowledgment. Rescue. Touch.

"You are not my mate," he spits out blankly.

The words slam into me, rocking me back on my heels like a cannonball to the chest, not with surprise, but with physical force.

"Even if you were my mate, I can't hesitate. I reject you."

He shakes his head.

No!

My insides feel like they are being torn apart. The mate bond! I can feel it tugging, tugging so hard, I can almost feel it snapping.

"I Kian Kessler, Alpha of the Starry Banes pack, hereby reject Lia Lockwood," he proclaims strongly.

"What were you thinking? That I, the Alpha, would accept you, a lowly pack slave, as my mate? You are so weak! How can you rule by my side as the Luna?"

I look away from him because the pain is unbearable, but my eyes land on Tasha leaning into her mother's shoulder with a blanket wrapped around her. She slowly opens her red lips to show off her perfectly even white teeth. A victorious grin She is the winner and I am the loser.

"You're confused. Go back to the kitchen."

Lia 

And that’s all the time he has for me. He snaps and turns back to his dais. I’m dismissed. Thrown back in the water with my head ripped off like a too-small fish, guts leaking, lungs still screaming for air.  Inside me, everything that makes me, that holds me up and keeps me going day to day, crashes to the ground and splinters.

The pain is a gaping hole. An unfathomable wrong.  The connection between us is there, throbbing and alive, and he doesn’t seem to feel it at all.  I wait for my heart to sputter to a stop. It can’t endure. It isn’t possible that it’s still beating.  But it does. Thump. Thump. Steady and sure. As if nothing happened.  As if the universe hadn’t told me, in the most basic of terms, that I’m less than nothing. 

The silence in the great room is suffocating, and then chaos breaks out. There are catcalls and hoots and laughter.

Kian snaps his teeth, and the pack lowers the volume until the derision and amusement is a dull roar filling