Rejecting My Cruel Billionaire Alpha Mate

For eight years, I was the secret mate of Xavier, the most powerful Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack.

Because of my low-ranking Omega blood, he refused to mark me or make me his Luna.

One freezing winter night, my disabled father traveled miles to bring me rare herbs.

But Xavier forced him to stand in the biting wind for eight hours.

The reason? He claimed my father's sour scent would disturb his Beta secretary, Sylvia.

When I demanded an explanation, Xavier just swirled his whiskey and threw a limitless credit card at my father's face.

He shielded Sylvia behind his broad shoulders, roaring that my family's filthy stench was polluting his pristine territory.

He thought I was just throwing a childish tantrum to get his attention.

He completely forgot that when I miscarried our unborn pup in a pool of blood, he was out attending a dinner party with that very same Beta.

For eight years, I endured his volatile temper, waiting in a cold bed while he paraded his secretary around the city.

I looked at the man I had loved with all my soul, and felt nothing but cold ash.

Why should I remain his invisible, disposable shadow while my own flesh and blood was treated like a stray dog?

That night, I packed my bags, took my father, and left his estate forever.

As my dormant White Wolf bloodline finally awakened, I picked up my phone and pressed send.

"I, Serena, reject you, Xavier, as my mate."

Chapter 1

Serena POV:

The wind that swept down from the Alpha estate was a blade of honed ice, scraping against my cheeks.

I had just concluded my shifts on the lower pack grounds, a grueling rotation of service and labor. In our pack, the Blood Moon Pack, Omegas like me were the lowest course of stone in the foundation. We were meant to serve, to make ourselves invisible, and to endure.

But I was supposed to be different. Years ago, before she passed, my mother had always whispered that our bloodline carried an ancient, dormant power, a secret she died before revealing.

Eight years ago, during the recognition ceremony, I found my fated mate. The Moon Goddess had paired me with Xavier, the billionaire CEO and the most powerful Alpha of our kind. The memory of that day remains etched into my mind, a flawless, cruel glass.

The moment he strode into the hall, the air grew thick with the scent of winter pine and sharp frost. A violent, unfamiliar heat coiled in my blood, and the frantic beat of my own heart became a drum against my ribs. A strange and profound stillness settled over my wandering spirit. My inner wolf, a creature I barely knew, clawed at the confines of my mind, letting out a silent, deafening roar that vibrated through my very bones. Mine.

When his hand brushed against mine, a current, sharp and undeniable, shot up the length of my arm, forcing a gasp from my lips.

But that electric spark was a lie.

For eight years, Xavier kept me as his secret. He refused to perform the marking ceremony under the moon. His teeth never broke the skin of my neck to claim me. He never made me his Luna, the mother of the pack, because he despised my low-ranking Omega blood. An unmarked mate bond leaves no scent trail for others to detect-only the two wolves feel the invisible tether. Yet, he would not release me. I often found him standing outside our bedroom door, his eyes shut as he drew in my scent, a desperate, hidden act to soothe his volatile Alpha temper before he would sheathe his face in cold indifference.

I pushed open the massive, wrought-iron gates of the estate and stopped, my breath catching in my throat.

A familiar scent, one of damp earth and old rain, reached me first.

There, curled upon the frosted gravel outside the gates, was my father.

He was a disabled Omega, living on the dangerous edges of the territory where rogue wolves roamed. Though his left leg was crippled from an old injury, his hands were still strong-calloused from decades of climbing cliffs before he lost his mobility. He was lost in a fitful sleep, his body shivering inside a thin, worn-out coat. His scarred, calloused hands clutched a glass jar filled with fresh moon-glow herbs. They were not common weeds; they were rare suppressants my father risked his life to gather from treacherous cliffs, the only substance that kept the strange, burning pressure in my chest from tearing me apart during the full moon.

A knot of physical pain tightened in my stomach as I rushed to his side.

I gently shook his shoulder, and his tired eyes fluttered open. A bright, unreserved smile lit his face upon seeing me, but it vanished as he scrambled back, waving his hands in a gesture of placation. With nervous, jerky movements, he brushed at the dust staining his old coat. He insisted he could not go inside, his voice a low murmur, terrified that his sour, low-rank scent would stain the Alpha's pristine territory.

I looked through the grand glass doors of the mansion.

Xavier was seated on a sofa of expensive, dark leather, casually swirling a measure of amber whiskey in a heavy crystal tumbler. The firelight from the hearth danced across the handsome, arrogant planes of his face. Beside him, Sylvia lounged with a practiced delicacy, her hand hovering near his knee but never touching-just close enough to look intimate.

A chill, entirely separate from the winter air, seeped into my bones.

The guards at the gate told me my father had been standing out here for eight hours. Eight hours in the biting wind, while my mate drank in the warmth inside.

Suddenly, a palpable, suffocating pressure rolled out from the mansion, a wave of pure dominance. It was the Alpha's Command. The air felt like solidifying cement. A faint grinding of bone came from his injured leg, then his knee struck the frosted gravel with a heavy thud, the knuckles of his supporting hand scraping raw.

Xavier was compelling him to leave.

My father, panicked, handed me the jar of herbs and limped away into the dark night. We had been granted only three minutes together.

I threw the doors of the mansion open, my eyes burning with unshed tears, and demanded to know why he had kept my own flesh and blood locked out in the cold.

Xavier did not even look at me. But I saw his knuckles turn white around his glass, his jaw clenching so tightly a muscle jumped beneath the skin as my distressed scent flooded the room and grated on his wolf's nerves. He swirled the ice in his glass once more before speaking, his voice devoid of warmth. "Sylvia was resting on the sofa."

Sylvia was his Beta secretary, a high-ranking female who managed his corporate affairs. Xavier claimed she was exhausted, having just returned from a night patrol for the pack. He said my father's sour smell and clumsy movements would disturb her recovery from full moon exhaustion.

He took a sip of his whiskey and casually promised to build a shed outside the gates for my father next time.

A dry, bitter sound, too harsh to be a laugh, escaped my lips. I asked him if he could hear the insanity in his own words. He was protecting a Beta female while casting his mate's family out into the freezing dark.

I stared into his cold eyes and asked if he had crossed the line with her.

With a sharp crack, Xavier slammed his glass down, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, predatory gold light. A low growl vibrated in his chest. He used the prosperity of the pack and my low Omega status as his shield, telling me I was being ungrateful.

My stomach began to cramp, and the faint taste of iron rose in my throat. I swallowed hard, trying to force down the acidic pressure that felt as if it would splinter my ribs.

I remembered my first shift at eighteen, when my bones broke and reshaped in excruciating pain. Xavier was not there to hold me.

I remembered losing our unborn pup in a pool of my own blood. Xavier was not there to comfort me.

Just then, the front door opened again. My father had limped back, timidly holding out a handful of extra herbs he had dropped. He claimed they were gathered from the cliff edge to calm an Alpha's temper. He didn't want Xavier to know they were actually for me, a desperate attempt to protect me from my own volatile power.

Xavier stood up, his massive frame towering over us. His voice was a lash of contempt as he declared the cheap weeds worthless garbage, that my father was polluting the very air of high-ranking wolves.

Something inside me fractured. A fleeting, blinding flash of silver crossed my vision-deep within, something ancient stirred, as if waking from a thousand-year sleep. The heavy suppression in my chest cracked under the pressure.

I hurled the glass jar onto the marble floor. It exploded in a spray of sharp, glittering fragments.

I screamed that he had no trouble finding high-grade blood donors for Sylvia's sick mother, yet he treated my father, who had dressed in his best clothes just to see me, like a stray dog.

I looked at the man I had loved for eight years and felt nothing but cold ash.

"I'm done," I whispered, my voice shaking. "You've broken the last piece of me."

I turned and walked toward the door, my father's trembling hand in mine. Behind me, Xavier said nothing-only the clink of him pouring another glass of whiskey.

The winter wind hit my face like a slap. But for the first time, it felt like freedom.