My Alpha Rejected His True Mate

My mate, Alpha Damien, was holding a sacred naming ceremony for his heir.

The only problem? He was celebrating a pup he had with Lyra, a rogue he brought into our pack. And I, his true mate, four months pregnant with his actual heir, was the only one not invited.

When I confronted her, she clawed her own arm, drew blood, and screamed that I had attacked her.

Damien saw her performance and didn't even look at me. He snarled, using his Alpha's Command to force me to leave, the power of our bond twisted into a weapon against me.

Later, she attacked me for real, making me fall. As blood bloomed on my dress, threatening our child's life, she tossed her own pup onto a rug and screamed that I had tried to kill him.

Damien burst in, saw me bleeding on the floor, and didn't hesitate. He scooped Lyra's screaming pup into his arms and sprinted away to find a healer, leaving me and his true heir to die.

But as I lay there, my mother's voice echoed in my mind through our own link. My family's escort was waiting for me just beyond the territory border.

He was about to find out that the Omega he threw away was actually the princess of the most powerful pack in the world.

Chapter 1

Elara POV:

My fingers, trembling, held the cold chassis of the telephone to my ear—a useless, human contraption. The true conversation unfolded in the silent theatre of my mind, a shimmering thread of thought connecting me to my mother, who was hundreds of miles distant.

“I am resolved to do it, Mother. I am leaving him.” The thought was a pained whisper in the vast, quiet expanse of our Mind-Link. This link, a gift from the Moon Goddess, was meant to be a comfort, a means for the pack to feel as one. Tonight, it felt more like a lifeline I was preparing to sever with my own hands.

My mother, Luna Seraphina of the Silver Moon Pack, answered in the space of a heartbeat. Her mental voice was a soothing balm of moonlight and ancient power. “It is past time, my sweet girl. We have been consumed with worry. That boy, Damien… his ambition carries a fouler stench than his pack’s territory. The Bloodstone Pack is built on precarious ground.”

“I know,” I sent back, a great wave of relief washing through me. I had so feared her disappointment. “I simply… I wished to believe he was the one. The Goddess’s gift.”

“The Goddess grants us choices, Elara, not chains. We await you. The pack awaits you.”

I severed the link, and the sudden silence that descended in my head felt at once cavernous and liberating. My back came to rest against the cold stone of the great hall’s archway; its coarse surface grated against the thin fabric of my dress, and a cellar-like dampness crept up my spine, making me shudder involuntarily. From this vantage point, cloaked in shadow, I could observe all.

In the heart of that great chamber, bathed in the candelabra's glow, stood my mate, my Alpha, Damien.

He was holding an infant. A pup, not yet a month old, swaddled in the ceremonial furs of the Bloodstone Pack. And beside him, beaming as if she were the anointed queen of this very hall, was Lyra.