Dumped the Alpha, Mated to the Lycan

Ivy POV

"Choose." The rogue's arm locks across my throat. "One walks. One stays."

Julian stands twenty feet away. His eyes move to Selena, then to me, then back to Selena.

"Selena."

One word. No pause. Like the answer had already been sitting in his mouth before the rogue even finished asking.

The rogue releases her. Julian steps forward and catches her, both hands on her arms, pulling her in. She says his name against his chest. He answers her quietly, his head tilting down toward hers. He doesn't look back at me once.

Sylvie slams against my ribs so hard I lose my breath.

I press my fist to my sternum. I breathe. I make myself breathe slow and even, the way my father taught me when I was small and scared and didn't want anyone to see it.

'He'll send someone back,' I think. 'He always has a plan.'

But even as I think it, I know what I saw. I saw his eyes move from Selena to me, and I saw the exact moment he made his choice, and it took less than a second. It took less than a second for him to decide which one of us mattered. Three years of showing up, of being useful, of asking for nothing, and when it came down to it, when someone put a gun to the question and demanded an answer, the answer came out of his mouth before he even had to think.

Sylvie throws herself against my ribs again. I hold her. I hold both of us still.

'Someone will come,' I tell her. 'Wait.'

She doesn't believe me. I'm not sure I believe me either.

The rogue's fist catches the side of my head. Everything cuts out.

Stone floor. No window. The cold here isn't sharp, it's the kind that settles into walls and stays. I sit with my back against the stone and pull my knees up.

Sylvie paces inside my mind, tight anxious circles. I breathe until she slows.

Nobody comes.

I hear the battle pick back up above me at some point. Wolves shifting, bodies hitting the ground, a howl cut short. Then the sounds change, rogues running, scattering, Silvercrest driving them out. I try to stand. My legs buckle. The cold has been in my joints for hours without me noticing. I slide back down the wall and wait.

When they find me I'm already on the ground. A warrior crouches over me and says my name, then says it louder. I can't get my mouth to work. I hear him shout for backup, and then the world tips sideways and I stop tracking it.

I know where I am before I open my eyes. Wolfsbane compound. Dried herbs. The medicinal smell of the pack doctor's room. Someone has put a heated blanket over me. Gray light through a small window.

Voices outside the door. I don't move, just listen.

Julian's voice is among them.

Sylvie stirs. And before I