Rejecting the Alpha Who Ruined Me

The vocal cords of a Gamma wolf are delicate things, like spiderwebs made of gristle and magic. One slip of my hand, and this warrior would never howl at the moon again.

"Suction," I ordered, my voice flat and steady.

My hands moved with a precision that had taken me eight years to master. A faint, golden glow seeped from my fingertips—my aura, warm and stabilizing—knitting the shredded tissue back together. The Gamma on the table, a victim of a border skirmish, let out a soft, unconscious whine as the pain receded. I didn't look at his face. I never looked at their faces if I could help it. Faces were personal. Faces reminded me of what I had lost.

"BP is stabilizing, Healer Bell," the nurse whispered, awe evident in her tone. "The tissue... it's healing faster than I've ever seen."

I didn't smile. I just tied off the final suture and stepped back, peeling off my blood-slicked gloves. "He'll need three days of silence. No shifting. If he tries to force a growl, he'll tear it all open again."

Leaving the operating theater, I stripped off my surgical gown, the adrenaline of the procedure fading into a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion. The hallway of the Neutral Territory Central Hospital was cool and sterile, a stark contrast to the humidity of the operating room. I leaned against the scrub sink, letting the cold water run over my hands, scrubbing until the skin was raw.

"You look like death, Anna."

I glanced up into the mirror. Director Vance, the Beta who ran this place, was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed. He wasn't wrong. Dark circles bruised the skin under my eyes, and my collarbones were too sharp against the neckline of my scrubs.

"I'm fine," I lied, turning off the tap.

"You haven't slept in two shifts," Vance noted, his voice dropping. "Is it the nightmares again?"

I stiffened. He knew too much. He knew about the nights I woke up screaming, my hand clutching the empty space where a pack bond should be. He knew about the guilt that chewed on my insides—the image of my father, dying alone in the mud because I had been exiled and stripped of the power to protect him.

"There's a flu outbreak in the lower wards," I deflected, drying my hands. "I'm needed."

"You're needed alive. Go home, Anna. That's an order."

I opened my mouth to argue, but the words died in my throat.

It hit me first. A scent.

It wasn't the antiseptic smell of the hospital or the metallic tang of blood. It was ozone. Heavy, electric ozone, like the air right before a lightning strike, mixed with the scent of deep forest rain.

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt. My hand flew to my neck, covering the phantom scar that hadn't existed for eight years—the spot where a mate mark should have been. Where *his* mark should have been.

*No,* I thought, my