Rejected by the Pack, Chosen by the True Alpha

For three years, a rogue witch named Tanya wore my skin. She drank wolfsbane like fine wine-her dark magic smothering the allergy that should have killed my body within hours. When a lunar eclipse finally frayed her grip, I clawed my way back into my own bones and rushed downstairs, desperate for my family to see the daughter they had lost.

My mother slid a cup of wolfsbane tea toward me without lifting her eyes.

"Mom, you know I'm allergic. I nearly died from it as a child."

She slammed the table and called my suffering a pathetic bid for attention.

My brother, the pack's chief healer, watched me swallow the poison and convulse on the floor. Hours later, he stood over my hospital bed and told me the rooftop was thirty stories high-if I really wanted to die.

Even Caleb, my fated mate, choked me until my bones creaked. He threw me into a silver dungeon swarming with rabid rats, accusing me of stealing a necklace I had never touched.

I couldn't understand how their love had become so blind. How could they not recognize my own soul? They watched me swallow a fatal flower, convinced I was nothing more than the witch throwing a tantrum.

They didn't realize they had tortured their real daughter to death until my heart flatlined and a maid found the missing necklace tucked inside a cat's bed.

When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't in that cold hospital. My guardian spirit had woven me a new, breathtaking body-the vessel of a legendary White Wolf.

This time, when they come crawling back, I won't feel a thing.

Chapter 1

Serena POV:

I stood before the washbasin, watching the reflection of a stranger dissolve under my scouring fingers. For three years, I had worn this mask of kohl and bruised-purple lipstick-a garish war paint chosen by Tanya.

Tanya had adored the fiction of a wild, rebellious spirit.

But I was Serena, and whatever was left of the Blood Moon Pack's true daughter was clawing its way back to the surface.

Tanya's dark magic had frayed during the lunar eclipse, granting my suppressed consciousness just enough purchase to reclaim my own bones. She had kept my body alive through three years of wolfsbane-a poison that should have killed me in childhood-by wrapping my internal organs in layers of black magic. But the eclipse had stripped those shields away. The allergy was mine again, raw and lethal as it had always been.

**But Tanya's magic had done more than poison-proof my veins. It had woven a shroud over my very soul-signature, dulling the instinctive recognition every wolf relies on to identify their own blood. My family could smell my skin and hear my voice, but my essence-the thing that should have screamed Serena to every fiber of their being-was buried beneath three years of black enchantment. The eclipse had let me slip back inside my body. It had not broken the shroud.**

I slipped into a plain white dress-a gesture of peace, a plea for my family to finally see the girl they had lost.

My inner wolf was a faint pulse, a barely audible tremor in the ruins of my mind.

I closed my eyes, reaching for the familiar warmth of the pack's mental network.

Mom? Dad? Julian? It's me, Serena. I'm back.

I cast the thought into the void, bracing for the wave of relief I had rehearsed in my dreams.

Nothing.

It was not an empty silence, but a slammed door-the psychic echo of a connection deliberately severed.

They had excommunicated me from their minds.

A leaden weight settled in my gut, but I descended the staircase into the grand dining room.

The pack mansion was draped in heavy gothic tapestries, a morbid stage set to Tanya's liking.

My parents, the former Alpha and Luna, presided over the head of a long, dark table.

She did not so much as lift her gaze.

With a flick of her wrist, she sent a delicate porcelain teacup skidding across the polished wood toward me.

"Drink it," she commanded, her voice toneless.

I looked down at the pale, murky yellow of the liquid.

The acrid, root-rot scent of wolfsbane stung my nostrils-a bitter poison laced with the metallic tang of silver dust.

Tanya, the rogue witch who had puppeteered my body for three years, had called this her special floral tea. Her dark magic had kept the poison from reaching my heart. That protection was gone now.

And for my body, it had always been a lethal poison to which I was deathly allergic.

"Mom," I whispered, the word a fragile thing in my throat. "You know I'm allergic. I nearly died from it as a child."

My mother's palm struck the table, the crack of the impact making the silverware jump.

"Cease this pathetic charade!" she snapped. "Tanya drinks this every morning. We will not indulge these theatrics you stage for attention."

I turned my eyes to my father. He angled his head away, his profile a cold, stony refusal. But I caught it-the briefest tremor in his jaw. A hairline fracture in the wall of his certainty. It was gone before I could name it.

They truly believed I was Tanya performing a new cruelty. Or perhaps, the distinction no longer mattered.

A soft, glowing voice echoed in the private space of my mind.

It was Orion, the guardian spirit sent by the Moon Goddess-the entity who had shielded my consciousness when Tanya had evicted it. He had hidden my soul in the shadow realm between bodies, keeping it safe while dark magic puppeted my flesh.

Serena, let me expend my energy. I can pull you from this house, Orion pleaded. They mean to kill you.

No, Orion, I sent back, a silent resolve hardening within me. Conserve your strength. Let them have what they seem to want.

The porcelain's rim was cool against my lower lip, the undissolved powder of the wolfsbane a gritty torment to my senses. No one spoke. No one moved to intervene. I stared into the cloudy depths of the cup, felt an involuntary tightening in my throat, and then tilted my head back, pouring the liquid fire down my throat.

A chemical blaze erupted in my throat-a searing heat that felt as if it were turning my very blood to steam.

Angry, red pustules bloomed across my skin, a constellation of agony where the silver burned its way out from within.

My legs gave way and I struck the floor, my body convulsing in violent, uncontrollable shudders.

But this was a clean, physical pain-a paltry thing next to the agony of their rejection.

My mother rose from her chair.

She released no calming pheromones, offered no soothing touch.

Instead, her eyes fixed on the shattered remains of the teacup. She strode over and slapped my burning face.

"You've ruined Tanya's favorite cup!" she shrieked. "You do this deliberately, just to spoil her memorial day! What have you done with her spirit? Where did you send her?"

She turned and swept from the dining room, off to prepare a festival for the daughter she had chosen.

She left me twitching on the marble floor, which felt like a vast, heat-sucking sponge, greedily drawing the last of the warmth from my veins.

My throat was swelling shut.

I could not draw a breath.

A black tide was pulling me under.

The heavy oak doors swung open, and a sharp scent of sterile alcohol and antiseptic cut through the air as my eldest brother, Julian, stepped inside.

Julian's presence was always preceded by the biting scent of the hospital-a chemical warning that arrived before his Beta authority ever did. As the pack's chief healer, his hands were meant to mend, but now they were just shoved deep into the pockets of his white coat.

He smelled the thick, coppery scent of my blood and swore, a low, guttural sound.

He scooped me from the floor and rushed me to the pack hospital.

Serena POV:

Julian folded his arms across his chest, his posture radiating a contempt so profound it seemed to lower the temperature of the room.

"Do you have any conception of the pack resources we just squandered on your pathetic life?" he growled.

I lay there, my throat too raw and swollen to form a reply.

"You are a low-level Omega," he continued, each word a stone thrown at me. "You bring nothing but shame to this family with your histrionics."

Tears, hot and useless, welled in my eyes.

I remembered a time when I was a child, my fingers stained with paint as I tried to capture the forest and the moon. The pack had forced me to abandon my canvases for ledgers on territory management, desperate to make me useful. They had even stripped my room of its light colors to suit Tanya's gothic sensibilities.

"I have dragged you back from the brink more times than you deserve," Julian said, his voice dropping to something colder. "If your death could somehow restore what was lost, I would not lift a finger to stop it." He glanced toward the window, his jaw set in a hard line. "The rooftop is thirty stories high. If you want to make a point, at least have the decency to do it cleanly."

I stared into his eyes, searching for the boy who had held me through the agony of my first shift.

There was nothing left of him. No warmth. No love.

A cold, heavy thing settled in my chest, where a heart used to be.

My hand shot out, my fingers closing around the silver IV needle embedded in my arm.

I tore it free with a single, violent jerk.

Blood arced across the white bedsheets-a sudden slash of crimson-but I felt nothing.

I grabbed the heavy metal IV stand and, with a desperate surge of adrenaline, shoved it sideways. It crashed to the floor between us with a loud clang, a momentary obstacle. He flinched back, surprised not by my strength, but by my sudden, feral defiance.

I scrambled past Julian and ran from the room on bare, silent feet.

"Hey! What are you doing?" a young Omega nurse shouted.

She planted herself in front of Julian, blocking his path.

"How can you say such things to her?" the nurse scolded my brother. "She just survived a poisoning!"

Julian's face contorted with rage, and he shoved the nurse aside to give chase.

But I was already a fleeing shape down the sterile white corridor.

My shoulder slammed against the heavy steel door to the rooftop, forcing it open.

A blast of wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my eyes.

I stood on the edge of the gravel-strewn roof.

I looked down at the insignificant specks of cars and people below.

I would destroy this broken body so Tanya could have it back in pieces.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the void.

The wind roared in my ears.

But gravity was not granted its swift, clean victory. My thirty-story fall was brutally cut short-a jarring screech of metal on metal as my spine slammed into the suspended platform of a window-washing crane.

A sickening crack echoed in the air as my legs and ribs shattered on impact.

I lay on the cold metal grid, coughing up blood.

An old human cleaner, who was on the platform, rushed to my side.

"Oh my god, child!" the old man cried, his hands trembling as he gently cradled my head. "Hold on, help is coming!"

He stripped off his worn, warm jacket and wrapped it around my shivering body.

His simple human kindness caused hot tears to finally spill down my cheeks. I had endured so much from my own family, only to be shown mercy by a complete stranger.

The platform was quickly winched back toward the hospital window.

Julian climbed out onto it.

He seized my arm, his grip careless of my broken bones.

He crouched down, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and yanked my head back, ignoring my cry of pain. Then he slapped me hard across the face.

My head snapped to the side, and blood trickled from my lip.

"Your acting improves," Julian hissed. "You even calculated the crane's position to ensure you wouldn't die."

Serena POV:

They dragged me back to the pack mansion as if I were a common criminal.

The livid, red imprint of a hand still burned on my cheek.

My parents were in the living room, sipping wine.

They observed my broken state without a flicker of emotion.

"Julian was right to strike you," my father, the former Alpha, said, his voice flat. "We have been far too indulgent with you."

My second brother, Silas, descended the grand staircase.

The man walking down the stairs wore the bespoke suit of a human celebrity, but the latticework of scars visible at his collar betrayed his true nature as the pack's lead warrior. He was an acclaimed actor in their world, but the look he gave my shattered legs was one of a critic watching a poorly staged play.

"You timed that jump with the crane perfectly," Silas mocked. "Such a performance. You ought to go to the human world and win an Oscar."

Before I could form a defense, the front door crashed open.

A massive wave of power-an oppressive, suffocating force-flooded the room.

It was Caleb, the current Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, CEO of our billion-dollar corporate empire.

He was also my fated mate.

His scent, once the clean fragrance of pine after a storm, was now soured with a terrible rage.

Caleb's eyes were glowing with a feral, red light.

He lunged toward me and his massive hand clamped around my throat.

He lifted me from the floor, my broken legs dangling like a puppet's.

"Where is the amethyst necklace?" Caleb roared, his face inches from mine. "Its magical signature last pulsed from your chambers. No one else could have taken it."

That necklace held a shard of the Moon Goddess's divine power. Its magic was ancient and capricious-it could conceal itself from even an Alpha's senses when it chose to. But Caleb had forgotten that in his grief.

"You lowly Omega!" Caleb spat. "So consumed with jealousy for Tanya that you would erase every trace of her!"

He unleashed his Alpha's Command.

The invisible, crushing weight of his aura bore down, forcing my inner wolf into submission. My bones groaned under the pressure.

His hand tightened around my windpipe.

His eyes held only a fanatical devotion to Tanya and a chilling disgust for me. His hand was a vice-an iron clamp devoid of the slightest hint of a mate's mercy.

I looked into his furious eyes.

I remembered being a small girl, kidnapped by rogues and thrown into a dark cave. Caleb had tracked my scent and pulled me from the darkness, promising he would protect me forever.

Three years with Tanya had burned that promise to ash.

I closed my eyes and let my arms fall limp at my sides.

I stopped struggling for air.

I was ready for him to end it.

Suddenly, a pair of hands seized Caleb's arm, pulling him back.

It was Ezra, my third brother.

He was a Beta and the pack's genius botanist.

I collapsed to the floor, gasping and coughing violently.

"Do not kill her, Caleb," Ezra said, adjusting his spectacles. "She requires a lesson."

My family formed a circle around me, their faces hard and unforgiving.

"Throw her in the Silver Dungeon for three days," my father commanded.

My eyes widened in pure terror.

The Silver Dungeon was a place of absolute darkness, thick with the smell of rust and old blood.

I began to crawl toward Caleb, the sound of my shattered bones dragging against the floor a dry, scraping horror. My trembling fingers caught the hem of his expensive suit trousers.

"Please, Caleb," I cried, casting away the last remnants of my pride. "I didn't take the necklace. Please do not put me in the dark."

Caleb looked down at me with absolute revulsion.

He kicked his leg out, sending me sliding across the polished floor.

The pack guards dragged me down into the basement.

They forced me into a heavy wooden chair.

They wrapped thick chains around my arms and legs, each link laced with silver wire.

Every slight movement sent a searing, sizzling agony deep into my flesh.

The heavy metal door slammed shut, plunging me into a total, suffocating blackness.

Then, a sound began that turned my blood to ice.

Squeak. Squeak.

Hundreds of wild rats, their blood tainted with the madness of rogues, began to crawl from the walls.