Rejected by the Alpha, Crowned by His Enemy

It happened after midnight.

I woke to the scent of rain-soaked earth.

No. Not just rain.

Cedar. Storm.

My heart stopped beating. The blood froze in my veins. The orchid stench that had choked the fortress for two days vanished, replaced entirely by the raw, untamed scent of my mate.

Damian stood in my doorway.

He leaned his massive frame against the wooden frame. His linen shirt hung open, exposing the jagged scars on his chest. His dark hair stuck out in wild, untamed angles. He swayed, his heavy boots scuffing the floorboards.

He was drunk.

"Why am I here?" he rasped. His voice sounded thick. Lost.

I pushed the heavy furs off my legs and sat up. "I don't know."

He pushed off the doorframe. He stumbled over the threshold. Moonlight sliced through the tall window, illuminating the harsh, confused lines of his face. He didn't look at my eyes. His golden gaze dropped straight to my collarbone.

To the faded, jagged scar of his claiming mark.

His hand lifted. His thick fingers hovered inches from my skin, trembling violently.

"Who did this?"

"You did."

All the color drained from his face. "No."

"Not physically."

He pressed his thumb against the ruined tissue. A violent shudder ripped through his massive shoulders. His features contorted in sudden, blinding agony.

Deep in my mind, my white wolf howled. His wolf answered, slamming against the cage in his mind.

*Mate.*

The word hung in the air between us, unspoken but deafening.

Damian swallowed hard. His chest heaved. "Why does looking at you hurt?"

Tears burned the back of my eyes. I refused to let them fall. "Because somewhere inside you, you remember."

He grabbed my upper arms. His grip bruised my skin, hauling me forward. The sudden movement stole the air from my lungs. He buried his face in my hair. He rested his heavy forehead against mine.

For one perfect, shattered second, I felt him.

The man who used to trace my spine in the dark. The Alpha who swore I was his entire world. The heat of his skin, the familiar rhythm of his heartbeat against my chest—it was all exactly the same.

"Why do I remember your crying?" he whispered. His voice broke on the last word.

"You loved me."

"I..."

He flinched. He jerked his head back, squeezing his eyes shut. A low groan tore from his throat.

The illusion shattered instantly. The sharp, bitter scent of moonflower oil invaded my nose, cutting right through his natural cedar. It seeped out of his pores, toxic and heavy. Medicine. Poison.

"Damian."

"What?" he growled, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples.

"Stop drinking it."

His eyes snapped open. The golden irises clouded over, the vulnerable clarity replaced by a glassy haze. "What?"

"Selene's tea. Don't drink it anymore."

The confusion vanished. A rigid, defensive posture locked his muscles into place. "You think she'd hurt me?"

"I think she already has."

He shoved himself away from the bed. Pain twisted his mouth into a cruel, unrecognizable line. He didn't argue. He didn't ask questions. He just turned his back on me and walked out into the dark hallway, leaving the door wide open.

***

The morning frost bit at my ankles as I crossed the stone courtyard.

A crowd had already gathered near the central fountain. Pack elders, guards, and servants formed a tight circle.

Selene stood in the center. She wept loudly. She clutched the swaddled infant tight against her chest, burying her face in the wool blankets.

Damian stood beside her. Dark circles bruised the skin under his eyes. He looked entirely hollowed out, as if he hadn't slept a single minute since leaving my room.

"She came to my room last night," Selene cried out. She made sure every guard and maid heard her trembling voice.

The whispers started immediately.

I froze on the cobblestones.

Selene pointed a shaking finger directly at me. "She told me I was disgusting."

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Every eye in the courtyard snapped to my face.

"That isn't true," I said, my voice ringing across the stones.

Selene let out a wretched sob. "She said I was ruining her life!"

Damian turned toward me. The exhaustion in his face hardened into something vicious. A cold, unyielding fury radiated from his broad shoulders. The dark entity that had taken hold of his mind flared to life.

"How dare you?" His voice cracked like a whip across the open air.

I held my ground. I dug my fingernails into my palms. "I didn't."

"You entered my room."

"No."

"You tried to seduce me."

I stared at him, completely blindsided. The sheer audacity of the lie knocked the air from my lungs. "What?"

"You knew I was vulnerable," he snarled. He closed the distance between us in three massive strides. "You saw me struggling, and you used it."

"Damian, you came to my door."

"Stop lying!" he roared. The sound rattled the windows of the fortress. "You slipped into my chambers while my family slept down the hall."

"I wanted my husband back."

"You should be ashamed."

The words hit me harder than physical blows. He wasn't just rejecting me. He was rewriting the truth. He was twisting his own desperate search for answers into a weapon to protect the woman poisoning him.

"You tried to force a bond that doesn't exist," Damian continued, his volume rising.

"You know that's a lie," I fired back. "You touched my claiming mark. You felt the bond."

Selene gasped loudly, clutching the baby tighter. "Damian, make her stop!"

He pointed a massive finger at my chest. "Do not speak of that mark. You manipulated a fractured mind. You poured poison into my ear while I was disoriented."

"The only poison here is the tea she feeds you!"

"Enough!"

The command forced my wolf to submit. My knees buckled slightly, but I locked my joints. I refused to kneel in the dirt for a man who called me a liar.

"Ask the night guard," I challenged, my voice shaking with suppressed rage. "Ask whoever was stationed in the east wing. They saw you walk to my door."

Damian's jaw clenched tightly. "I dismissed the night guard early."

Convenient.

I looked at the man I had mourned for three years. I searched for the boy who gave me a silver wolf tooth. I searched for the Alpha who fought his own mother for my honor.

Nothing remained.

Only a stranger manipulated by orchids and toxic tea.

"You're destroying yourself," I told him quietly.

"I am protecting my family from you."

Damian turned his back on me. He walked back to Selene. He wrapped a protective arm around her shaking shoulders and escorted her toward the fortress doors.

The crowd dispersed. They muttered insults under their breath. They cast venomous glares in my direction.

I stood alone by the frozen fountain.

The cold seeped through my boots, chilling me to the bone. My white wolf curled into a tight, silent ball in the darkest corner of my mind. She didn't howl. She didn't scratch at the mental walls.

She simply gave up.

I finally understood.

Hope was no longer saving me.

It was killing me.

And if I stayed in Blackthorn another day, they would make sure I didn't survive the execution.

A shadow fell over the cobblestones. I turned my head.

Thomas stood by the armory door, a twisted smile playing on his lips, holding a piece of parchment bearing the Alpha's official seal.