My Mate Publicly Rejected Me Before the Lycan Prince

Lainey wasn't finished.

Her cruel eyes slid past me, landing directly on Eduardo. The old Beta still stood there, his back straight, holding the black-draped cedar chest against his chest like an ancient shield.

"And take that filthy box with you," Lainey sneered, turning her nose up. "Get this old dog out of my sight."

She snapped her fingers.

Two of the thick-necked rogue mercenaries stepped out from the aisle. They moved fast, grabbing Eduardo by his upper arms and pinning him before he could move. Eduardo didn't fight back. He didn't drop the chest.

Lainey stepped forward. With a vicious, deliberate motion, she drove her knee hard into the small of his back.

A dull thud echoed across the grass.

Eduardo’s breath left him in a sharp gasp. His knees slammed into the dirt.

The crowd broke into snickers. Jemma White clapped her hands in delight from the front row.

"Eduardo!" The word ripped out of my throat, raw and panicked.

I moved to reach him, but Eduardo lifted his head. His weathered face was tight with pain, dirt smudging his cheek, but his dark eyes were steady as granite. He met my gaze, shaking his head just a fraction of an inch.

*Don’t,* his eyes told me. *Not yet.*

He could have ripped those two rogues apart with his bare hands. Even in his advanced years, he was a seasoned Lycan-trained Beta. But shifting would blow our cover before the trap was fully sprung. So he stayed on his knees in the mud. He endured the humiliation in front of hundreds of wolves, swallowing every ounce of shame just to keep me safe for five more minutes.

Looking at him—the man who had raised me, bandaged my scrapes, and spent twenty years guarding my life—something inside me went entirely dead.

The grief was gone. The hurt was gone.

A quiet, terrifying cold rushed into the empty space. Beneath my ribs, my untethered wolf went completely still. She stopped pacing. She stopped waiting.

"Drag them both out," Lainey ordered, waving a dismissive hand as she stepped back. "Throw them in the dirt road outside the gates where they belong."

The two mercenaries reached for me.

Before their rough hands could graze my skin, the clear, resonant blast of a brass horn cut through the clearing.

The mercenaries froze. The laughter in the crowd died down instantly.

From the stone steps leading down from the high pavilion, Bodie Mason made his entrance.

He looked every bit the conqueror. He wore his tailored midnight-blue coat with silver trim, his shoulders broad and posture imposing. Flanking him were six rogue warriors in matching black tactical vests, marching in tight, synchronized formation to give him the illusion of commanding a lethal royal guard.

The crowd parted like water. Wolves dipped their heads respectfully as he passed.

Bodie bathed in the reverence. His chin was held high, his hazel eyes gleaming with the thrill of unearned power. He had built this entire moment on the invisible back of my father's empire, and he genuinely believed he had achieved it on his own.

He walked down the grassy center aisle, his heavy leather boots crunching against the scattered flower petals. He looked like a man who had rehearsed this walk a hundred times in his head.

Then, he stopped three paces away from me.

For a split second, our eyes locked.

Beneath the polished Alpha facade, something flickered in his gaze. A tiny twitch at the corner of his jaw. A faint, uncomfortable shadow—shame, perhaps, or the fleeting hesitation of a coward who knows he is about to cross a line he can never walk back from.

I held his stare. I didn't flinch. I didn't look down.

The shadow vanished from his eyes, swallowed whole by cold ambition.

Bodie didn't offer a private word. He didn't offer an apology. Instead, he pulled back his shoulders, puffed out his broad chest, and projected his voice so it echoed against the tall pines.

He used his Alpha tone. It was loud, smooth, and steady. Horribly, disgustingly practiced.

"I, Bodie Mason, Alpha of Ironvale," he declared to the silent clearing, "reject you, Serenity Collins, as my mate and Luna."

The words struck the air like a hammer.

On the left side of my throat, the mate mark didn't simply fade.

It went white-cold.

A searing, icy agony ripped through my flesh, spreading through my collarbone and down into my chest like liquid silver poured directly into my veins. It felt as if a vital organ had been violently torn out of my ribs with bare hands.

My vision blurred into a wash of gray. The air evaporated from my lungs.

A choked, ragged gasp tore from my mouth.

My knees buckled. I staggered back three steps, clutching my throat as the agonizing shockwave of a shattered soul-bond tore through every nerve in my body.

Silence hung over the clearing, thick and suffocating.

Some of the older pack members shifted uncomfortably, looking away from the brutality of a public rejection. But most didn't. Jemma White stood with a wide, triumphant smirk on her face. Up on the wooden platform, Lainey smoothed down her white lace gown, her smile practically dripping with venom.

Bodie let out a long, heavy exhale.

His shoulders relaxed. His boyish grin crept back onto his face. He looked at me staggering in the dirt like I was a piece of trash he had finally managed to scrape off his boot. He thought he was free. He thought he had won.

He turned his back on me, taking a step toward the platform where Lainey waited.

Behind me, in the damp grass where Lainey had ground her heel, something shifted.

The crushed white dust and cracked pieces of the ancestral moonstone began to stir.

A faint, pulsing silver light bled through the dirt, growing brighter with every beat of my racing heart.