My Alpha Rejected Me but the King Made Me His Queen

My mate rejected me in front of the entire pack on the night he became Alpha.

I will never forget the silence that followed.

For eighteen years, I had imagined what finding my mate would feel like.

I imagined warmth.

I imagined safety.

Most of all, I imagined someone finally looking at me and deciding that I was worth keeping.

I never imagined standing beneath hundreds of chandeliers while that same person looked at me as if I were an embarrassment.

The Blood Moon Pack's Ascension Hall glittered around me.

Gold pillars rose toward a ceiling painted with the history of our bloodline. Hundreds of wolves filled the ceremonial hall, dressed in expensive gowns, tailored suits, and the traditional black and silver colors of the pack.

I stood at the edge of it all in a plain black servant's dress.

A silver tray rested against my palms.

I had spent the entire day preparing the ceremony.

I had polished the glasses.

Arranged the tables.

Carried flowers.

Cleaned the marble floors until I could see my reflection in them.

That was my place.

I was Elena Vance.

An orphan.

An Omega.

A servant who had been left on the pack steps as a baby.

No family.

No powerful bloodline.

No one important enough to protect me.

I had learned early that the Blood Moon Pack had a hierarchy, and people like me existed at the bottom of it.

So I kept my head down.

I worked.

I survived.

And secretly, I waited for the day the Moon Goddess would choose someone for me.

Someone who would change everything.

Then Alpha Killian Vance stepped onto the ceremonial platform.

The crowd erupted.

He was everything the pack admired.

Twenty-four years old.

Tall.

Broad-shouldered.

Handsome.

The son of the former Alpha.

Silver eyes that made weaker wolves instinctively lower their gazes.

Tonight, he would become the youngest Alpha in the history of the Blood Moon Pack.

I watched him from across the hall.

Then his eyes found mine.

The tray nearly slipped from my hands.

Something inside my chest exploded.

Heat rushed through my veins.

My knees weakened.

My wolf, the quiet creature I had always been told was too weak to matter, suddenly woke.

Mate.

I stopped breathing.

Killian froze.

His expression changed.

For one beautiful second, we simply stared at each other.

Then I smiled.

It wasn't something I could control.

My entire body felt weightless.

The Moon Goddess had finally answered me.

My mate was the Alpha.

The man who could take me away from the servant quarters.

The man who could give me a home.

I took one cautious step toward him.

"Alpha Killian..."

His expression hardened.

My steps stopped.

A beautiful woman approached him from the side.

Luna Cynthia.

Her golden hair fell over her shoulders, and diamonds glittered against her throat.

Everyone knew why she was standing beside him.

Her father controlled one of the wealthiest neighboring packs.

Their marriage would give Killian the political alliance he needed to strengthen Blood Moon's position.

I looked at her.

Then back at Killian.

Something inside me began to sink.

No.

The Moon Goddess wouldn't do that.

She couldn't.

Killian walked toward me.

The crowd became quieter with every step.

When he stopped in front of me, the bond between us pulled painfully.

He could feel it.

I knew he could.

"You're my mate," I whispered.

His face remained cold.

"I know."

My heart lifted for half a second.

Then he spoke again.

"But that doesn't mean I have to accept you."

The warmth disappeared.

I stared at him.

"What?"

His voice grew louder.

"I, Killian Vance, Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, reject you, Elena Vance, as my fated mate."

The world stopped.

I couldn't breathe.

Pain tore through my chest so violently that I stumbled backward.

Someone gasped.

Then someone laughed.

My tray fell from my hands.

Glass shattered across the marble.

I barely noticed.

All I could hear was the echo of his words.

I reject you.

My wolf whimpered inside me.

I pressed a hand against my chest.

"Why?"

Killian's eyes moved over my servant's dress.

"You know why."

"No."

My voice broke.

"I don't."

He looked toward Cynthia.

She stood beside him with a small, satisfied smile.

Killian turned back to me.

"I cannot build an empire with an Omega who has nothing to offer."

The words hurt more than the rejection itself.

"I can work," I whispered.

A few people laughed.

"I know you can."

His tone was almost impatient.

"But servants work."

He stepped closer.

"I need a Luna who can stand beside me."

I stared at him.

"I could learn."

His expression didn't change.

"I don't want you."

That was the sentence that broke me.

Not because I had never heard cruelty before.

Because I had spent eighteen years believing my mate would be the one person who wouldn't be cruel to me.

I lowered my head.

Tears blurred the floor.

Killian turned away.

"Leave the territory before sunrise."

My head lifted.

He didn't even look back.

"You will not remain here."

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to ask him how he could reject me so easily.

Instead, I bent down and began picking up the broken glass.

A shard cut my finger.

Blood dripped onto the marble.

Nobody helped.

The music started again.

People began cheering as Killian continued his ascension ceremony.

He was crowned Alpha while I sat on the floor cleaning up the pieces of the life I had imagined.

That was when something inside me changed.

I stopped crying.

I stopped hoping.

I stopped waiting for someone to save me.

If the Alpha didn't want me, then I would leave.

I finished cleaning the glass.

Then I stood.

No one noticed when I walked out.

No one tried to stop me.

By midnight, I had packed everything I owned.

Two dresses.

A pair of worn boots.

A small photograph.

And the silver pendant I had worn since childhood.

I tied them into an old canvas bag.

Then I looked around the tiny room beneath the servant quarters.

This had been my home for eighteen years.

Tonight, it felt like a prison.

I walked toward the door.

Before I could open it, a sharp wave of nausea hit me.

I covered my mouth.

My stomach twisted.

I rushed outside.

I barely made it to the bushes before I collapsed.

When the sickness passed, I sat there breathing hard.

"What's wrong with me?"

I placed a trembling hand against my stomach.

Then I felt it.

A strange flutter.

So faint I almost convinced myself I imagined it.

I closed my eyes.

There.

Again.

My heart began pounding.

Something was happening inside me.

And I had no idea what.