Rejected by Fate, Claimed by Four

before I can catch my own balance. I stumble into the woman ahead of

rd says. He isn't even looking at me. He's alr

ring my face. Shoulders in. Voice down. Take up as little air as possible. The scent screening line snakes through the edge of the

me is older, maybe forty, with gray threaded through dark

d," I

Alpha. Whole territory's betting on whether h

tter to us

and humorless. "

against the inside of her wrist, then waits while it changes color or doesn't. I know my results already. I've known since I turned sixteen

Ashen

ainst my skin, the way it always does, and the Beta bare

ve a

I get to the dais. Alphas in their formal collars. Betas standing at careful attention behind them

t arrived before he did. Up close, even from thirty feet back, he is not what I expected. Not the sneering warlord half the pack whispers about, and not the cold sta

he gray-haired woma

he'd rather be

er served in his father's house for a decade. Says the son's harder to read than the o

s exha

've ever met." She snorts.

io

be over in an hour. Crownings are long on ce

the top of the compound wall, three long notes that roll

t to it. She lifts both arms toward the rising moon and begins the chant, old words that most of us

ne breath I am standing in a crowd of strangers thinking about whether my mother took her evening dose of medic

ore I can

woman asks, glanc

sed flat against my sternum, feeling a heat spread outward from somewhere

hear

something underneath both of those that I don't have a word for, something that dro

eartb

o heartbeats I let myself imagine what it would be to be seen, to be chosen, to matter

hear

is hea

ement in tall grass, instant and total, and for one suspended second his eye

e me touches my arm. "Yo

hing I have no name for, something raw and startled that looks almost like relief, like a

it cl

time the priestess calls his name to formally crown him, there is nothing in his expression at all. Nothing. As if the

and the courtyard erupts into applause and howling, w

should. It doesn't dim with his rejection or wither under the weight of his closed expression. It burns hotter, spreading through m

. "Whatever that was, you need to walk away

know what

. "And so does half this courtyard, if they were wa

, and let the crowd swallow me the way it always has, one more gray shape among a hu

sed around a rope, and I understand with a clarity that frightens me more than his rejection did that whatever ju

ld loosen that thread of heat in my chest. Instead it tightens, drawing taut with each street I p

chest the entire way, feelin