Rejected By The Alpha King, Claimed By The Lycan King
Scarlet Underwood had always fancied herself in love with Alpha Alex, she always knew he would be the one she would get married to. It was a dream come true to finally walk down the aisle and become not only his mate but the Luna of the pack.
However, everything came crashing down when Kayla, Scarlet's best friend, claimed she was pregnant with Alpha Alex's child.
Hurt, betrayed, and angry, Scarlet runs away.
She gets attacked by rogues but is saved by Damien, the feared Lycan King, and it is painfully obvious by the sparks flying that they are mates.
Damien, the reclusive Lycan King, is unsure what to do with his mate.
He harbors a dark secret that may threaten to harm her if she chooses to stay with him, but he can't deny the burning attraction and pull he feels to her.
Will Scarlet open up her heart to the possibility of love after having been burned once?
And will Damien find a way around the curse and claim his mate?
Join Damien and Scarlet on their journey of love, sacrifice, and betrayals!!!
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Chapter 4
Damien's pov
I drove my fists harder into the punching bag, concentrating on letting out all my pent-up frustration.
Two days–it had been two whole days since I had met my mate and carried her back to my pack.
Everything within me screamed to go to her, to take her and claim her as mine, but I bit down the urge, drawing a breath as I didn't derive the sensation I sought from attacking the punching bag.
"We've already changed two punching bags in the last day, some of my men are in the infirmary because they were brave enough to spar against you at your command, and the others are unwilling to risk their lives by stepping into the gym even though they need to train." Callan, my beta, stared at me as he leaned against a wall at the far corner of the gym.
"Your point is?" I quirked a brow at him.
"You have to get it together, Damien." He pushed off the wall and approached me.
"I am well put together," I informed him, and he scoffed, ignoring the daggers my eyes shot his way.
Callan was the only one who could call me out and go scot-free.
"Then why are you attempting to kill all your men?" He quirked a brow.
"I am not attempting to kill my men, I simply wish to train their bodies. They are weak." I growled.
"Or maybe you are being a coward who is scared to face his mate outside these gym walls and doesn't know how to express the emotions raging within him." He retorted.
"Know your place, Callan." My voice boomed, but the man didn't even bat an eyelash.
"I know you, Damien." He sighed.
"Avoidance won't help you." He advised and I raked my hands through my hair in frustration.
"What do you expect me to do? I was sure the moon goddess hadn't given me a mate. I was sure I was going to rule alone, considering the curse, and that was fine by me, but now the moon goddess thrusts a little frail woman my way."
"If I dare mark her, she is going to die, and if I reject her, it will weaken me. So tell me, what do you expect me to do?" I placed both hands on my waist as I tried to control my ragged breathing.
"Why can't you be with her?" Callan asked, and my expression immediately darkened.
"You know about the curse-" I gritted out. Callan was the only one who knew about the curse.
"There could be a way around the curse. If the moon goddess gave you a mate, then there must be a way." He interrupted me.
"You knew how long I searched for a cure, a remedy, a way around the curse, and anything that would break it. I won't give myself any more false hopes only to end up at a dead end." My words rang with finality, and he knew better than to say anything more on the subject.
"Just find another outlet for your pent-up emotions and leave my men alone." He sighed before walking out of the gym and leaving me with my thoughts.
Callan was right about one thing, though: I couldn't hide away in the gym forever. I had to face my problems head-on.
After taking a shower, I made my way to my mate's room, stopping short as her melodic laughter rings through the door and something stirred within me.
"Come in." Her soft voice called out to me when I knocked on the door.
I pushed open the door, and immediately my nostrils flared as the sweet scent of strawberries wafted around me.
My eyes landed on my mate who was in the middle of her bed and staring at me with blue doe eyes, and her little lips parted.
Everything within me begged to pounce on her and claim her as mine.
I knew my eyes flashed, and I closed them for a second, trying to gain better control of my urges before I opened them and kept a blank expression.
Sophie, Callan's daughter, and Emma are perched on the bed beside my mate.
"I would like to speak with my mate." I announced and Emma immediately spring from the bed.
"Let's go, Sophie." Emma bundled the little girl in her arms and left the room, shutting the door with a click behind me.
Awkward silence stretched in the room for several seconds, and my mate rose from the bed.
The sparks were undeniable when our eyes met, and I couldn't second-guess this.
This woman was my mate, there was no mistaking it.
She looked fresher now that the dirty and bloodied gown was gone and her blond hair was tied up in a bun.
She was perf,ect.
"You wanted to talk to me?" She asked, breaking the silence as a blush stained her cheeks at the intensity of my stare.
I cleared my throat and looked away from her.
"How are you feeling?" I asked her lamely.
"Much better. I'm practically healed." She replied slowly.
I was at a loss for what to do.
"What is your name?" I asked, keeping my voice steady, and her eyes widened in shock.
I had made it a point not to talk about her whenever Callan or his mate tried to bring her up in the last two days. It was safe to say I knew absolutely nothing about my mate.
"Scarlet." She replied.
"Scarlet." I tested her name on my lips, and I noticed her sharp intake of breath.
Good, I wasn't the only one who could feel the mate pull.
"And you are the feared Lycan king." She muttered after a moment, and I quirked a brow at the title.
Somewhere within me, I didn't want my mate to see me as the Lycan in that title, I wanted her to see me for who I was behind the crown.
"I hope-" I began, but my mate cut me off.
"I want to leave." She announced, and my heart dropped.
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7.6
I woke up to the suffocating smell of copper and sulfur, my fingers wrapped around a blood-soaked leather whip.
Hanging from an obsidian cross in front of me was a boy with silver hair and dead, golden eyes.
His pale chest was torn open to the bone.
I recognized those eyes immediately. I had spent three years describing them on my laptop.
He was Kamari Monroe, the tragic, overpowered protagonist of my own web novel.
And I wasn't just a bystander. I was Benedict Guerrero, the sadistic academy headmaster. The ultimate villain.
A reel of images flashed in my mind: my original ending. Kamari, fully awakened, skinning me alive and burning my soul in a furnace for forty-nine days.
My loyal attack dog, Gideon, stepped forward with a basin of glowing green liquid.
"Headmaster, let me wake him up with this bone-rot acid so you can resume."
If that acid hit Kamari, his hatred would become permanent. My gruesome death would be sealed.
But if I broke character and apologized, the magical world would sense the shift, and Kamari would just think it was a sicker, more twisted trap.
How was I supposed to survive a death sentence I wrote myself?
I couldn't show weakness. I had to play the monster to survive.
Suppressing my terror, I smashed the acid basin, healed his ruined flesh with agonizing dark magic, and lied straight to his face.
"Someone had to be the monster to push you into the fire."
This time, I will rewrite my own fate.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.
7.9
Estrella Ward gave five years of her life to her husband, draining her trust fund to save him from bankruptcy and raising his son as her own.
But one night, she woke up in a freezing hotel room, drugged, with a stranger's bite marks on her skin.
Her husband burst through the door with cameras, his vicious family, and her ten-year-old stepson, publicly framing her as a cheating whore.
The horrifying truth soon surfaced: her husband had drugged her himself, selling her body to his Wall Street boss to secure a senior partnership.
Estrella fought back with hidden security footage, blackmailing him into submission after discovering she was pregnant with his boss's child.
But fate dealt a cruel blow. She was diagnosed with aggressive, terminal breast cancer.
She refused to abort the baby to keep her leverage, but the cancer spread too fast.
She died alone in a cold hospital room, her vengeance unfinished, while her husband and his cruel family celebrated.
They thought they had successfully buried her and her secrets forever, escaping unpunished for destroying her life.
But when she gasped for air and opened her eyes again, she wasn't in a cold grave.
She was in a sterile hospital bed, looking at the perfectly manicured hands of Brooklyn Thompson—the notorious, empty-headed socialite everyone despised.
Estrella's soul had survived the abyss.
"You're going to pay for every drop of blood."
She clenched her new fists, the fire of her vengeance burning brighter than ever.
7.2
Christa discovered her adopted daughter Evelyn was sneaking around with a street thug named Dante.
When she furiously confronted her, Evelyn squeezed out a few tears and played the tragic, abused orphan.
"Mom is so cruel to me, I just want someone to love me," Evelyn cried to the men of the house, who instantly took her side.
Christa didn't realize her anger only gave the girl the perfect victim card. Evelyn manipulated the family's guilt to drain their wealth and orchestrate a massive corporate fraud.
When the authorities closed in, Evelyn let Christa's eldest daughter Julianna take the fall, sending her to federal prison.
The Stephenson family went completely bankrupt.
Christa's husband Grant, crushed by the betrayal and debt, jumped off a Manhattan skyscraper.
Until her family was entirely destroyed, Christa couldn't understand. They had given the orphan a home, a trust fund, and endless love.
Why did Evelyn treat them like easy marks? Why did she use their kindness as a weapon to tear them apart?
Opening her eyes again, Christa saw the heavy velvet drapes letting in the pale morning light.
She was back seven years ago, on the exact day she first caught Evelyn texting that thug.
This time, Christa wouldn't scream or fight. She would cut off the money, drop the rules, and watch the parasite dig her own grave.
9.4
I was lying in a sterile hospital room, dying of cancer, with only a fake infertility report to keep me company.
Right before my heart monitor flatlined, a stranger walked in and handed me a medical file.
He told me that my fiancé, Garret, had zero sperm viability. The baby my adoptive sister, Beryl, was carrying wasn't his.
When Beryl got pregnant years ago, my adoptive parents forced me to break my engagement and take the blame for being barren.
I was discarded by Garret, mocked by Beryl's triumphant smiles, and kicked out of the house.
I was left to rot alone in a hospital bed while they lived the perfect life stolen from me.
My entire existence had been a cage built on a single, disgusting lie.
The anger burned away my despair. Why was I the only one who didn't know?
Why did I let them use me as a maid and a shield for their filthy secrets?
As the darkness swallowed me, I prayed for just one more chance.
I opened my eyes to the sound of my adoptive mother yelling my name.
The calendar on the wall read March 15, 2019—the exact day they forced me to give up Garret.
This time, I didn't cry or beg.
"You want Beryl to have Garret? Fine," I told my shocked adoptive parents. "But I want a cash buyout, and we are legally severing this adoption."
Then, I set my sights on Douglass Ward—the stranger from the hospital room.
8.5
Sera was the obedient, spoiled Hollywood socialite of the Beaumont family, completely devoted to her fiancé, Ethan.
But her life ended in a freezing Eastern European warehouse, chained to a damp concrete floor.
Right before she died, her captors shoved the transfer documents in her face. Ethan had sold her to human traffickers to cover his massive underground gambling debts.
While she suffered in absolute hell, her adoptive mother went on national television.
She squeezed out fake tears, publicly framing Sera for stealing family funds and eloping with a secret lover.
Sera's reputation was completely destroyed, and she was left to die a miserable, agonizing death in the dark.
She didn't understand why her family treated her like a disposable piece of trash.
She understood even less how the man who promised to marry her could hand her over to monsters without a second thought.
When she opened her eyes again, the biting cold and heavy iron chains were gone.
She was back five years in the past.
She was lying on a hotel bed, her limbs heavy with date-rape drugs, while a predatory Hollywood director hovered inches from her face.
It was the exact "exclusive audition" Ethan had arranged to exploit her for the very first time.
Sera didn't scream. With lethal, practiced precision, she shattered the director's wrist and brought a heavy crystal ashtray down on his skull.
The bleeding man collapsed onto the carpet and whimpered.
"Ethan promised... he said you'd be compliant..."
Staring at his pathetic face, a cold, predatory smile stretched across Sera's lips.
This time, she was going to systematically dismantle their lives.