The Alpha's Unclaimed Ghost: His Rejected Mate

Alanna Crosby POV:

"I, Caden Fowler, reject you, Alanna Crosby, as my mate."

The words of the Alpha King, Caden Fowler, echoed through the dead forest as he rejected my plea in front of the entire pack.

I felt my wounds tearing open, utterly humiliated, and covered my face as I ran out of the wolf pack. I wanted to escape the man I had liked for so long, as far as possible. Now the entire pack knew I was publicly discarded by the Alpha leader.

I heard the pack whispering behind me: "A waste who can't even perform the most basic wolf soul transformation-what right does she have to become the Moon Goddess?"

I couldn't understand why Caden Fowler was so certain that I had killed his mother, the former Moon Maiden. I didn't even know her. When she died, I was just a child. Since the Moon Goddess had given us a destined bond, why would the chosen one hate me to the core? I only wanted to ask him why.

Finally, I ran out of the pack's territory, but a sudden chill, colder than the night wind, slid down my spine. It was the scent of danger. Primitive. Wrong. Something inside me trembled and warned me. My fists clenched. My short, clean nails dug into my palms, and that small pain was comforting, letting me momentarily forget the gaping hole in my chest.

I spun around. The air was thick with the stench of decay. A scent that didn't belong to the Fowler Pack. It was the stench of Rogues-wolves without a pack. Every wolf knew what that meant. Violence. Death.

My eyes swept through the deep shadows between the ancient oaks. A pair of glowing red eyes became two. Then three. They were hunting.

I tried to transform. I needed my wolf soul's power, her claws, her teeth. But the transformation wouldn't complete; my blood was thin, and my wolf soul was doomed never to awaken. My bones began to crack-that sickening grinding and stretching of bone-but the change stalled halfway. My argument with Caden had drained me, left me hollow. Fear and heartbreak were poison, making this transformation a pain I couldn't bear.

It was too late.

A massive black wolf burst from the underbrush. A blur of fur and teeth. Claws, sharp as knives, tore through my jacket fabric and ripped open my shoulder.

A scream tore from my throat, swallowed by the vast, indifferent forest.

I crashed to the ground. The impact knocked the breath out of me. More teeth sank into my leg, my flank. The pain-searing, total-consumed me.

Warm blood soaked through my clothes and pooled in the cold earth beneath me. My vision blurred, the edges darkening.

Then, nothing. The pain vanished. The world went silent and dark.

A strange lightness replaced it. I floated, rising upward, away from the twisted, broken body on the forest floor.

I looked down. My soul screamed.

I hovered in the air, translucent, shimmering in the moonlight. Below me, my body lay contorted, motionless in the spreading pool of blood. I realized that at the moment between life and death, I had finally awakened my beast soul, but my soul had left my body, now only in the form of a silver, translucent she-wolf.

I tried to call out for help, to shout the name of Caden, the Alpha of the pack. I tried to dive down and force myself back into my body, but my hands passed through my body as if it were only smoke.

Was I dead?

In the distance, sirens wailed, growing closer. The Rogues melted into the darkness, disappearing.

Two men in uniforms-paramedics-rushed through the trees. They found my body. Their faces were grim.

"The injuries are too severe. She's dying."

One of them found my phone, lying a few feet away, its screen still lit. "We have to notify her emergency contact."

He picked it up, thumb swiping across the screen. He saw the name at the top of my favorites list.

"Caden."

Next to it was a small, silly heart emoji, placed there by myself. A bitter, cruel joke.

My nonexistent heart clenched. Caden... would he come? Would he show a shred of mercy?

The paramedic put the call on speaker.

"Hello?" Caden's voice was sharp, cold as ice.

"Mr. Fowler? This is Central Medical Emergency Services. A woman named Alanna Crosby has been attacked. She's in critical condition-"

A beat of silence.

Then his voice, laced with a venom that could freeze my soul, cut through the night air.

"I don't know anyone by that name. You've dialed the wrong number."

"Click."

The call ended.

The paramedic stared at the phone, his expression shifting from shock to pure, unvarnished anger.

"What kind of bastard is so cold-blooded..." he muttered.

I floated in the air, a ghost in the making. The cold that seeped into me now had nothing to do with death. It was the cold finale of his abandonment. The last stupid spark of hope I had held for him was extinguished by that dial tone's hum.

I watched them lift my broken body onto a stretcher, covering it with a white sheet.

The ambulance sped toward the hospital, its lights painting the trees in frantic strokes of red and white. I followed, like a kite pulled by an invisible thread, drawn by the aftermath of my own death.

The emergency room was a blur of organized chaos. Doctors and nurses crowded around the gurney. Machines beeped and whirred.

I saw a doctor pressing on my chest, trying to force my heart to beat, but the line on the monitor stubbornly, desperately, stayed flat.

Another nurse was looking at my ID. "The Alpha isn't answering. Let's try her mother, Frida Salinas."

My mother?

A bitter taste filled my mouth, even though I had no physical body. The woman who hadn't seen me in five years, unless she needed money. If I died, would she care?

The nurse dialed the number.

My soul drifted closer, desperate to hear. Maybe this was my last chance. The last connection to the world that had abandoned me. I could smell and see all of them, including fear, lies, and ambition.

The call connected. A din, like a crowded bar, and a woman's voice came through the speaker.

I ignited a final sliver of hope to plead with her-my mother, my last lifeline.