Reject Me Already

POV Kaelia.

His words hung in the chilling air like a suspended executioner’s blade. *I, Caius Ironcross, Alpha of the Moonflare Pack, reject you, Kaelia Ashwood, as my mate.*

The horrifying reality of the moment crashed over me, trapping me in a suffocating, terrible nightmare from which I could not awake. The massive iron gates of the pack house loomed behind him, their sharp spikes piercing the gloomy sky, casting long, dark shadows over my broken form. I knelt in the dirt, clutching the gaping wound on my thigh, but the physical agony radiating from my torn flesh paled in comparison to the spiritual mutilation tearing through my chest.

The mate bond. Our sacred, Goddess-given tether.

I physically felt it forcefully shattering within my core. It did not just break; it detonated. A sickening snap ripped through my center, severing the spiritual cord that connected my soul to his. I choked on a harsh gasp, the metallic taste of blood rising in the back of my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, enduring the phantom sensation of my heart being ripped into jagged, bleeding pieces.

Dying brutally on the battlefield at the hands of a monster like Alpha Zaric suddenly seemed preferable to this. Zaric was a known enemy. Zaric tore flesh and broke bones with feral honesty. But Caius? Caius was my destined mate, the esteemed Alpha of the Moonflare Pack. He was tearing apart my very soul with the cruel, calculated words spilling from his mouth.

My knees collapsed under my weight. I sank further into the dirt, trembling uncontrollably. Fresh, warm blood poured heavily from my battlefield wound, pooling onto the earth beneath me, stubbornly refusing to close.

Through the thick haze of my agony, my mind drifted back. A tragic reel of memories played behind my tear-filled eyes, highlighting the cruel joke my life had always been.

I was born into a revered priestess family, a bloodline that served the Moon Goddess directly. My family demanded flawless perfection. They demanded purity, marked by the signature stark white hair of the priestesses.

But I was born cursed. My hair grew out in two distinct tones: half midnight black, half stark white. It was a glaring imperfection. A dark stain on their flawless legacy. Because of it, I had spent my entire life marginalized as an outcast. Before I could even walk, I was shoved to the edges of the pack, treated like a walking omen of bad luck. I endured the whispers, the sidelong glances, the unending isolation.

I grew up starved for basic affection. I never wanted power. I never desired glory or a crown. My only profound yearning had been for simple happiness and a sacred bond with a destined mate. I just wanted someone who would look at me and see a person worthy of love, not a cursed mistake.

When the Moon Goddess revealed my mate to be Caius, I thought my lifelong prayers were finally answered. I devoted every fiber of my existence to him. I twisted myself into painful knots, studying, training, and bleeding to become the perfect Luna. I tried to mold myself to fit his impossibly high standards.

He ordered me to the front lines. He told me to march into a suicidal war against Alpha Zaric, the ruthless viper who slaughtered our kind without hesitation. I obeyed. I willingly faced death, swinging my blade, taking hits, and bleeding onto the earth, strictly on his orders. I never once blamed him. Even when his commands sent me to the brink of the afterlife, I found genuine happiness solely in the act of keeping him safe.

And now, the crushing weight of realization crushed the remaining breath out of my lungs.

All my agonizing sacrifices meant nothing. My unwavering devotion, my spilled blood, my ruined body—it was all for nothing.

"Say it, Kaelia," Caius growled, his deep voice vibrating with unyielding authority.

His harsh command snapped me back to the brutal present. I opened my eyes. Through the thick blur of my tears, I looked up at him. He stood tall, his posture rigid, glaring down at me with undisguised irritation. He looked at me not like a wounded mate, but like a piece of trash ruining his pristine courtyard.

My lips parted, but my throat felt stuffed with shattered glass. I tried to form the words, but only a broken whisper leaked out. "C-Caius..."

"Say it," he repeated, demanding I verbally accept the rejection. His tone hardened into a lethal edge. "After you say the words, you will be granted medical treatment. Then, you will be permanently exiled from this pack. That is all I can do for you."

He was cruelly leveraging my dying state. He stood there, watching me bleed out, promising that only after I submitted would I get a healer. He held my life in his hands and squeezed without an ounce of hesitation.

Trembling uncontrollably, I stared up at the man I had loved unconditionally for years. My body shook with raw, unrestrained grief. The tears spilled over my lashes, cutting hot trails through the dirt and blood smeared on my cheeks. I looked down at my hand, still clutching the deep laceration that refused to stop bleeding.

"After everything I have done for you..." My voice broke, echoing off the cold stone walls. "After all the pure love I poured into you... how could you orchestrate such a profound betrayal?"

I pressed my hand harder against my thigh, fighting through a wave of dizziness. "I went to war for you! I sacrificed my soul, my safety, my very life! I faced monsters to protect your borders! I gave you my unwavering dedication!" My chest heaved as I gasped for air, demanding to know the truth. "Why would you do this to me... when all I have ever given you is love?"

For a fleeting fraction of a second, something shifted in the depths of his green eyes. A microscopic flicker of something akin to guilt. But before it could take root, it vanished, replaced by an impenetrable wall of cold indifference.

He opened his mouth, ready to deliver another cutting blow, but a soft rustle of expensive fabric interrupted him.

Giselle stepped forward.

My twin sister. The golden child of our bloodline.

Adopting a sickeningly intimate, soft tone, she moved with effortless grace. Her pristine dress brushed against the rough dirt as she stopped right beside Caius. Reaching out, she touched his muscular forearm.

"Caius didn't mean it, Kaelia," Giselle said softly.

I stared at her hand resting on his arm. The sheer intimacy of the gesture slammed into me like a physical blow. A heavy silence descended over the courtyard. The pack guards surrounding us did not flinch. They did not look surprised. It was as if they already knew.

My heart pounded a frantic, terrifying rhythm against my ribs in utter horror. I watched as Giselle caught my stare. Slowly, the edges of her lips curled upward. She smiled in pure triumph. She stood there, basking in the glow of my ruin.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head hard. "No. Impossible. You would not do this to me. You would not..."

Neither of them rushed to deny it.

Giselle rested her hand possessively on Caius's arm, publicly claiming him right in front of me.

"Yes," Giselle said, speaking with a layer of feigned sweetness that utterly failed to mask her malice. "Whatever you are thinking right now, sister, is correct."

She leaned closer to him, her shoulder brushing his broad chest. "Caius and I are intimately together. We have been for a long time. We only kept our affair hidden to avoid hurting you. We wanted to spare your feelings. But we cannot hide anymore. We love each other too much. I know you will understand, Kaelia. You have always been the understanding type."

Her words confirmed my worst nightmare. The truth brutally reoriented my entire world. The solid ground beneath me felt like it was splitting open. My mate and my twin sister—the two people I loved and trusted most in the universe—had been conspiring together all along.

Every late night. Every cold shoulder. Every distant glance. It all made horrifying sense. They intentionally threw me to Zaric's lethal claws so I would be torn apart in their stead. They wanted me dead so they could be together without the burden of guilt.

Caius let out a heavy sigh, breaking through the tense silence. He rolled his broad shoulders, looking utterly bored and devoid of any remorse.

"Stop wasting my time," Caius demanded, his voice thick with annoyance. "Just reject me already, Kaelia."

I opened my mouth, the stinging taste of betrayal thick on my tongue, but Giselle turned her gaze to him.

"Wait," Giselle requested softly. "Let me talk to my sister first. She might listen to me."

Caius tightened his jaw. He clearly despised the delay, but he gave a curt nod. "Make it quick."

Giselle released his arm and stepped toward me. Kneeling down, she took my blood-stained hand in hers. To the guards watching from the gates, she put on a flawless public performance of offering tender comfort to a fallen sibling.

But her fingers were ice cold. My stomach heaved. I wanted to yank my hand away, but my muscles refused to obey. The blood loss was draining my strength by the second.

Giselle leaned in close. She tilted her head, pressing her cheek near mine. Then, her warm breath carried words of pure, unadulterated venom directly into my ear.

"You really should not be so down, sister," she whispered, her tone dropping into a vicious hiss. "After all, it is not like you could have kept him forever."

My broken body flinched instinctively. I tried to pull back, but her grip on my hand tightened, her manicured nails digging into my skin.

"I can finally be rid of trash like you," she murmured triumphantly. "Do you have any idea how annoying you have always been to me? How could someone like you, a cursed wolf, end up with Caius as a mate, when I should have been the one?"

"Giselle..." I choked out, another hot tear slipping down my cheek.

"That is why I did every single thing in my power to seduce him and make him mine," she confessed viciously. "And it was not hard. He already despised the very sight of you. He only kept you around because you were a useful tool for his power. A convenient shield. But now, you are not useful anymore. So you should just die. It will be better for everyone."

A sob caught in my throat, but Giselle was not done. She saved her final, devastating revelation for last.

She smirked wickedly, her gaze dark and lifeless as she stared into my eyes. "Besides... your white wolf, Nyla, is already poisoned."

My eyes snapped open. Shock paralyzed my lungs. I stared at her, my heart skipping a beat before slamming brutally against my ribs.

"Yes, Kaelia," she whispered, her eyes dancing with wicked delight. "I personally poisoned the wolf. That dark sabotage is the exact reason your precious wolf has been dead silent and dormant all day."

My mind went blank. I immediately reached inward, searching the mental space where Nyla usually roamed. It was desolate. Empty. There was no pacing, no comforting warmth. Just a chilling, heavy silence.

"She is slowly dying," Giselle stated coldly. "And once the wolf is permanently gone, you will be reduced to pure nothingness. You will never rise again. You will be worthless."

She released my hand and stood up, smoothing out her pristine dress as if she had just touched something filthy.

I found myself entirely unable to breathe. I remained kneeling in the dirt, my world crumbling piece by piece around me.

The horrifying clarity of my situation crashed down on me like an avalanche of stones. Even if I somehow survived this brutal humiliation and physical trauma today, it meant nothing. Nyla's death was imminent.

And when a werewolf's wolf dies, the human inevitably follows. The soul cannot survive the severing.

My sister's treacherous poison had already firmly decided my inescapable fate. I was a dead woman breathing. My mate had betrayed me. My sister had murdered me. My pack had forsaken me. I had dedicated my entire life to protecting people who were purposely plotting my demise.

I stared at the dirt, watching my blood soak into the earth. The tears stopped falling. The trembling in my hands ceased. A strange, eerie calm washed over my burning veins, extinguishing the fire of my grief and replacing it with something cold and hollow.

I was doomed. I was going to die no matter what I did today.

The realization settled deep into my bones, freezing the last remaining shreds of my fragile hope. I had nothing left to protect. No mate to serve. No sister to love. No future to fear.

I was poisoned. I had nothing left to lose.