Rejected by My Mate, Claimed by the Alpha King novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: My Bed. My Mate. My Sister.
Wynne comes home early and overhears her mate confess to her father that he got her sister pregnant in Wynne's own bed; her parents take the sister's side, her mate rejects her, she accepts, and her father banishes her into the rain.
I came home early on Friday and heard my mate confessing to my father.
"It was the Blood Moon festival," Corbin was saying behind the office door. "Everyone was drinking. I swear I didn't plan it."
I stopped in the hallway with my hand on the strap of my bag.
I couldn't smell them through the wood. I'd had a head cold for three days, and the whole pack house smelled like nothing to me.
Tonight was supposed to be the night I gave Corbin Tate my virginity.
The black lace I'd bought three weeks ago was folded in my bag. I had been too nervous to try it on.
"Please don't be hard on him," my sister said. "Wynne is going to be so hurt."
Delphine's voice was soft and shaking. Home from Luna Academy for one week, she had already changed my sheets and fixed my hem.
She had also taken my fated mate.
"When?" my father asked. Alpha Edmund MacAulay, the strongest wolf in Silver Creek.
"Six weeks ago," Corbin said. "We went upstairs to talk. We ended up in Wynne's bed. I didn't use anything."
I had slept in that bed every night since.
Delphine had changed my sheets herself and called it a welcome-home favor.
Inside me, my wolf went dead still.
"A grandpup," my mother whispered. She wasn't horrified. She was happy. "Edmund, our first grandpup."
"From Delphine," my father said, and I heard the pride in it. "The Goddess works in strange ways."
"And Wynne?" Delphine asked, very quietly.
"What about her?" my mother said. "She's not the one with a pup coming. Corbin is the Beta's son and you are the Alpha's eldest. It fits. It always should have."
It always should have.
Twenty years I had been second. Delphine got the dresses, the praise and the room with the balcony.
I got my grandmother's herb garden and a healer's apprenticeship nobody in my family respected.
I had told myself it didn't matter, because I had a mate.
"The ceremony goes ahead Saturday," my father said. "You and Corbin, before she starts to show."
"And Wynne's room," my mother said. "I want it for the nursery. It's better if she isn't here Saturday. Everyone knows she was Corbin's mate. It will be awkward."
Awkward.
I pushed the door open.
Four faces turned to me. Delphine put her hand on her flat stomach, a move so well practiced that I almost laughed.
"So here is what I just heard," I said. My voice came out flat and cold. I didn't know it. "My mate was in my bed with my sister. She got pregnant there. Now she wants my room for the pup, and I'm supposed to be gone before the guests arrive."
Delphine's eyes shone. "You always did catch on fast, Wynne."
Corbin stepped toward me. "Wynne, it was one night, I swear I..."
"Don't."
My father stood. "Enough. The decision is made. You accept it or you leave."
I looked at my mother.
She looked at the wall.
"I'll be gone tonight," I said.
Upstairs, I threw clothes into a duffel with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
I left the lace on the floor.
When I came back down, they were all still standing in the office. Corbin's jaw was tight. Delphine was smiling.
"One more thing," my father said, and nodded at Corbin.
Corbin wouldn't look at me.
"I, Corbin Tate, reject you, Wynne MacAulay, as my mate."
The pain split my ribs. My knees gave out. My wolf screamed inside me, and I tasted blood.
They watched me fall.
Not one of them moved.
I dragged myself up by the doorframe. I breathed through the fire in my chest until I could stand, and I made them look at me.
"I, Wynne MacAulay, accept your rejection."
Delphine's smile slipped.
Corbin had expected me to beg. He hadn't known that when a rejection is accepted, the bond dies for both wolves.
He staggered and went white.
"Wynne, wait," he said. "I only said it because your father told me to."
"Then you should have said no to him," I said.
Delphine took his arm and held it. She didn't let go.
"Then you're no daughter of mine," my father said.
His Alpha voice rolled through the pack link, and every wolf in Silver Creek heard it.
"By my word, Wynne MacAulay is cast out of this pack."
The link tore away from me. I had never been alone in my own head before.
At the front door, my mother finally spoke to me.
"Take an umbrella," she said. "You'll catch your death."
I left it on the hook and walked out into the rain with my duffel on my shoulder.
For the first time in my life, my wolf spoke a single word.
Run.
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