Tricked To Rejecting My Alpha Mate

Amara Beaumont POV:

My eyes snapped open.

My hand touched the throat that had been burned by the poisoned wine; there was nothing there, just a warm, moist surface. I looked around; there were no corpses of my servants, no collapsed ruins.

This was my bedroom, filled only with the familiar scents of lavender and old books.

Not the fiery ruins of the Blackwood Pack Hall. Not the triumphant, twisted face of my cousin Karla Beaumont.

Sunlight streamed through the lace curtains of my window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. My canopy bed, with its familiar carved oak posts, stood solid and real around me.

I scrambled out of bed, my legs trembling so hard I nearly collapsed. I stumbled to the full-length mirror hanging on my wardrobe.

The face that stared back wasn't the broken, defeated woman from my memories.

It was me. At twenty years old.

My hair, a cascade of dark waves, was untouched by fire. My skin was pale but unmarred. My eyes, wide with a dawning, terrifying realization, were clear. On my left wrist, the small, crescent-moon-shaped birthmark was exactly where it should be.

It was real.

A wave of nausea churned in my stomach. I had died. I remembered the searing agony as our pack hall collapsed, the betrayal in my fated mate's eyes because he thought I was the traitor. I remember the one I chose myself, the so-called lover—Jarrod Rodgers—smiling as he thrust the dagger into my guardian's chest. It was the dagger given to me by my destined partner. Then, Karla finished me with a goblet of poisoned wine.

I was dead.

And now, I was not.

I was reborn.

My gaze drifted to the calendar on my writing desk. The date was circled in red ink. My union ceremony with Alpha Gavin Carlisle of the Stonefang Pack. It was one week away.

I had come back to the week it all began.

The week my life, my pack, my entire world was set on a path to annihilation.

The union was meant to be our salvation, a powerful alliance to protect our lands. Instead, it became our downfall. Weakened by internal strife stirred up by Karla and Jarrod, our pack became easy prey for our enemies. Gavin, my powerful, distant mate, never trusted me. A memory flashed—his cold, silver eyes as I tried to warn him about Jarrod, the disbelief and suspicion that shuttered his face. He thought I was the one playing games. And I, poisoned by Jarrod's whispers, never trusted him back. We died as strangers, bound by a fate we both resented, a chasm of unspoken words and fatal misunderstandings between us until the very end.

A cold, hard fury I had never known in my first life settled deep in my bones. It pushed out the fear, the confusion, the grief. It was a chilling, clarifying force.

My fingers curled into fists, my nails digging so deep into my palms that I felt the sharp sting of pain. It was grounding. Real.

This time would be different.

There was only one way to save my pack, to save my family, to avenge my own death.

I had to stop the union.

I had to formally, publicly, 'Reject' Alpha Gavin Carlisle.

The thought sent a tremor of pure terror through me, a primal fear of the spiritual agony it would cause. Rejecting a fated mate was an affront to the Moon Goddess herself. The pain was said to be like having your soul torn in two.

But it was nothing compared to the fires of my memory.

A plan began to form, sharp and clear in my mind. I had a week. Seven days. Enough time to gather evidence, to subtly turn the elders, to convince my grandmother, Matriarch Cordie, that this alliance was a mistake. I held all the cards. I knew their every move.

A sense of calm, of control, washed over me. I had the script. Time was on my side.

A frantic knocking shattered the silence of my room.