When the Alpha Cast Out His True Mate

They call my name wrong the first time.

Or maybe it’s right and my ears just refuse it.

“Elara Voss.”

The sound skims across the stone circle and doesn’t land anywhere solid. It thins out, frays at the edges, like it expects me to pretend I didn’t hear. For a second I almost do. I stand there with my hands folded tight in front of me, staring at the shallow crack in the ground between my boots, and wait for them to correct themselves.

They don’t.

A few heads turn. A ripple moves through the crowd. Someone clears their throat, impatient.

That’s when it hits me. Not excitement. Not joy.

Exposure.

I wipe my palms against my dress without thinking. Gray wool, already roughened from too many washes. It hangs straight on me, no embroidery, no ceremonial stitchwork. It’s the kind of dress you give someone who needs to move freely, bend, lift, scrub. Someone who isn’t meant to be looked at for long.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I tell myself this night isn’t about clothes or rank or the way some of the she-wolves tilt their heads, already curious, already amused.

Tonight is about the Moon.

I step forward.

The Blackthorn Pack fills the circle shoulder to shoulder. Warriors with scarred knuckles and leather straps darkened by old sweat. Elders gripping carved staffs, their eyes sharp even as their backs bow. Braided hair, polished blades, the smell of pine resin and iron and anticipation thick enough to taste.

Every step pulls their attention tighter around me. I feel it like pressure on my ribs.

Some faces crease with confusion. A few mouths twitch, like they’re enjoying a private joke. Others settle into disappointment so fast it’s almost impressive.

I keep walking.

Because something has been wrong with my body all day.

Wrong in a way that feels almost right.

Heat slides under my skin, restless and coiled. My chest has felt tight since dawn, like my lungs never quite finished filling. When the sun fell behind the trees, that feeling sharpened. Became a pull. Not a direction. More like a leaning. Like my insides were listening for something my ears couldn’t catch.

A mate.

I don’t let myself say it out loud. I’ve never been stupid enough to hope for that.

True mates are stories you tell children. Once-in-a-generation miracles. Bonds so old they carry laws older than the packs themselves. Balanced pairs. Chosen by the Moon. Protected.

Unbreakable.

I repeat that word in my head as I reach the center of the ring. My heartbeat has gotten loud, a hard, frantic thud that seems to echo off the standing stones. I can feel it in my throat. In my wrists.

Then I see him.

Kael Draven stands opposite me, already waiting. He doesn’t shift his weight. Doesn’t look around. He looks carved in place, broad shoulders held easy under ceremonial black, dark hair pulled back at his neck. The Alpha mark glints faintly at his collarbone, catching the torchlight.

Power comes off him in waves. Controlled. Measured. The kind that doesn’t need to prove itself.

My Alpha.

The Alpha.

For one small, reckless moment, something bright breaks open in my chest. Hope, sharp and foolish and fast. It hurts almost as much as the fear.

His eyes lift.

The instant they meet mine, something inside me locks.

Not clicks. Not settles.

Locks.

The noise around us drops away. The pack, the torches, the murmuring elders—gone, like someone dragged me underwater. My breath stutters. My vision blurs at the edges.

Then the pain hits.

It tears out of me before I can brace for it.

Fire rips along my arm, starting at my wrist and racing upward, fast and merciless. I gasp, stumbling as the agony digs under my skin, white-hot and alive. My fingers claw at my forearm, useless, like I can tear the pain free if I try hard enough.

I bite down on a sound that wants to be a scream.

Around me, the crowd reacts all at once—sharp inhales, startled shouts, the scrape of boots on stone.

I force my eyes down.

Silver light coils over my skin.

It isn’t gentle. It cuts and burns, lines carving themselves into existence with ruthless precision. A crescent moon. A twisting vine. Old symbols I’ve only ever seen etched into temple walls or pressed into the pages of forbidden books.

The true mate sigil.

It blazes bright enough to paint the stones beneath my feet in cold light.

For a breathless second, my lungs forget what they’re for.

This isn’t happening.

Except it is.

After years of keeping my head down. After the early mornings and the barked orders and the way people talk about me like I’m a piece of furniture that learned to walk. After every reminder of what I am and where I belong—

The Moon chose me.

A sound slips out of my throat. Too broken to name. I lift my head, eyes stinging, and look at Kael.

The mark is there on him too.

Fainter. Partly hidden by the open collar of his tunic. But real. Undeniable.

The circle explodes.

Voices crash into each other. Awe. Shock. Disbelief.

“A true mate—”

“With her?”

“That’s impossible—”

“The Moon’s will—”

I stop hearing words. My pulse roars too loud. I feel peeled open, raw and shining, like every thought in my head is written across my face for them to read.

I look at Kael again, searching. Begging without meaning to.

Recognition.

Something.

For one fragile heartbeat, his eyes flicker.

The bond tugs at me, sudden and fierce, a pull low in my chest that makes my breath hitch. I feel him there—solid, heavy, real. Like a presence pressing against my ribs from the inside.

Hope surges, wild and unguarded.

Then it vanishes.

His gaze cools. Hardens. The warmth drains out of it, replaced by something sharp and distant. Measuring.

My stomach drops so fast I feel hollow.

An elder leans toward him, whispering urgently. I catch pieces of it as the words slip through the hush.

“…ancient law…”

“…the pack won’t—”

“…dangerous…”

Kael straightens.

The noise dies like someone cut a cord.

He steps forward. His boots strike stone, the sound cracking through the silence. The bond inside me flares again, tight and insistent, like it’s trying to remind him. Like it’s pleading.

I move without thinking, one step toward him.

“Alpha Kael,” I say, and my voice shakes no matter how hard I clamp down on it. “I didn’t know. I swear. But the Moon—”

“Silence.”

The word snaps through the air.

I freeze where I stand.

He turns fully toward me now, and the distance between us feels vast. His eyes move over me, slow and impersonal. My dress. My bare hands. The way I hold myself like I’m bracing for impact.

Not a mate.

An inventory.

“Do you understand where you stand, Elara Voss?” he asks.

My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. My thoughts scatter, useless.

“This is fate,” I manage, softer than I mean to. “A true mate bond. The law—”

“The law,” he cuts in, voice sharp, “exists to protect the pack.”

A murmur ripples through the circle. Agreement. Relief.

He lifts his chin, projecting his voice so it carries to every edge of the ring.

“An omega who has never led, never fought, never carried responsibility beyond cleaning floors cannot stand beside an Alpha.”

Heat crawls up my neck. My ears burn. Somewhere, someone laughs.

“That mark does not make you worthy,” Kael continues. “It makes you a risk.”

My hands curl into fists so tight my nails bite into my palms.

“The Moon chose us,” I whisper. “It wouldn’t make a mistake.”

“The Moon does not rule Blackthorn,” he says. “I do.”

The words hit like a physical blow. My knees lock, barely holding.

He turns slightly, addressing the elders now, the warriors, the entire pack gathered beneath the cold, watching sky.

“I will not bind this pack to weakness. I will not gamble our future on a flawed twist of fate.”

Then he looks back at me.

There’s no hesitation left in his eyes. No doubt. Just judgment, clean and final.

“I, Kael Draven, Alpha of Blackthorn Pack,” he says, voice ringing across the stones, “formally reject Elara Voss as my fated mate.”

Something inside me gives way.

Not loudly. Not all at once.

Just a quiet, terrible cracking, like ice splitting beneath unseen weight.

The bond screams.

I feel it tear, raw and jagged, pain ripping through my chest so sharp I double over, breath punched from my lungs. The silver light on my arm flickers, dimming, the lines burning cold now instead of hot.

Around me, the world tilts.

Faces blur. The torches smear into streaks of fire. Someone says my name, distant and wrong.

I stay on my feet. I don’t know how.

I lift my head anyway.

If I’m going to break, it won’t be on my knees.

Silence doesn’t belong here.

Not after words like that.

It fractures instead—sharp, sudden, ugly. Gasps break first. Then whispers rush in to fill the gap, climbing over one another, growing teeth.

“He rejected her—”

“A true mate—”

“An omega, though—”

“I knew it was wrong—”

My legs fold.

I don’t feel myself fall. One second I’m upright, the next the stone is biting into my palms, cold and unforgiving, knocking the air from my chest. The impact rattles through me, a dull jolt that almost feels like relief. Something solid. Something real.

My arm burns.

The mark still glows, faint now, silver light stuttering like a dying flame. It hurts differently than before. Not sharp. Confused. As if it’s reaching for something that isn’t there anymore.

Like it doesn’t understand.

Neither do I.

Rejected.

The word won’t sit still in my head. It keeps circling, hollow and wrong.

True mates aren’t rejected. The