Rejected by Fated Mate

The scent hit me first—pine and winter frost, with an undertone of something wild that made my dormant wolf stir. I'd been standing alone by the punch bowl at the inter-pack gathering, trying to make myself invisible as usual. As the illegitimate daughter of the Ryan Pack's Beta family, I'd learned that being unnoticed was safer than being ridiculed.

Then I saw him.

Scott Dixon, future Alpha of the Dixon Pack, stood across the room in a navy blazer that couldn't hide his broad shoulders. His dark hair fell across his forehead in a way that made my fingers twitch with the urge to touch it. But it was his eyes that caught me—deep amber that seemed to see straight through my carefully constructed walls.

"You're staring," my late-blooming wolf whispered inside me, her voice tinged with uncharacteristic excitement.

"I'm always staring at something," I replied silently, trying to ignore her. "It's what we do when we're invisible."

But when Scott's gaze locked with mine across the crowded room, something electric surged between us. My glass slipped from my fingers, shattering on the floor as every nerve ending in my body came alive.

"MATE," my wolf howled inside me, so loudly I nearly gasped aloud.

Across the room, Scott's body went rigid. His eyes flashed from amber to molten gold, and I knew his wolf was responding too.

"That's impossible," I whispered, my hand instinctively touching the scar on my cheek—a reminder of my place in the world.

But as Scott moved toward me with purposeful strides, cutting through the crowd like a blade, I couldn't deny the pull. When he stopped before me, close enough that I could smell his scent again, the electricity between us crackled visibly.

"Octavia Ryan," he said, my name sounding like a prayer on his lips. "I've been waiting for you."

---

The forest boundary between our packs became our sanctuary. Every night for weeks, we'd meet at the old oak tree where pack territories intersected, away from prying eyes and cruel whispers.

"Your wolf is stronger than you think," Scott said one evening, his fingers intertwined with mine as we sat on a fallen log. Moonlight filtered through the trees, casting silver patterns across his face. "She just needs to believe it too."

"I don't know how to be strong," I admitted, leaning into his warmth. "I've spent my whole life being the Beta's illegitimate daughter—the disappointment, the late bloomer."

Scott turned to face me fully, his hands framing my face with a gentleness that still surprised me. "You're not a disappointment to me. You're my mate, Octavia. My equal."

His thumb traced the scar on my cheek, and I flinched instinctively. "This doesn't make you less beautiful. It makes you a survivor."

When he kissed me under the stars that night, promising to make me his Luna at our Mate Ceremony, I finally believed that maybe—just maybe—the Moon Goddess had heard my prayers after all.

---

"Where should we hold the ceremony?"