After My Alpha Rejected Me, I Awakened as Royalty

The advisor's name was Corwin. He was a thin man with careful eyes and a leather satchel that he set on the table with the particular precision of someone who understood that what it contained would change things.

We were in a private room at the waystation—Dominic had arranged it that morning, cleared the adjacent rooms, posted guards at both ends of the corridor. The kind of quiet that meant serious business was about to happen.

Corwin laid the documents out in order. He spoke without preamble, which I appreciated.

The wolfsbane administration had begun the night I was placed in Ironridge. Not days later, not gradually—that same night. An elder named Edmund Crayle had overseen it personally, adjusting the dosage as I grew, keeping it calibrated precisely enough to suppress my wolf without triggering obvious symptoms. The Lycan Council's jurisdiction over crimes against royal-blooded wolves was unambiguous. The evidence trail was, Corwin said, extensive.

I listened. I kept my hands flat on the table.

Then he placed one final document in front of me.

It was a pack healer's report. Ironridge letterhead. Dated fourteen months ago.

I read it once. Then I read it again, more slowly, because the first time I thought I had misunderstood.

I hadn't.

*Alpha Vane was informed of the continued suppressant protocol for the Omega Lilian on the date above. Alpha acknowledged receipt.*

Fourteen months ago. Arthur had known for fourteen months.

For a full year before he stood at that altar and spoke the rejection vow, he had known that someone was administering wolfsbane to me. He had known, and he had looked at me across the dinner table, and he had brought me that herbal tea from the pack market, and he had stood beside me at pack functions, and he had said absolutely nothing.

I set the document down.

The room was very quiet.

*There it is,* Selene said inside me. Her voice was low. Controlled. Nothing like the fury I expected. *He didn't just choose Paige. He chose this. Every single day for a year.*

I had thought I understood the shape of what Arthur had done to me. The ceremony. The vow. The cold mark. I had thought the worst of it was the public humiliation, the three hundred witnesses, Paige's hand on his chest.

I had been wrong. This was worse. This was quieter and colder and so much worse.

"I'll need a full copy," I said. "Everything. Every document in that satchel."

Corwin nodded. "Of course, Your Highness."

I didn't react to the title. I wasn't ready to react to the title. I just pulled the healer's report back toward me and read the date one more time, fixing it precisely in my memory, and then I set it in the stack with the others.

*Good,* Selene said. *Now we begin.*

---

I drafted the Silverfang proposal that afternoon.

Not because anyone asked me to. Because I had sat with the documents for two hours after Corwin left, and I had thought about Arthur's advisors making calls to neighboring packs right now, framing the ceremony as a misunderstanding, buying sympathy, building a political cushion before the Council could convene. And I had thought: he has a head start. He should not be allowed to keep it.

Dominic read my draft without speaking. His senior advisors were less restrained.

"She's newly awakened." That was the eldest one, a woman named Sera with silver-streaked hair and the careful tone of someone who believed she was being diplomatic. "The physical and psychological demands alone—"

"I'm aware of the demands," I said.

"A political mission of this scope requires preparation. Protocol. The timing is—"

"The timing is exactly the point." I kept my voice even. "Arthur Vane is making calls right now. Every hour I spend resting is an hour he spends building a narrative. If I arrive at Silverfang before he can consolidate sympathy from neighboring packs, the Council convenes with the political landscape already shifted. If I wait—" I paused. "If I wait, I give him room he hasn't earned and doesn't deserve."

Sera opened her mouth.

"I've addressed the resource concerns in section three," I said. "The escort requirements are in section four. The proposed terms are structured so that Silverfang gains concrete advantages regardless of how the tribunal resolves, which means Kael Ashford has every reason to accept and no rational reason to delay. I'm not asking for an army. I'm asking for forty-eight hours and a vehicle."

The room was quiet for a moment.

Dominic closed the proposal. He looked at his advisors, and something in his expression settled the question before he spoke.

"She goes," he said. "Small escort. Her lead."

Sera pressed her lips together and said nothing more.

I looked down at the proposal in front of me. My handwriting. My terms. Forty-eight hours from now I would be sitting across from the most powerful Alpha on the continent, and I would be doing it as myself—not as Arthur's mate, not as Ironridge's Omega, not as anyone's charity case.

Selene hummed low and steady inside me, like something warming up.

I started making a list of everything I needed to pack.