After My Alpha Rejected Me, I Took His Territory

I had known this night was coming for eleven months and twenty-three days.

I knew it the moment Alexander signed the contract. I knew it when Raelynn's training schedule arrived in his inbox and he read it three times in one sitting, his jaw doing that thing it does when he's trying not to smile. I knew it every single morning I sat across from him at the breakfast table in my carefully constructed Luna role — composed, scentless, unremarkable — while he looked through me like I was a window.

So when he stood at the head of the banquet hall and said the words, I was ready.

"I, Alexander, Alpha of Black Moon, reject you, Penelope, as my mate."

The hall went so quiet I could hear the candles. Two hundred wolves, every one of them holding their breath, waiting for the wolfless Omega to fall apart. I felt their attention like a physical weight — the pity, the satisfaction, the morbid curiosity of people watching something break.

I stood up.

Not fast. Not dramatic. I simply rose from my chair the way I had risen from it every morning for a year, smoothed the front of my dress with one hand, and reached into the fold at my hip where I had kept the envelope since six o'clock that evening.

The contract was four pages, printed on Black Moon Pack letterhead, signed by Alexander Campbell in blue ink. I had read it so many times I could recite it backward.

"Section seven, paragraph three," I said. My voice carried. I made sure of that. "Upon termination of the contracted mate arrangement by either party, the Alpha of Black Moon Pack agrees to transfer the deed of the Westfield border territory — forty-two acres, including the eastern creek boundary — to the contracted party within thirty days of termination."

I set the contract on the table in front of me. Smoothed it flat with my palm.

"Your thirty days start tonight, Alexander. I'll expect the deed by the fifteenth."

Somebody dropped a fork. The sound rang out like a gunshot.

I didn't look at Raelynn. I had decided that weeks ago — I would not give her the satisfaction of being looked at. I didn't look at Alexander either, not really. I looked at the space just past his left shoulder, the way you look at something you've already finished with.

Then I picked up my clutch, pushed my chair in, and walked toward the door.

My heels clicked against the stone floor. One step, then another. The crowd parted without me asking. I kept my spine straight and my chin level and my face completely, perfectly still.

I did not look back.

The cold air outside hit me like a hand against my cheek. I stood on the front steps of the Black Moon Pack hall for exactly three seconds, breathing it in, and then I walked to the car I had arranged two weeks ago —