The Alpha's Rejected Vessel

I woke to the scent of my enemies and the taste of blood.

Every breath felt like fire in my lungs. Dawn's pale light revealed what had been done to me-claw marks crisscrossed my skin in deliberate patterns. Territorial claims. Someone had branded me like cattle.

The foreign wolf scent permeated my skin, worked deep into my pores. I'd been marked by an enemy pack.

My legs buckled when I tried to stand. In the cracked mirror, a stranger stared back-lip split, eye swollen shut, cheekbone slashed to bone.

A pure-blood would heal within hours. My mixed blood meant these wounds would linger for days.

I was nothing but a half-blood mongrel-not strong enough to be a hunter, not pure enough to be respected. My only value had been as Jason's future mate.

Voices approached before I could clean myself. Elder Morna burst in, her silver-streaked hair pulled tight like her perpetually pinched expression. Pack members crowded behind her, nostrils flaring at the enemy scent on me.

"The council demands your presence," she snapped, tossing a worn cloak at my feet.

The whispers followed me to the central clearing.

"...marked like a common bitch..."

"...tainted blood finally showing its true nature..."

"...always said she'd bring trouble..."

The Black Rock pack had never accepted me. As a half-human, I'd spent my life on the margins, tolerated only because of Jason.

He had found me five years ago, half-dead at the territory border, and convinced his father to let me stay. He became my protector, my anchor in a world that despised my mixed blood. When he asked me to be his mate last spring, I thought I'd finally found belonging.

What a fool I'd been.

The Elders occupied the raised stone platform. Jason stood nearby, refusing to meet my gaze.

A murmur rippled through the crowd-an older wolf, his voice low but sharp: "Silver Creek doesn't strike without reason." -- then why today?

"Lia Dorman," Elder Morna's voice cut through the murmurs. "You were found unconscious beyond our territory, bearing the scent marks of Silver Creek wolves. Explain yourself."

"I don't remember what happened. I was gathering herbs, and then..." The gap in my memory terrified me.

"Jason," Elder Morna continued, her thin lips curving into what almost looked like pleasure, "as her intended mate, what say you about these marks?"

He finally raised his head. The eyes that had once promised me protection were now cold, calculating. When he spoke, his voice carried deliberately across the clearing, meant for everyone to hear.

"The engagement is void," he announced, as if commenting on the weather. "A marked half-blood has no place as my mate. I need someone pure for my future line, not a useless mongrel who can't even protect herself."

His gaze flicked meaningfully toward Aileen.

The crowd erupted. I swayed on my feet, the betrayal cutting deeper than any wound.

"Jason," I whispered, "please..."

He turned away dismissively, walking to where Aileen waited. Their fingers intertwined with practiced ease as she pressed herself against him possessively.

She tossed her golden hair and shot me a triumphant smile over his shoulder.

Five years of protection. Three years of sharing his bed. Countless promises that he would always stand between me and the pack's cruelty. All lies.

I caught him glancing back at me, a strange look in his eyes. Not heartbreak or regret, but something closer to... disappointment? Frustration? Like a craftsman looking at a prized project now irreparably damaged.

There was a calculating coldness there, as though he were mentally discarding something that had once held value but was now tainted beyond use.

My heart splintered into razor-sharp fragments, each breath drawing blood from my insides. For five years, I had molded myself to fit his world, swallowed the pack's contempt with a grateful smile, believed his whispered promises against my skin at night.

Now I stood before them all, stripped of even the pretense of belonging. The realization that I had never truly mattered to him consumed me like acid, dissolving whatever remained of the girl who had once believed in sanctuary.

The entire pack watched my humiliation with hungry eyes, drinking in my pain like fine wine. Their satisfaction was palpable-the half-blood finally getting what she deserved. Years of their forced tolerance culminated in this moment of collective vindication.

"The council has deliberated," Elder Morna announced with satisfaction. "Lia Dorman, your blood was already impure. Now marked by enemy wolves, you have become a liability. You will be stripped of pack protection and-"

"Wait."

The deep voice cut through the clearing. The crowd parted as Derek Damsi approached, raw power emanating from his massive frame. His shoulders were draped with a black pelt-the mark of his status.

His glacial blue eyes settled on me, assessing. I stood frozen, afraid to breathe.

This close, I could see the network of scars across his jaw and throat-battle marks from fights no ordinary wolf had survived.

Derek Damsi, whose mere presence silenced pups' cries, who had never shown mercy or weakness.

Cold. Calculating. Utterly without sentiment.

"I can sense something useful in her," he stated, his voice betraying no emotion whatsoever. "Something the pack shouldn't discard."

I blinked in confusion. Useful? Me? After Jason had just declared me useless to everyone?

"Derek," Elder Morna began, "this doesn't concern you. The half-blood-"

"It concerns the entire pack," he interrupted. "We cannot afford to be wasteful."

"I will take her as my mate."

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Jason's face contorted in disbelief, a flicker of something like possessive anger crossing his features before he masked it.

"...taking that useless mongrel..."

"...there must be something we don't know..."

"...what could he possibly want with her?..."

I stood paralyzed, pierced by a hundred stares. My status had transformed in seconds-from despised but ignorable half-blood to the focus of the pack's collective confusion.

The humiliation burned hotter than any physical pain. I was being bartered like livestock, my worth assessed by what use someone might extract from me.

"The enemy marking-" another Elder began.

"Will be replaced with my own," Derek stated flatly. "My claim will override any other."

Fear broke through my shock. "Don't I have any say in this?"

Derek's cold eyes locked onto mine, surprised-as if furniture had suddenly spoken. His scent hit me then-pine and steel, sharp as a blade, but beneath it lingered something wilder, a faint echo of the wolves who'd torn into me.

My stomach twisted, but I couldn't place why. Something in his gaze held me immobile-not just intimidation, but an intensity that seemed to peel back my skin and examine what lay beneath. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to just us, the crowd's murmurs fading to a distant hum.

Then his expression shuttered, the moment gone so quickly I questioned if I'd imagined it.

"Would you prefer exile?" he asked simply. His voice softened to a dangerous murmur that only I could hear. "Winter approaches. The Silver Creek wolves are still hunting. How long would you survive alone? A day? Perhaps two?"

He leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. "At least with me, you'll live to see spring."

The casual cruelty of his assessment struck me like a physical blow. He wasn't wrong-he was just the first person to state so bluntly how worthless my life had become.

There it was, the brutal truth. Accept this arrangement or die alone in the wilderness. Some rescue this was from one cage to another.

I hated him in that moment. Hated his arrogance, his assumption. But beneath that hatred burned something more painful-shameful gratitude that someone would claim me when I stood marked and discarded.

"The marking ceremony will take place at moonrise in seven days," Derek announced, already turning away. "During the full moon."

As he walked away, his movements were fluid and controlled, not a single hint of hesitation or doubt. His back straight, his steps measured-the walk of someone who never questioned his decisions or himself.

"Thank you for saving me," I whispered, the words bitter ash in my mouth.

He paused mid-stride, his broad shoulders stiffening. His voice dropped to a chilling murmur, barely audible over the wind. "Don't thank me yet."

I watched him go, wondering what fate awaited me when the moon reached fullness in seven days' time.