The Future Alpha King Rejected Me - Then Three More Alphas Called Me Their Mate
Chapter 3
“Move, Alpha Collector.”
Clara Mercer blocked the entrance to the dining hall the next evening, her eyes fixed on the high-collared scarf covering my marks.
“Did you paint them on?” she asked. “Or did you find three desperate Alphas and ask them to take turns?”
I tightened my hand around my tray.
Before I could answer, Vivienne appeared at my side.
“Clara.”
She did not raise her voice.
Clara stepped back immediately.
“I was joking.”
“You were embarrassing yourself.” Vivienne linked her arm through mine. “Elara is sitting with me tonight.”
The dining hall went quiet around us.
I let her steer me toward a velvet-lined alcove because refusing would create a bigger scene.
“You did not need to do that,” I said once we were alone.
“Yes, I did.” Vivienne sat across from me. “Blackthorn runs on rank. People attack uncertainty. Right now, you are the largest uncertainty on campus.”
She raised her hand.
The diamond ring flashed.
“Cassian and I have been engaged for five years. My family funded the Northern Pack’s border fortifications after the Red Winter raids. His father backed my father’s council seat. We trained together. We fought together. We were raised to rule together.”
“I told him I don’t want his crown.”
“I believe you.”
That answer surprised me.
Vivienne leaned back.
“What I do not believe is that wanting matters once a mate bond starts rewriting instinct.”
Kieran appeared at the edge of the alcove with a glass of amber liquor he was definitely not supposed to have on academy grounds.
Vivienne glanced at him.
“Ask Kieran.”
His silver eyes sharpened. “Don’t.”
Vivienne ignored the warning.
“His mother was commander of the Southern Guard. Brilliant fighter. Terrifying strategist. Then she found her mate.”
Kieran’s fingers tightened around the glass.
“She surrendered command to follow him to a smaller pack,” Vivienne continued. “Two years later, he led them into a rogue ambush he had no business entering. They both died.”
“Shut up.”
Vivienne’s expression softened, but not enough to hide the calculation behind the story.
“Kieran does not hate you, Elara. He hates the part of himself that could make the same choice.”
The glass cracked in Kieran’s hand.
He set it down before it shattered and walked away.
I watched him disappear into the crowd.
“You collect their weaknesses,” I said.
Vivienne smiled faintly. “I remember what people survive.”
She reached into her clutch and placed a folded sheet of paper on the table.
It was a photocopy of an old council bulletin.
SILAS CROWE — DECEASED.
The grainy image showed a dark-haired young man with hollow eyes and a scar across one brow.
“Who is he?”
“The former Crowe heir. Three years ago he killed his father inside their estate.”
I looked up.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because Professor Ashbourne was there that night. My uncle testified that Silas died during the escape.” Vivienne tapped the page. “My uncle also told me, privately, that the body was never identified.”
A chill moved through me.
“The Crowe crest is a raven,” she added.
Before I could ask why that mattered, the headmaster called everyone to their seats for the welcome banquet.
Vivienne stood.
Her face changed as she crossed the room. The guarded woman who had just told me about dead heirs vanished. In her place was the perfect future Luna. She sat beside Cassian at the head table. He leaned toward her when she spoke. She rested a hand on his sleeve.
They looked effortless together.
I told myself the hollow pull in my chest was the bond, nothing more. I also reminded myself that Vivienne had earned that place long before the Goddess decided to write my name across Cassian's skin. Whatever happened next, I would not turn another woman into my enemy just because four men could not manage their instincts.
“Enjoying the view?”
Lord Julian Thorne leaned over the back of my chair.
I smelled wine before I saw his face.
“Move.”
Instead, he caught the loose end of my scarf.
“I only want to see what has half the academy losing sleep.”
I grabbed his wrist.
He laughed and caught both of mine in one hand.
“Careful, little Omega.”
The room exploded.
Cassian crossed twenty feet before I processed that he had moved.
He seized Thorne by the shoulder and threw him into a marble pillar hard enough to crack the decorative molding.
“Touch her again,” Cassian said, fangs down, “and I will remove the hand.”
Music stopped.
Every face turned toward us.
Thorne raised both palms. “You rejected her yesterday.”
Cassian’s grip tightened.
“I did not give you permission to touch her.”
The words hit me wrong.
Permission.
As if I belonged to him even after rejection.
I pushed out of the alcove before he could turn his rage into another claim.
Cold air hit my face on the terrace.
Vivienne followed a minute later.
She shut the glass doors behind her.
“He almost started a blood feud over you,” she said.
“I did not ask him to.”
“That stopped mattering the moment the marks appeared.” For the first time, exhaustion showed beneath her perfect posture. “Cassian has trained since childhood to put the territory above instinct. Tonight instinct won in front of half the northern court.”
I looked through the glass.
Cassian stood inside with his father’s advisers surrounding him. Kieran watched from the far wall. Rowan had appeared beside Thorne to examine the bruise on his skull.
Every line led back to me.
“I’m leaving Blackthorn,” I said.
Vivienne’s gaze snapped to mine.
“Tomorrow. I will transfer somewhere without royal heirs and territorial Alphas.”
She searched my face.
Then she reached into her clutch and pulled out a black envelope.
“A dorm prefect brought this to me. It was pinned to your door.”
The wax seal was stamped with a raven.
My fingers went cold.
I tore it open.
Inside was one sentence written in hard, slanted ink.
When the fourth mark bleeds again, do not let Blackthorn lock you away.
No signature.
No explanation.
At the bottom of the page, someone had drawn four short lines.
The last one was black.
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