Rejected By The Alpha: Awakening The Secret White Wolf

I am the Chief Mind-Net Guide. Using telepathic communion, I lead my fated mate-Kael, the Alpha Wolf King-and his squad through the fatal Shadow-Shrouded Mist.

When they are ambushed by rogue werewolves and pushed to the brink of death, Kael broadcasts his final words over the public mind-net channel.

Yet his last words are not for me.

"Tell Elara I love her. Tell her she is the one regret of my life."

I bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood. Physical agony holds back my heart-wrenching despair. For those critical forty seconds, I race against time to disarm the magical traps and guide his squad back from the jaws of death.

But upon his safe return, he embraces his childhood sweetheart in front of everyone. Worse still, he drives me out of our bedchamber.

Most bitterly ironic of all, on the grounds that I cost them forty critical seconds in battle, he brings fabricated military charges against the Guide - against me - vowing to have me exiled forever.

He has no idea the Guide he is so determined to destroy is the very woman who just saved his life.

I sign the formal contract dissolving our mate-bond and apply for a transfer to the frigid Northern Winter-Claw Wolf Pack.

From this day onward, my mind-net opens only for myself.

Chapter 1

The Shadow-Shrouded Mist hangs unnaturally thick tonight, swirling and coiling against the ancient stone walls of the Blood-Moon Wolf Clan's central spire.

I sit upright in the elevated Seer-Guide's chair. My eyes fall half-shut as I channel steady streams of magic power into the glowing floating crystal before me.

As Chief Telepathic Seer-Guide, my duty is to steer clan warriors through the lethal border mists.

The telepathic link forms our mental network, a bridge of consciousness connecting every member of our people.

Only Seer-Guides who have undergone brutal rigorous training can stabilize this network across vast distances, maintaining perfect cold composure to deliver tactical navigation to front-line fighters.

Without warning, a wave of raw panic surges across the public consciousness channel.

[Ambush! Rogue wolves in the mist! They are armed with silver!]

The voice comes from a warrior of Squad 5127. Leading this squad is none other than Alpha Kael.

Pure silver is our deadliest bane.

Even light skin contact brings burning festering wounds. It completely suppresses our powerful regenerative gifts; a trivial scratch can turn instantly into a fatal injury.

My heart hammers so hard it threatens to burst out of my chest. Still, I force my breathing steady.

I release my aura-sensing perception and awaken the ancient magic thrumming beneath my skin - a searing, blazing white-hot energy. Elder Thorne has repeatedly warned me never to reveal this power lightly to others.

In an instant, I feel the chaotic feral energy of the rogue wolf pack closing in on Kael's squad.

Then Kael's voice booms across the shared telepathic link.

[This is Alpha Kael. We are surrounded. A net woven of pure silver is closing in.]

His voice is hoarse and gravel-edged, carrying no hope of survival.

[If we cannot break free... tell Elara I love her. Tell her she is the one thing I will carry in my heart until death.]

A boulder-weighted suffocation slams into my chest, draining every breath from my lungs.

Kael is my fated mate.

The Moon Goddess forged us for one another. An invisible soul-contract binds our destinies irrevocably together.

Yet facing certain death, his final confession belongs to Elara, his childhood friend.

The mate-bond inside me wails in hopeless torment. Biting cold winds howl, tearing at my organs.

Tears burn behind my eyelids, but I sink my teeth deep into my tongue.

The sharp metallic tang of blood floods my mouth.

Searing physical pain yanks my scattered wits back under control, locking my raging emotions behind walls of ice.

[Squad 5127, this is Central Spire.] My thought-voice transmits across the link, flat and unwavering, as cold as the age-old stone walls all around.

[Turn forty degrees to your left. There is a narrow gap in the silver net. Move on my command.]

[Who are you?] Kael growls on the other end of the connection, thick with wariness and suspicion. [Why did you take so long answering our hails?]

He cannot even recognize the voice of his own fated mate.

I swallow the coppery blood filling my mouth. My heart is already shattered to shreds, eaten away by the fierce love he proclaimed for another in his hour of doom.

Ignoring his question, I give my next low command.

[Move. Full speed to break out. Three hundred meters ahead, leap over the fallen oak tree. Do not look back.]

For the next ten minutes, I become their only eyes in the pitch-black mist.

With pinpoint precision I steer them past one death trap after another. Not once does my tone shake.

Only when I sense their auras cross the protective ward barrier around the castle do I slump backward in my chair, utterly spent.

I leave the spire and hurry toward the main courtyard, hiding in the shadow of a Gothic archway.

I only need to see with my own eyes that he is alive.

Deep inside me, a faint foolish spark of hope lingers: after brushing so close to death, perhaps he will come for me - if nothing more than to offer a brief embrace.

What meets my gaze instead is Kael leaping down from his giant wolf form and shifting cleanly back into human shape. Tall and powerfully muscled.

Before he can pull his cloak over his shoulders, a female figure steeped in cloying rose fragrance hurls herself straight into his arms.

It is Elara.

Kael locks his arms tight around her waist and kisses her deeply, right in front of the cheering warriors.

I step silently backward, sinking deeper into shadow. My hands tremble uncontrollably.

Maya, a young Omega apprentice Seer-Guide, slips to my side, her eyes full of pity.

"Did the Alpha send you a private telepathic message to say he survived, Seraphina?" she whispers.

I force a bitter smile and shake my head, pretending indifference.

In the three years since we learned we were fated mates, Kael has returned victorious countless times.

Not once has he sent me even a single word over our private exclusive link.

Midnight passes before Kael finally returns to our manor.

I sit perched on the edge of our master-bedchamber bed, staring blankly at the floorboards.

The door slams open. Kael strides inside. His scent - deep fir mixed with the tang of an oncoming storm - fills the whole room in an instant.

There are no gentle words of comfort.

Instead, he unleashes his Alpha aura. That crushing overwhelming power presses down on me. The low-rank wolf-spirit within my instincts craves submission, to drop to my knees.

It is the absolute command of an Alpha, a force my body and soul cannot resist.

"Gather your belongings. Move to the guest quarters," Kael orders coldly, his tone brooking no argument. "Elara has been terribly frightened tonight. She needs this large bed, and this chamber is warmer."

I lift my gaze toward him, my throat tight. "You would give our master bedroom to her?"

"It is not your place to question me," he cuts me off impatiently. "Furthermore, at first light tomorrow I go before the Council of Elders to file a formal complaint against that heartless Guide on duty tonight."

"She saved your life," I murmur.

"She stood frozen for forty whole seconds!" Kael roars. "Cold and emotionless! She had no care for how dire our situation was!"

My heart turns to ash.

I swallow the last traces of blood in my mouth and stand.

I walk over to the desk and unroll a parchment - a transfer application requesting reassignment to the frozen Winter-Claw Wolf territory in the far north. Without hesitation I sign my name.

When I return from my shift the next dawn, the master suite is already transformed.

Elara has taken complete possession of it.

Her lavish silk gowns hang all over the great oak wardrobe, shoving my plain cotton dresses into a dim cramped corner.

Kael leans against the doorframe and watches me pack my few personal possessions with cold eyes.

"You ought to be grateful you hold that cushy post in the spire," Kael folds his arms and sneers. "Sitting safe indoors, while I risk my life fighting out in the mist."

Elara sits on the edge of the bed, deliberately exuding a frail helpless Beta aura to look pitiful.

"Oh Kael, do not be so harsh toward her," Elara coos sweetly. "Not everyone can be as brave as you, facing all those dangers out in the wild."

I pay them no mind. Carrying my folded clothes I head for the drafty cramped guest room down the hall.

While unpacking, a glowing communication crystal rolls out of my satchel.

It is a message crystal. Three years ago, at the Moon Goddess Festival, when we first discovered we were fated mates, Kael had given it to me as a token.

Elara steps into the guest room and spots the crystal.

"What a rough unpolished raw stone," she laughs lightly. "Why do you still keep this worthless trinket?"

Kael follows her inside. He glances casually at the crystal with total indifference.

He bends down, picks it up, and tosses it carelessly into the wooden ash bucket beside the fireplace.

"Keep no more rubbish like this," Kael commands from on high. "Also, if anyone asks, you will say nothing about last night. You saw nothing. Elara was never out there."

I stare numbly at the crystal half-buried in cold ash.

"Since you serve in the spire," Kael speaks in his haughty dismissive commanding tone, "find out exactly who was manning the main spell array during the ambush. I need her name, so we can make those charges stick."

Before I can reply, a private telepathic channel from my mentor Elder Thorne bursts open inside my mind.

[Seraphina, I am so sorry.] Thorne's thought-voice holds barely contained fury. [Alpha Kael has filed official charges against the duty-officer of that night. The Council knows the name; the seal binds everyone outside that chamber - including him. The charge names the Chief's roster, so the suspension falls on you. You are suspended from duty effective immediately.]

The suspension will be entered in the duty ledger as a routine review of the Chief's roster. No one in this house reads the duty ledger. In three years Kael has never once asked what I do up in that tower.

I look up at Kael, the man who was supposed to share my whole life. A bitter truth settles heavy in my chest: my nightmare is only just beginning.