Rejection

Celestine 

“I, Alpha Killian Storm, reject you, Celestine St. Vireaux , as my mate.”

My body doesn’t react at first. It’s as if my brain refuses to process the words. They don’t make sense. Killian wouldn’t—he couldn’t—

But then it hits. A crushing, merciless wave of pain, rolled through my chest and seeping into my bones.

I sway, struggling to stay upright. My lungs tighten like a vice. My hands clench into fists at my sides.

Don’t fall. Don’t fall.

But my knees buckle. My body folds, betraying me, and I drop. Hard.

The cold, hard ground meets me mercilessly, the impact sending another shockwave of pain through my already broken body.

My hands slam against the dirt, trying to steady myself, but they tremble violently.

He’s lying.

He has to be.

Killian wasn’t always like this. I remember the first time I realized he was mine. The way his eyes softened when I laughed. The way his hand lingered at the small of my back, protective, possessive. I remember the night he carried me home after I twisted my ankle in the woods, how he grumbled about my recklessness but never let me go.

I remember except the pain right now says otherwise. The pain makes it real. It burns through my veins, gnawing at my bones, crushing my lungs, dragging me deeper into a darkness I can’t escape.

This is what it means to be rejected.

“No,” I whisper. My voice doesn’t shake. Not yet. “No, you don’t mean that.”

I force myself to look up, my entire body shaking, my pulse hammering in my skull. "Killian, ah~," I choke out, my voice barely a whisper. "I—I don’t understand."

I try to push myself up, but my arms shake beneath my weight. I can’t even stand but I still reach for him. Because I have to. Because I need him to take it back.

I need this to be a mistake.

I grasp at the hem of his shirt, fisting the fabric, my body trembling.

"Please…" My breath shudders. "Tell me why."

My eyes dart around and I realized that everyone is watching us. A slow hush ripples through the gathered pack members surrounding us, their eyes drinking in the scene like vultures watching something die.

Me.

They’re watching me die.

This is a mistake. It has to be. The mate bond is absolute. He can feel it—the same unbearable, magnetic pull, the same need, the same aching truth that we belong to each other.

But instead of pulling me up— Instead of offering me anything— Killian steps back.

A slow, calculated step making my fingers slip through air. I lose my balance, collapsing fully onto my hands and knees, a sharp sob ripping from my throat.

My wolf whimpers, clawing desperately at my insides, trying to reach him, trying to make him feel what she’s feeling.

But Killian?

Killian feels nothing.

And then, he speaks.

“It doesn’t matter. I am rejecting you.”

My wolf howls. A desperate, agonized sound that shakes through my entire being.  

“I should have known,” Mira Westwood sneers, her saccharine voice dripping with poison. “You really thought he’d want you?”

Laughter ripples through the crowd. The pitying glances. The smug smirks. I can feel their judgment, their cruel amusement—watching, waiting, drinking in my misery like it’s their evening entertainment.

I am the Alpha’s first rejected mate in over a century.

A failure. An embarrassment.

A joke.

My stomach knots. My throat burns.

Don’t cry. Not here. Not in front of them. I force myself to meet Killian’s gaze, daring him to explain himself. To say anything that would make this make sense.

He turns. No hesitation, no glance back. But his fists curl at his sides—tight, almost shaking. My wolf howls in pain, clawing at my skin, aching to pull him back, to make him feel what I feel.

The rejection settles in fully now, ice creeping through my veins. I could fight it. Demand an explanation. Beg. But I won’t. Because I still have my pride. Because even as my heart shatters, even as the pain buries itself deep into my bones, I know one thing:

If Killian Storm wants to throw me away? I will never give him the satisfaction of watching me beg. So I lift my chin. I stare at him one last time, committing every cruel detail of his face to memory before I shove the pain down, down, down until it can’t reach the surface.

And I turn my back. I run.

Through the woods, past the pack house, down winding dirt roads leading anywhere but here. The wind bites at my skin, my lungs burn, my pulse hammers in my ears.

I don’t stop. I don’t look back. If I do, I’ll break—and I refuse to break for him. 

I don’t know how long I run, only that I don’t stop until my knees give out. Until I collapse into the damp forest floor, gasping, choking on my own breath, my chest heaving with rage, grief, and something worse.

Betrayal.

Because Killian Storm? He was never mine to begin with. The sky is dark above me. The stars are indifferent. And the mate bond? It’s still there.

I can feel it—weakening, fraying, but not gone. Because Killian may have rejected me…But I haven’t rejected him. I press my forehead to the cool earth, my fingers clawing into the dirt. I should sever the bond. It would be so easy to do it now, while my heart is still raw and bleeding, while I still have the strength to hate him.

But something dark, something vengeful coils in my chest. Killian Storm rejected me like I was worthless. Like I was nothing. Fine. Let him believe that. Let him believe I’m weak. That I’ll crawl away and lick my wounds like a good little exile. Let him believe it—so when I return, he won’t see the knife until it’s in his throat.

But one day, when I return—when I make him kneel before me and watch as I rip his world apart— He will regret ever letting me go.

…Which is a lie.

Because two years later, I am standing in front of him again.

Not as his enemy.

Not as the storm that was supposed to bring him to his knees.

But as his bride.