My Mate Humiliated Me Before Discovering I Was Royal

The bond died at 7:04 on a Friday evening, five feet from the dais where my mate stood beside another woman.

The great hall of the Ironridge Pack house smelled like fresh blue paint, expensive wine, and synthetic gardenia. Kyle Weaver stood under the arched lights with Hailey Alvarez tucked into his side. She was draped in Silvercrest blue, her hand resting over her flat stomach. Pack members I had cooked for, stitched up, and guarded while they slept looked through me like I was made of glass.

I had come to stand in the back. I had come to let the mate bond fade into nothing and walk away with what little dignity I had left.

Kyle didn't let me.

*"Taylor. Up here. Now."*

His Alpha tone hit my spine like a lead pipe. The command seized my muscles, dragging my boots across the polished hardwood against my will. My teeth ground together until my jaw ached, fighting every inch, but the rank difference forced me up the three steps of the dais.

Hailey smiled, a tight, vicious little curve of her lips.

Kyle looked down at me. His eyes were cold, stripped of every promise he had whispered when he was bleeding out in my arms two years ago.

"I, Kyle Weaver, Alpha of the Ironridge Pack, reject you, Taylor Hollis, as my mate," he said.

The tether snapped inside my chest like a severed steel cable, ripping raw meat from bone. The pale, unmarked skin on my neck turned instantly ice-cold, hollow and dead as a winter grave. Deep in my gut, beneath three years of black-market wolfsbane, my dormant wolf didn't just whimper—she snarled, clawing at the chemical poison in my veins with sudden, savage fury.

I staggered, clutching my sternum as the air left my lungs.

Before I could straighten, Kyle’s mother stepped out from the front row. Evelyn Weaver wore heavy gold rings and silk gloves, holding an iron tong fitted with a heated silver cuff. It glowed a dull, angry orange in the hall's dim lighting.

"No loose ends," Evelyn whispered.

She clamped the burning silver around my left wrist.

My skin sizzled. The white-hot agony tore a scream straight out of my throat, the smell of charred flesh instantly drowning out Hailey’s cheap perfume. Evelyn clamped it tighter for three agonizing seconds before unclamping it, stepping back to admire the blistered, blackened circle branded into my arm. She wiped the tongs with a napkin like she had just cleared a smudge off her dinner table.

Not a single warrior moved. At the very back of the hall, near the shadow of the pillars, Marcus Kane—the Lycan King’s diplomatic observer—tightened his jaw. His silver hair caught the light, but Lycan protocol kept his hands folded behind his back. Without a broken high law, he could only watch.

Hailey stepped to the edge of the stage. Her voice rang out, sweet and dripping with fake sorrow. "Our pack has carried a parasite for three long years. An unawakened, barren Omega who drained our food, our medicine, and our Alpha’s patience. Tonight, Ironridge cuts away the rot."

A smattering of cheers rose from the council elders. Some of the younger guards laughed.

I swallowed the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I pressed my burned wrist against my stomach, turned my back on them, and walked toward the heavy oak exit doors.

Casen Riley stepped into my path.

The pack Gamma stood six-foot-two, his arms crossed over his chest, two armed warriors flanking him. A heavy iron bar rested in his hand. Kyle had positioned them before I even walked through the front gate.

"Nobody said you were cleared to leave," Casen muttered, not meeting my eyes.

I stopped. I didn't back down. I pulled my shoulders back, turned on my heel, and locked eyes with Kyle on the dais. The room went dead silent.

"You speak about drained resources, Kyle?" My voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the room like a razor. "Two winters ago, your throat was shredded open by rogue claws on the eastern ridge. The pack treasury was empty. Your mother locked herself in her suite. I pawned my grandmother’s moonstone pendant to buy the black-market healer’s blood that kept your heart beating."

Kyle’s face drained of color.

"I gave you my health. I gave you my bloodline's only relic," I said, lifting my blistered wrist so every wolf in the hall could see the smoking brand. "I don't owe Ironridge a single cent. You owe me your life. And mark my words—the debt runs the other way."

Hailey’s fake smile vanished, replaced by an ugly scowl. Evelyn hissed under her breath.

Kyle’s jaw clenched, his eyes flaring with desperate rage as he stepped down from the dais.

"Casen," Kyle barked, the air vibrating with brute force. "Take her down to the cellar. Lock the iron door."

Casen gripped my shoulder with calloused fingers and shoved me toward the basement stairs.