Rejected by Royal Mate

I awoke to complete darkness, the familiar scent of cedarwood filling my senses, and I realized with a dull ache in my chest that I was in the pack’s ancestral hall.

The door was locked from the outside.

I lay sprawled on the cold, hard floor, the sticky sensation of dried blood on my face making my entire body tremble.

All the reputation I had carefully built, the praise I had worked so hard to earn, had vanished the moment Yousef died.

Even if I presented mountains of evidence to prove my innocence, my name would forever be tainted.

A she-wolf’s honor was a towering mountain, a crystal-clear pool that could not be sullied.

Yousef was the drop of ink that had muddied my future.

Everything I had worked for was destroyed in an instant.

From this day forward, for the rest of my life, even after my death, Yousef’s name would be irrevocably tied to mine.

I would never escape this carefully woven trap of lies and blood.

I dared not cover my face to cry, afraid to touch the blood staining my skin.

I wanted to scream, to sob, to demand answers from Yousef and the Queen.

Why had they done this to me?

Why?

My mind raced, the weight of the Alpha’s aura pressing down on me, though I was alone in the hall. The silence was suffocating, broken only by the faint sound of my shallow breaths. I clenched my fists, claws digging into my palms, as I tried to steady myself.

But the questions, the injustice, burned in my chest like a fire I couldn’t extinguish. My wolf stirred faintly in the back of my mind, a low whimper of shared pain and confusion.

"Why?" I whispered into the void, my voice trembling with a mix of anger and despair. The word echoed off the walls, unanswered, as the darkness swallowed me whole.