Left To Drown: The Alpha's Secret Healer Mate

I spent three years secretly healing my paralyzed Alpha husband, finally helping him walk again.

But when a bridge snapped and plunged me and my fake sister into a toxic, silver-laced lake, he swam right past me.

He pulled her to safety and left me sinking in the burning water.

When the patrol finally dragged my half-dead body to the shore, he didn't even ask about my severe burns.

Instead, he looked at me with cool irritation and called me a petulant child.

"Selena is a weak Beta. She cannot handle the silver water. You are my mate, you should be stronger."

He even used his power to steal my career endorsements and gave them to her as compensation.

I looked at the man whose crippled legs I had massaged every night with my hidden power.

He didn't know I was the one who saved his life, and he clearly didn't care if I lost mine.

My three years of quiet devotion were nothing but a pathetic joke to him.

With a dead heart, I walked into his office and threw the official rejection scroll onto his desk.

"I, Serena, reject you, Hunter, as my mate."

Ignoring his sudden, agonizing panic as our bond shattered, I booked a one-way ticket to Europe.

This time, I was going to live for myself.

Chapter 1

Serena POV:

*The cold of the border lake was a thing of the body, a brutal shock to the skin, but the silver was a violation of the blood. This lake, at the edge of the Bloodmoon Pack's territory, was the site of an old mine, and a fine dust of the metal still hung suspended in its dark, churning water.* For a werewolf, silver is a slow, suffocating poison; it burns the flesh and fills the lungs with fire.

The bamboo bridge had snapped with a percussive crack during the filming of some ridiculous reality show, plunging Selena and me into the depths at the very same instant.

*I choked, the silver-laced water a taste of hot ash and metal on my tongue.*

Through the spray, I saw a massive figure dive from the riverbank.

It was Hunter.

My husband. The Alpha of the Bloodmoon Pack.

*Even through the caustic water, his presence reached me-a disturbance in the air, the scent of dark cedar and the coming of a storm.*

My Inner Wolf stirred weakly, a fool's hope kindling in the dark.

She thought our mate was coming to save us.

But Hunter's powerful strokes carried him directly past me.

*His gaze passed over my flailing form as if I were nothing more than river debris.*

His arms reached out, seizing Selena, my so-called sister.

Selena, a mere Beta, was thrashing and screaming, a perfect portrait of damsel in distress.

Hunter pulled her against his chest, his face a mask of panic and profound care.

He swam for the shore, carrying her to safety.

He left me to the burning water.

*Deep in my spine, the familiar, steady thrum of my wolf simply ceased, like a cord that had been held taut for three years had finally rotted through in the foul water.*

She curled into a tight knot in the furthest corner of my mind and fell silent.

*The bond, that living filament that had once tied me to him, turned to cold, dead ash in my chest.*

I stopped struggling.

I let the toxic water pull me down.

*When the pack's patrol finally hauled me onto the muddy bank, the silver had already etched a cruel lattice of red welts across my skin. Under the surgical glare of the infirmary lights, I traced the cracks in the ceiling plaster, waiting for a grief that never came. There was only a hollow, echoing stillness where a heart should have been.*

The next morning, I walked into the top floor of the Bloodmoon Pack enterprise building.

Hunter sat behind his massive mahogany desk.

*He looked up, his expression one of cool irritation, as if I were a minor administrative inconvenience.*

He did not ask about my burns.

I walked forward and placed a heavy parchment scroll on his desk.

It was the official document to sever a mate bond.

Hunter stared at the scroll, then his eyes, hard as flint, met mine.

*His voice dropped to a frequency meant to vibrate through bone, a crushing weight designed to buckle the knees of any lesser wolf.*

"What is the meaning of this, Serena?" he demanded.

I stood tall.

My hidden White Wolf bloodline shielded me from the worst of his crushing aura.

"I am leaving," I said quietly.

Hunter scoffed, leaning back in his great leather chair.

"You are throwing a tantrum because of yesterday," he said, his tone thick with mockery.

"Selena is a weak Beta. She cannot handle the silver water. You are my mate, you should be stronger."

He looked at me as if I were a petulant, irrational child.

"You are supposed to be the Luna of this pack, Serena. Stop being so petty."

I looked straight into his dark eyes.

The eyes I had loved for three long years.

I felt absolutely nothing for him now.

I opened my mouth and spoke the ancient law of our kind.

"I, Serena, reject you, Hunter, as my mate."

*The words, ancient and irrevocable, seemed to drain the very warmth from the air.*

Hunter froze.

*The blood drained from his face, leaving behind a mask of grey disbelief.*

A terrible, suffocating pressure filled the room as the moon goddess bore witness to my vow.

The bond between us began to tear apart.

*It was a sensation of being flayed from the inside out, a brutal tearing of sinew and spirit.*

Hunter gripped the edge of his desk.

His knuckles turned white.

His chest heaved as his own Inner Wolf howled in sudden, visceral agony.

Anger flashed in his eyes.

He was a proud Alpha, and he refused to show weakness.

He gritted his teeth and forced the words out.

"I, Hunter, accept your rejection."

A loud, invisible snap echoed in the room.

The tearing pain stopped.

The warm connection in my chest was gone forever.

I was free.

Hunter wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead.

He tried to release his calming Alpha scent, a pathetic attempt to mend a mortal wound.

"Even without the bond, the Bloodmoon Pack will still protect you," he said stiffly.

"You can stay in the estate."

I looked at him with a cold, distant pity.

"We have no pups together, Hunter. We have nothing left."

I turned around and walked toward the heavy oak doors.

"Do not look for me," I said without looking back.

I closed my eyes and built a thick mental wall in my head.

I permanently blocked his access to our pack *Mind-Link*.

I walked out of the building and checked my phone.

*The pack's solicitors had already dispatched the digital writs of dissolution and asset apportionment to my device. A cursory glance confirmed that holdings amounting to several million, along with title deeds to various metropolitan properties, now awaited my countersign.*

I took a deep breath of the city air, sharp with exhaust and possibility.

My new life as a woman of independent means was just beginning, and I was never looking back.

But the Moon Goddess had other plans - and the past I'd buried was already breathing down my neck.