My Rejected Mate Begged Me to Rule Beside Him

The training room floor was cold against my palms as I pushed myself up for the hundredth time. Sweat dripped down my face, stinging my eyes.

"Again," my father commanded from across the mat.

I wanted to collapse. Every muscle screamed. But I forced myself to my feet, settling into a fighting stance. This was month three, and the bruises had bruises.

He moved like lightning. I barely blocked the first strike, twisted away from the second, but the third caught me in the ribs. I hit the ground hard, gasping.

"An Alpha doesn't stay down," he said, not unkindly. "An Alpha rises."

I rose.

The months blurred together after that. Combat training until my hands bled. Diplomatic lessons where I learned that words could cut deeper than claws. Strategy sessions that lasted until dawn. My father was relentless, but fair. He pushed me because he believed I could handle it.

Slowly, I started to believe it too.

My wolf grew stronger with each passing week. Where she'd once been timid, uncertain, now she was a force of nature. The first time I shifted after returning home, I barely recognized myself—my silver-white fur gleamed like moonlight, and I stood nearly as tall as my father's wolf. Alpha-born, through and through.

But the nights were harder.

I'd wake up gasping, phantom pain lancing through my chest where the mate bond used to be. I'd reach for my mother's pendant, only to remember Ace had destroyed it. My father had the pieces collected and had it restored by the pack's finest craftsman, but it wasn't quite the same. The delicate moon had a hairline crack now, visible only if you knew where to look.

Like me, I suppose. Repaired, but not quite whole.

"You're ready," my father said one morning, exactly one year after I'd come home. We stood in his office, sunlight streaming through the windows. He held an envelope—thick, cream-colored paper with an embossed seal.

I took it, my hands steadier than they would've been months ago. "The Grand Alliance Gathering."

"Your debut." He watched me carefully. "The Silvermoon Pack will be there."

My fingers tightened on the envelope. Of course they would be. "I can handle it."

"I know you can." He moved to the window, hands clasped behind his back. "But Aurora, this isn't about revenge. This is about showing the werewolf world who you truly are. What you've become."

I joined him at the window, looking out over our territory. Our pack. "What if I'm not ready?"

"Then you fake it until you are." He smiled slightly. "That's what being an Alpha means half the time."

The day of the Gathering arrived too quickly and not quickly enough. I stood in my room, staring at the dress my father had commissioned. It was stunning—deep midnight blue that seemed to shimmer silver in the light, with intricate beading that caught and reflected like stars. The neckline was elegant, the cut designed to command respect rather than attention.

I touched my mother's pendant, the crack barely visible against my skin.

"You've got this," I whispered to my reflection. The woman staring back at me looked nothing like the girl who'd fled Silvermoon a year ago. This woman had steel in her spine and fire in her eyes.

The drive to the neutral territory took three hours. I sat in the back of our SUV, watching the landscape blur past. My father rode in the lead vehicle with his Beta and Gamma. I was in the second car, windows tinted so dark I could see out but no one could see in.

The hotel was massive—a sprawling estate that screamed old money and older power. Luxury vehicles lined the circular drive. Wolves in formal attire moved through the entrance, their various pack scents mingling in the air.

My wolf stirred, alert.

"We'll wait here," my father's voice came through the mind-link. "I'm going in first. When I give the signal, you make your entrance."

"Understood."

I watched him exit his vehicle, his Alpha presence immediately commanding attention. Heads turned. Conversations paused. He moved through the crowd like a king, which, in our world, he essentially was.

Then I saw them.

The Silvermoon delegation emerged from a sleek black car. Ace stepped out first, and my traitorous heart stuttered. He looked good—confident, powerful in his formal suit. Acting Alpha now, I'd heard through the grapevine. His father had stepped down early.

Saylor slithered out after him, wrapped in a dress that was trying way too hard. She clutched his arm like a lifeline, laughing at something he said.

My wolf snarled. I placed a hand on my chest, breathing slowly.

They had no idea I was here. No idea what was coming.

My phone buzzed. A text from my father: "Ready?"

I looked at my reflection in the tinted window one last time. The crack in my pendant caught the light.

I typed back: "Ready."

It was time to show them exactly who Aurora Montgomery really was.