Rejected By The Alpha, Carrying His Secret Heir

I woke up reborn, my hands frantically searching my stomach to confirm my unborn pup was still alive.

Not long after, my fated mate, Alpha Julian, walked into the bedroom.

He asked me to temporarily give up my Luna crown and perform a fake rejection.

He wanted to give my title to Elara, a traitor's daughter, just to save her from being cast out of the pack.

In my past life, I hadn't even had the chance to tell him I was pregnant.

I cried, begged, and eventually compromised to help him.

But when Elara later faked her death in the snow to frame me, Julian went completely mad with guilt.

He locked himself in his study, and when I tried to comfort him, he violently shoved me away.

My back slammed into the stone fireplace, and I bled out on the floor, losing our baby.

He didn't even stay to help me. He ran into the mountains to search for Elara's remains, leaving me to rot in misery until I died.

I could never understand how a man's pity for a liar could completely destroy a sacred mate bond and his own flesh and blood.

This time, looking at his guilty face, I didn't shed a single tear.

"I, Aria, reject you, Julian, as my mate."

The ancient words left my lips without a tremor, and I turned to pack my bags.

Chapter 1

Aria POV

I woke upon the four-poster bed, a colossal thing of dark, carved wood that stood like a mausoleum in the ancient stone castle of the Northern Pack.

My lungs were a pair of empty bellows, labouring to draw a breath that would not come.

My hands flew to my stomach, a frantic search for the warm, wet stickiness of my own blood.

There was none.

Instead, a faint, rhythmic pulse, a flutter like the wings of a trapped bird, beat against my palm and confirmed the impossible.

My pup was still alive.

I had been reborn.

The heavy oak door groaned on its iron hinges, its complaint breaking the funereal silence of the gothic bedchamber.

Julian walked in.

He was the Alpha of the Northern Pack, the supreme leader who held absolute power over all of us.

He was also my fated mate.

The Moon Goddess, the deity who created our kind, had tied our souls together.

But the scent of him, once a clean fragrance of pine and winter snow, was now soured with the damp, earthy odour of guilt.

He stood at the edge of the bed, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Aria," he started, his voice thick with a hesitation that grated on my ears. "I must ask you for a favour of some magnitude."

I sat up slowly, pulling the heavy fur-lined blanket over my knees.

I knew exactly what he was going to say.

"My mentor was executed for treason yesterday," Julian said, his jaw clenching. "His daughter, Elara, is about to be cast out of the pack."

I stared at his handsome face, feeling absolutely nothing.

"If she is cast out, she will become a Rogue," Julian continued, his eyes pleading with me. A Rogue was a werewolf without a pack, a feral and mindless monster that roamed the wild until they starved or were hunted down. "I owe her father my life," Julian said, running a hand through his dark hair. "I begged the Royal Pack to let Elara stay as the lowest-ranked wolf in the pack."

"But she refused," I said softly, finishing his sentence.

Julian looked surprised, but he nodded.

"She threatened to take her own life rather than live in servitude," he explained. "She wants a title. She needs the protection of the Luna title."

The Luna was the female leader of the pack, the mother of all members, and my rightful position.

"So," I said, my voice eerily calm. "You wish for me to relinquish my crown."

"Just temporarily!" Julian rushed forward, stopping just short of touching me. "We just need to perform the Rite of Separation-an ancient ceremony that temporarily suspends a title without severing the mate bond. It will strip you of the Luna title for now, and I can give it to Elara to save her life. Once the danger passes, we will reclaim it."

The Rite of Separation.

In my past life, those same words had sounded like salvation-a clever loophole that would let us both play the heroes. I had believed him.

In my past life, I had been about to tell him I was pregnant with our first pup. Instead, his words, like a dull saw, had begun to tear apart the small, tightly-held vision I had of a nursery and a cradle, reducing it to a pile of splinters at my feet.

In my past life, I had cried, begged, and eventually compromised.

I had performed the rite. I had stepped aside.

And Elara had not been grateful. Three months later, on the night of a brutal snowstorm, she had vanished from the border cabin where Julian had hidden her. A guard had delivered a wooden box to the castle-inside, a single bloodied winter rose and a letter professing her undying, tragic love for Julian. She had "died" in the snow, and the letter made it clear: it was my fault for forcing her to the borders.

Julian had gone mad with guilt. He locked himself in his study for days, and when I forced my way in to comfort him, he had looked at me with eyes that no longer saw a mate-only an obstacle that had cost him someone "pure."

"If you had just accepted the rejection, Aria!" he had roared. "If you had just stepped down, she would not have died in the snow!"

I had reached for him. His hands had met my shoulders and shoved.

My back had slammed into the stone fireplace. The crack of bone. The hot gush of blood. The death of our unborn pup on the cold floor.

And Julian had run. Not to get a healer. Not to hold me. He had run into the mountains to search for Elara's "remains," leaving me to rot in misery until I died.

The memory burned through me now, a cold fire that calcified every soft feeling I had ever held for this man.

This time, I did not shed a single tear.

I looked directly into his dark eyes.

"I, Aria, reject you, Julian, as my mate."

The ancient words left my lips without a single tremor. Not the rite. Not a performance. The true, irrevocable rejection vow.

Instantly, a violent tearing sensation ripped through my skull. The mind-link, the telepathic bridge that connected our souls and allowed us to speak in each other's minds, snapped in half.

Julian stumbled backward, the blood draining from his face so swiftly that the blue veins at his jaw stood out like stark, grey rivers on a map. His eyelids retracted, exposing the blood-shot whites of his eyes as he felt the bond shatter. The air he meant to inhale caught in his throat, producing a wet, rasping sound, like a punctured bellows.

"Aria! What are you doing?" he gasped, clutching his chest. "I spoke of the Rite! The temporary ceremony! Not this!"

"You asked for a rejection," I stated coldly. "Now accept it."

Julian was trembling, the muscles along his spine beginning to spasm violently. A second, phantom heart hammered against his ribs as the beast within him fought against the cage of his reason.

But his wolf could not resist the ancient law. A rejection spoken with full intent demanded a response.

He gritted his teeth, forcing the words out.

"I, Julian, accept your rejection," he choked out.

The remaining thread of our soul bond turned to ash and blew away.

The cartilage in Julian's knees gave a sickening pop, and his legs, as if suddenly drained of their marrow, could no longer support his weight, sending him crumbling to the floor in a graceless heap.

"It is done," he whispered. His voice cracked. "But it was not supposed to be true..."

"Yet it is," I said.

He thought I was lost in grief, acting out in pain. He thought this was a storm that would pass.

He had no inkling that I had just scoured his name from my heart forever-and that by nightfall, I would be gone.