After My Mate Rejected Me, I Claimed a Rogue King

The music in the pack hall was deafening, a throbbing bass that seemed to mock the pounding of my own heart. Tonight was supposed to be my triumph. My eighteenth birthday. The night I finally shifted, finally heard the voice of my wolf, and finally took my place beside Nolan Tucker as the future Luna of the Tucker Pack.

But as I stood near the punch bowl, smoothing the fabric of my simple white dress, I felt nothing. No itch beneath my skin. No whisper in my mind. Just the crushing weight of a thousand eyes, all waiting for the Beta’s daughter to fail.

"Drink up, Liv," a sweet voice purred beside me. Dakota Boyd pressed a crystal goblet into my hand. Her smile was dazzling, the kind that made you forget she was a rogue we’d taken in out of charity. "It’s a special blend. Elderflower and mint. It’ll help the shift come on."

I looked at her, my best friend. My only friend. "Are you sure? I feel… sick."

"Nerves," she dismissed, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "Nolan is waiting for you to impress him. Don't let him down."

Nolan. I glanced across the room. He was standing with his father, Alpha Tucker, looking every inch the future leader. Broad shoulders, golden hair, eyes that usually held warmth but tonight seemed distant. He caught my eye and frowned, checking his watch. Time was running out.

I downed the drink in one gulp. It tasted sweet, cloying, with a bitter aftertaste that clung to my tongue.

Almost immediately, the room tilted. The lights smeared into long, blurry streaks. Heat, scorching and unnatural, bloomed in my stomach and raced through my veins. It wasn't the shift. I’d read every book on lycanthropy; the shift was pain and bone-breaking power. This was… haze. Fog. A drugging lethargy that made my knees buckle.

"Let's get you some air," Dakota whispered, her voice sounding miles away. She gripped my arm, her nails digging in hard enough to bruise. "Away from the noise. The wolf needs quiet."

She didn't lead me to the ceremonial chambers. She led me out the back door, into the cool night air of the forest. I tried to protest, to say that the pack laws required me to shift in the square, but my tongue felt like lead. The darkness swallowed us, and the last thing I remember was the smell of damp earth and Dakota’s perfume—sickly sweet vanilla masking something rotten.

***

I woke up to the sound of a door being kicked in.

Wood splintered, and harsh morning light flooded a room I didn't recognize. It wasn't my bedroom. It was a cabin, rough-hewn and smelling of pine and… something else. Something wild. Powerful. Like a storm trapped in a bottle.

I sat up, clutching a scratchy wool blanket to my chest. My head throbbed, a hangover from hell without the fun of the party. I looked to my left and froze.

A man was sleeping beside me. He was massive, taking up most of the small bed. Even in sleep, he radiated danger. Dark hair fell over a face that was too sharp, too rugged to be one of the soft pack boys I grew up with. Scars littered his bare shoulders. I didn't know him. I had never seen him before in my life.

"Oh my Goddess!" Dakota’s scream shattered the silence.

I jerked my head toward the door. There they were. The nightmare committee.

Nolan stood in the doorway, his face twisted in a mask of disgust that looked almost… practiced. Behind him was Dakota, covering her mouth with feigned horror, and flanked by three of the pack’s elite warriors. They were all staring at me. At the stranger in my bed. At the bare skin of my shoulders.

"Nolan," I rasped, my voice cracking. "I… I don't know how I got here. I think I was drugged."

"Drugged?" Nolan stepped into the room, the floorboards groaning under his Alpha aura. "Is that the best lie you can come up with, Olivia?"

"I swear!" I scrambled to get out of bed, but realized I was wearing only my undergarments. Shame, hot and blistering, washed over me. I pulled the blanket tighter. "Dakota gave me a drink, and then—"

"Stop it!" Dakota sobbed, clinging to Nolan’s arm. "Don't you dare blame me for your filth! I looked everywhere for you last night. We all did! While we were worried sick, you were out here… spreading your legs for a rogue!"

"A rogue?" I looked back at the sleeping man. He hadn't moved. Was he dead? No, his chest rose and fell in a slow, deep rhythm. He didn't seem bothered by the intrusion. In fact, he seemed bored by it.

"Get up," Nolan growled. The command in his voice slammed into me, forcing my body to obey despite my fear. "Cover yourself. We’re finishing this in front of the pack."

Two warriors grabbed my arms, hauling me out of the cabin. I stumbled, barefoot on the dirt path, dragged all the way back to the pack square like a criminal. The morning mist was burning off, revealing the gathered crowd. My father, Beta Spencer, stood on the raised platform next to Alpha Tucker. He looked regal, imposing.

"Dad!" I cried out as they threw me onto the hard pavement at his feet. "Dad, please, listen to me!"

Beta Spencer looked down at me. His eyes, usually cold, were now filled with something worse: indifference. He looked at my disheveled hair, the blanket wrapped around me, the mud on my feet. Then, slowly, deliberately, he turned his back.

The silence of the pack was absolute. Hundreds of people—neighbors, teachers, friends—stared with judgment carved into their faces.

Nolan stepped forward. He didn't look at me; he looked at the crowd, playing to the audience. He didn't look like a heartbroken mate. He looked like a man freed from a burden.

"Olivia Spencer," Nolan’s voice boomed, utilizing the Alpha tone that made my bones vibrate painfully. "You failed to shift on your eighteenth birthday. You are wolfless. A defect."

A ripple of murmurs went through the crowd.

"But we could have overlooked that," Nolan continued, his voice dripping with false regret. "We could have found a place for you in the kitchens. Instead, you chose to dishonor this pack. You chose to dishonor me."

He pointed a shaking finger at me. "You were found in the bed of a rogue. A trespasser on our lands. You sought comfort in filth because you knew you weren't worthy of an Alpha."

"No!" I screamed, tears finally spilling over. "That's a lie! Dakota—"

"Silence!" Alpha Tucker roared. The power of his command snapped my jaw shut. I couldn't speak. I could only choke on my sobs.

Nolan took a deep breath. The air around him shimmered with the force of the rejection he was about to unleash. I knew what was coming. I had felt the pull toward him my whole life, the faint, unformed bond that waited for my wolf to wake up. It was a thin thread, but it was there.

"I, Nolan Tucker, future Alpha of the Tucker Pack," he announced, his eyes locking onto mine with cruel finality, "reject you, Olivia Spencer, as my mate and Luna."

The pain hit me like a physical blow. It started in my chest, a sharp, tearing sensation as if an invisible hand had reached inside and ripped out a piece of my soul. I gasped, curling into a ball on the pavement, clutching my chest. It felt like dying.

Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Dakota’s soft, triumphant whisper as she leaned into Nolan. "You did the right thing, Alpha. She was never enough for you."

I lay in the dirt, broken, rejected, and alone. But as the darkness threatened to take me again, a strange, phantom scent drifted from the woods. Pine. Storms. And power.

The rogue in the cabin. He hadn't been sleeping. He had been waiting.