The Alpha’s Public Rejection

Seven years of a mating bond, and my mate Selene Ashbourne had shared her bed with more wolves than I could count on both hands and feet.

The reason I kept one eye open and the other closed all this time?

She always threw resources at me to buy my silence.

When she took a young wolf as her secret plaything, she gifted me a rare territory along the eastern ridge.

When she brought pretty rogues onto her yacht for moonlit gatherings, she signed over a matching vessel to my name.

She used wealth and pack assets to purchase my silence, to bury my rage and my grief.

Until she conceived our pup.

I thought she would settle down for the sake of our child. That she would finally return to our den, to our bond.

I had prepared the nursery chamber myself, my heart swelling with anticipation for the pup's arrival. Then I received word from the Healers' Den.

Selene had gone behind my back and terminated the pregnancy.

I rushed to the healers like a wolf gone feral. But just as I reached the door of her recovery chamber, I heard a young voice from inside.

"Mama, I hate the little brother in your belly! I won't let you have any other pups!"

I froze in place. Through the gap in the door, I saw a male pup, perhaps three years old, nuzzling into Selene's arms.

And beside them stood a young, handsome wolf, tenderly tucking the blankets around her shoulders.

In that moment, my entire world collapsed.

Selene noticed me too. Our eyes met across the room.

She gestured for the male wolf and the pup to leave, then pulled out a blank resource voucher and held it out to me.

"Name your price. Fill it in yourself."

I tore the voucher to shreds.

I looked at her, and I smiled.

"Selene, this time I don't want your resources."

I raised my trembling hand and pointed toward the direction where that little pup had disappeared.

"I want that child."

——

"Kael Stormclaw, have you lost your mind?!"

Disbelief was written all over Selene's face, as though she had just heard the most absurd joke in existence.

I repeated myself. "I want that pup."

The bone-deep betrayal and heartache made every word feel like it was draining my life force.

"What nonsense are you spouting!"

She lowered her voice, a thread of warning woven through her tone.

"That pup isn't yours!"

"Your pup—I already had it terminated!"

Yes. My pup was gone. Killed by her own choice.

"Your pup... isn't that the same as my pup?"

I asked softly, but my eyes were frozen pools of ice.

"Or would you rather the Ashbourne Pack's firstborn grandpup carry the mark of a bastard from the moment of his birth?"

Selene choked on her words.

She and I had grown up together, two orphaned wolves raised under the same roof. Both of us had lost our parents young, taken in and raised by Elder Alpha Alaric Ashbourne.

She was the treasured heiress of the Ashbourne Pack. I was the stray pup fostered in their den.

The Ashbourne Pack was an ancient bloodline that valued honor above all else. They lived by strict pack law and guarded their reputation with fangs and claws.

She could play. She could indulge her appetites. But never—never—would they allow any stain that threatened the pack's foundation.

That wolf. That pup. They were her greatest stain.

The male wolf called Darian Ashenwolf finally understood what was happening. He burst into the room, his voice sharp and desperate:

"Selene! You can't give our pup to him! He's my only—"

His only weapon for climbing higher.

A wolf with an unremarkable bloodline, dreaming of using a pup to claw his way into the Ashbourne Pack's inner circle? Nothing but a fool's delusion.

I watched Selene struggle and writhe with indecision, and suddenly I found it all bitterly ironic.

I gathered the last of my strength and pushed past her, walking step by step until I stood directly in front of Darian.

He instinctively stepped back, his eyes filled with wariness and hostility.

"Hello. I'm Selene's mate. Kael Stormclaw."

I forced a rigid smile onto my face and told him a cruel truth, one word at a time.

"From this day forward, I am that pup's father."