CHAPTER THREE

Eighteen. I was finally eighteen.

Most girls woke up on their birthday squealing, tearing open gifts, waiting for their wolves to awaken and their mates to be revealed. But me?

I woke up with a pit in my stomach.

No wolf, no gift, just silence and the urge to not go to school.

The same eerie, crushing silence I’d lived with for years.

I stared at the ceiling of my tiny room, watching as morning sunlight shone through the cracked blinds. Another day at the academy. Another day of pretending I wasn’t counting down the hours. What if today is the day? The day everything changes?

I have a bad feeling about today but I was trying my very best to be positive, maybe i will actually get my wolf and all these while I was just a late bloomer.

I pulled myself out of bed, brushing my teeth and tying my hair with trembling hands. The routine steadied me, even if my thoughts were anything but calm.

I shoved my notebook into my bag and left the house. My heartbeat felt like a drum in my ears as I walked. There was something different in the air today, maybe I was just overthinking it or maybe it was just me, desperate for a miracle and wondering how that could happen.  I was finally losing it.

Either way, I stepped into the academy and braced for the usual onslaught. But this time… the hallway was silent. That was the first red flag.Teenagers don’t get quiet without reason.

Before I could reach my locker I started hearing noise, people rushing downstairs, girls adjusting their and pushing their boobs out. Pathetic.

All heads turned, conversations halted. All eyes shifted toward the source of the commotion.

Alpha Damon’s son had returned.

Ronan Blackthorn.

He’d been away for years, training with warriors on the northern border. Rumors flew like wildfire, he was powerful, deadly, ruthless. The kind of alpha who didn’t need to raise his voice to command a room.

And he was gorgeous, of course.

He walked like he owned the ground beneath his boots. Well basically he owns it, soon to be alpha.  Dark curls, sharp jaw, shoulders too broad for that academy-issued shirt. His wolf must’ve awakened years ago, there was something in his presence that screamed danger. Power.

I stayed close to the lockers, hoping to blend into the wall.

But then, he stopped walking.

His head turned slowly.

And his eyes met mine.

Golden.

Intense.

Time slowed.

My breath seized.

There was a pull, like a cord had snapped into place between us, drawing me forward, breathless and stunned.

What happened to the air?  I couldn’t breathe.

My chest tightened.

It couldn’t be.

No. No, no, no, I don’t want to be mated to an Alpha, an Omega is more than enough for me.

But then he took a step closer.

And another.

Students backed away instinctively, watching like hungry spectators.

His scent hit me, a mix of cedarwood and something darker, wilder.

Mate.

The word rang in my head like a gong.

He’s my mate.

I knew it before he said anything.

My body knew.

My soul knew.

Strangely for the first time in my life, I felt like something fit, like I wasn’t broken or forgotten. Even if I didn't want to believe it, I could feel the connection.

Ronan stopped inches from me. He stared at me like he was searching for something he didn’t want to find.

And then he did.

Whatever warmth had flickered in his eyes went cold.

“What kind of sick joke is this?” he said, his voice like gravel.

The hallway fell into a hush so thick, I could hear the buzzing of the overhead lights.

“M-Mate,” I whispered. My voice cracked.

He scoffed and the all laughed.

“You?” His lip curled like the word tasted rotten in his mouth. “The Moon Goddess must’ve made a mistake.”

Each word sliced through me.

“Ronan— I mean Alph..” I tried, stepping forward, desperate to understand, to fix it, but he raised a hand.

“No. Don’t. Don’t say it again.” His jaw clenched. “I don’t want this.”

You’d think rejection would come with some kind of formal line. Something ceremonial, like the ones we learned about in history class.

But Ronan wasn’t interested in tradition.

He looked me dead in the eyes, in front of the entire academy, and said the words that shattered me.

“I Ronan Val, soon to be Alpha of the Darkpine park, reject you as my mate”

The air was sucked from my lungs.

My knees buckled.

Someone laughed, maybe Annie, maybe someone else. It didn’t matter.

My heart cracked open like glass dropped on concrete.

All I could do was stand there, silent, as he walked past me, grabbed Annie’s hand and walked away. The last thing I heard from him as he whispered but loud for everyone to hear was, I can’t be mated to a useless wolf-less trash.

I didn’t go to class.

I wandered the school grounds in a haze, hands trembling, vision blurred. My head rang with static.

“I Ronan Val, soon to be Alpha of the Darkpine park, reject you as my mate”

He hadn’t even hesitated.

The Moon Goddess had marked me, finally given me someone but he tossed it away like it was trash.

Was I really that worthless?

That useless?

I sat under the gnarled old tree at the edge of campus and buried my face in my hands. I didn’t cry. Not at first. I just sat there, frozen. Numb.

But eventually, the dam broke.

And I wept.

For the love I never got.

For the wolf I never had.

For the cruel, cosmic joke that was my life, I thought of ending it all, but what would be my story? I came, suffered and gave up.

It was dark when I finally returned home. My hoodie was damp with tears.

I curled up on my bed and stared at the ceiling again, back where I started.

Only now, the silence wasn’t comforting.

It was suffocating.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I didn’t dream.

All I did was replay his words, over and over, until they etched themselves into my bones.

“I Ronan Val, soon to be Alpha of the Darkpine park, reject you as my mate”

I had finally been chosen.

Only to be thrown away.

Again.