The Billionaires Bargain Bride

They said I should be lucky. Blessed, even. Omegas didn’t get fated mates. Not really. Not unless the gods blinked, or the bloodlines twisted themselves wrong.

But when the fire tore across my chest at the Choosing, I didn’t feel lucky. I couldn’t even breathe. It was like my ribs cracked open. My whole body knew it before my head did. Him. Cian.

The entire courtyard went silent. My mother’s offering plate shattered on the stones. My father’s head dropped, as if he had been waiting his whole life to be ashamed of me. People gasped. Someone laughed.

And across the platform, under the oath tree, Alpha Cian Vale looked at me like I had spit on the moon.

The bond burned once. Pure. Hot. A single heartbeat.

Then he severed it.

“I reject this bond,” he said. Flat. Calm. Cruel without even raising his voice.

And that was it.

The words didn’t knock me down. Not on the outside. But inside? They didn’t just snap something. They hollowed me out.

I walked away barefoot, my chest still glowing faintly like a brand. I didn’t cry. I didn’t give them that.

That was three days ago.

The healers lied. They said it would fade. That the glow would dull, the pain would soften. But rejection doesn’t fade. It clings. It claws. It gnaws at you like hunger you can’t feed.

I kept walking. Through Ashfall’s borders. Into the neutral lands. Didn’t stop even when my feet split and bled.

The air was colder there. Sharper. Different in a way that made me feel small and stripped bare.

I found a half-rotten inn leaning against the human road. Paid with the silver coin I’d hidden in my boot since I was twelve. The innkeeper didn’t care who I was. Didn’t ask.

Good. Because I didn’t have an answer anymore.

I wasn’t Lyra Caelwyn. Not to them. Not to anyone.

Just Lyra.

Bondless. Banished.

The room smelled of mildew and smoke that never cleared. The mattress sagged like bones under cloth. I sat cross-legged, staring at the circle burned faint on my chest. Sometimes it pulsed. Like a cruel reminder. Like something trying to remind me I was alive, even when I wasn’t sure.

And gods, I hated myself for still wondering. Did Cian feel it too? Even for a second? Did it tear him the way it tore me? Or was I nothing to him? Just a shadow to step past on his way to Seris Vale. Her golden hair. Her perfect wolf coat. Her ceremonial gown glinting with moonstones.

The bond chose me. He didn’t.

I was still turning that over in my head when the knock came.

Slow. Heavy.

Not frantic. Not polite.

I froze. My fingers found the knife under the pillow. I opened the door a crack.

A man stood there. Tall. Broad. Black coat frayed at the edges. A scar slashed across his brow. Eyes like storm clouds that refused to move.

Not pack. Not hunter. He was something else. He felt heavier.

“You’re Lyra,” he said.

I didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.

He pulled an envelope from his coat and held it out. “My Alpha sent me. He has an offer.”