Page 13 of Rejected By the Alpha

There had been rumors, sure … but nothing was certain. Davix was the leader of the strongest pack in Black Hollows. Nobody stood a chance against him. If anyone was going to attack and succeed, they’d have to have help.

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked.

“War strategists at Braveclaw.”

Braveclaw? What was he doing at the coalition that I had pledged to?

“That’s why I hired you,” he said. “You’re the strongest warrior Braveclaw has. If anyone can protect my sister, it’s the guy in charge of keeping order in Black Hollows and beyond. We just can’t let Ember find out. She’d freak if she knew about werewolves.”

It wasn’t just werewolves that we had to protect Ember from now that she lived here.

Bloodthirsty rogues lived in Black Hollows—a rebel group too, named the Crimson Order. Over the past year, they had grown in numbers and sworn to the skies that they’d do anything to seize power over those in the forest.

“Ember isn’t a wolf.” I ran my tongue across my now-extended canines. It was pointless, trying to explain this again to him since he had already bought the house and moved in, but I had to try to get my point across. “Neither are you. It’s hard to protect you both here, despite it being closer to the hospital.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Just focus on my sister. She’s the important one.”

Chapter Eight

Davix

“Fight me,” I growled at Linda during training later that day. “Harder.”

She lunged at me, but I caught her and threw her to the ground. After hitting with a thud, she jumped back up in milliseconds and bared her canines at me. When she lunged at me again, I grabbed her and pinned her to the ground, but not before she sliced her claws deep into my bicep. I hissed, the pain unexpected from her, but then hopped off and let her up.

“Good,” I said. “You’re getting stronger.”

Linda smiled. “Because of you.”

“Davix!” Matt called, nodding me over.

I gestured for Linda to continue sparring with some of the other warriors and walked over to my beta, Matt. Hazel eyed me from across my training field, looking pissed off that I had been training with one of my warriors, as Silas bothered her with something.

“Scouts have spotted the River Pride Pack readying for war. They overheard their alpha talking about running on our pack by the end of the week,” Matt said, watching over practice. “We’re still recovering from the last attack.”

“We’re ready,” I said, gazing at Linda.

Ending the curse required more than rejecting my fated mate. It required more sacrifice, more death. Certain wolves in other packs needed to die, ones that had caused terror onto this world, ones who had become vicious rogues, some even in the River Pride Pack.

This was the perfect opportunity to begin to end the curse. Kill those who needed to be killed and mate with a strong warrior wolf.

“Never,” my wolf said defiantly in my mind.

“Stop it,” I growled at my wolf through my head. “We can’t have her. You know that.”

“Need mate.”

“One taste of her was enough. Linda is the woman we’re going to⁠—”

“Linda is not mate,” he said. “Need mate.”

“Even if we did mate her, you remembered what happened to Mom, don’t you?”

It was the first memory that I had of her and one of the only ones. Three years after she had mated with my father, right after Hazel was born, a rash had formed on her neck, one that spread throughout her body, poisoned her mind, and killed her.

I balled my hands into fists. “Don’t you remember that agony she was in?!”

My idiot father had traded his entire pack’s happiness for three fucking years of his own, only for his mate to die in the end. He knew what would fucking happen, not only to his packmates, but also to his mate. And he’d decided to be so fucking selfish.