Chapter 4 You dare Reject me

Becky’s POV

"You dare reject me — a nobody omega turning down an Alpha?" Leonard's voice cracked through the hall, thick with rage that I would refuse him when he wasn't ready to let me go.

I didn't answer. I just turned to walk out — except guards were already blocking my way. He must have called them through the pack mind-link, a channel I couldn't hear since I had no wolf of my own. I hadn't even known they were coming.

"Seize her! Lock her in the dungeons!" he bellowed. "Anyone who dares bring her food or water dies by my hand! How could you do this to me, Becky?" His voice was ragged, his strength visibly draining even as he screamed.

None of this compared to what he'd put me through over five years — every betrayal, every time he'd been with someone else. He didn't want my rejection, and the bond-severing was meant to wound him for it. Yes, it hurt me too. But he was the one who'd just been cast off, and that was the pain he couldn't stomach.

"You'll regret this, Becky," he spat. "Alpha blood runs in me. When my refusal to accept your rejection starts eating at you, you'll come crawling back, begging me to take you in again."

Jessica Sanders watched, clearly unsettled. She and Leonard had spent years waiting for me to finally walk away — but now that I had, he wouldn't let it happen. Her confusion mirrored my own.

A warrior grabbed my wrists, his hold like steel.

I couldn't let them drag me back. Staying meant something worse than anything I'd already survived. Leonard's pride would never forgive being rejected first — especially by someone as lowly as me. He'd make sure I paid for it; he'd proven that before, banishing Kennedy from the pack despite her illness, just to remind me how powerless I truly was.

"Let go of me!" I fought against their grip, but it was useless — they didn't budge an inch.

Leonard started toward me. I braced myself, knowing pain was coming the moment he reached me — a slap, a fist, it didn't matter which.

"Where exactly do you think you're going, Becky?" he taunted, forcing his weakened body forward, refusing to let go of his fury.

I sank my teeth into the guard's arm holding me. He yelled and loosened his grip just enough.

I bolted, running as hard as I could. Guards came first, Leonard trailing behind them.

I hit a dead end at a window — I'd been herded into a corner of the hallway with nowhere left to go. The only way out was through that window, five floors up, and I had no wolf to soften the fall.

At eighteen, when I'd been given to Leonard as payment for my parents' sacrifice, I'd still hoped my dormant wolf would wake. It never had — not even by twenty-one, the age dormant wolves were supposed to surface by. I was hollow inside, and Leonard knew it. That knowledge was written across his satisfied smirk as he closed in, certain I had no way out.

Moon Goddess, I begged silently. Get me out of here. I couldn't stay in this pack another second.

Then an arrow tore into my leg.

I screamed — and something inside me broke open. A roar ripped out of me as blinding light burst from my body.

"What's happening? Why is she shifting?" Leonard shouted, disbelief written across his suddenly pale face. "She's supposed to be an empty shell!"

Jessica staggered back, eyes wide with shock.

For the first time ever, something inside me responded.

I looked down at myself in disbelief as my body transformed — skin splitting, bones stretching — until I stood as a white wolf. Me, born to omega parents at the bottom of the pack, somehow shifting into a bloodline said to descend directly from the Moon Goddess herself. It made no sense.

"Catch her! If she gets away, I'll have every one of you and your families executed!" Leonard's threats thundered behind me. I didn't wait to see if he meant it. I leapt from the window onto the stone wall bordering the pack and ran without looking back, refusing to let guilt over the guards slow me down. Survival came first.

I ran for my life — truly choosing myself for once — crashing through the forest as branches tore at my fur and the scent of my hunters filled the air. Leonard's growls and orders echoed behind me as he pushed his warriors deeper into the trees.

But something felt wrong, unfamiliar. My wolf had woken on her own, and she wasn't listening to me — she just wanted to run, to be free. Why a white wolf? The question gnawed at me even as I fled.

I cleared a fallen tree, stumbled, and went down, terror flooding me at the thought of Leonard catching up. I shut my eyes and silently prayed to my dead parents to shield me from whatever he had planned.

Just as one of Leonard's men shifted back to human to grab me, a voice sliced through the chaos.

"Let her go!"

I froze. So did Leonard, his eyes scanning the shadows in fury and disbelief. Who would dare give him orders — order him to release his mate, when he hadn't even accepted the rejection yet? I was still legally, bond-wise, his — yet someone was challenging that.

"Who do you think you are?" Leonard roared into the moonlit dark. "Do you have any idea who I am? Show yourself, or I'll have you drained of every drop of blood!"

A figure emerged from the shadows behind me.

"You'll kill me on my own land?" the voice shot back. My stomach dropped — I realized I'd crossed straight into rogue territory, past the SilverFang Pack border.

Leonard hesitated, the reality sinking in. He couldn't push further without starting a war he couldn't afford. Still, his face was a mask of pure hatred and disbelief.

"She's mine now," the voice said. "She trespassed on my land."

Caught between fear and curiosity, I wondered who could possibly have enough power to stop Leonard Amari in his tracks. The figure stepped closer, cloaked in shadow but somehow familiar.

"Draven Amari?" I breathed, stunned.

The man who'd just pulled me out of Leonard's reach — Leonard's own uncle, exiled years ago. Why would he save me? Since becoming Leonard's mate, I'd assumed Draven counted me among his enemies too; we'd crossed paths through schemes and rivalries before. Yet here he was, protecting me from the very man I'd once conspired against him with.

The forest fell quiet except for my own uneven breathing. Leonard glared at me, seething but powerless to act. I stared at Draven, shaken, unsure what any of this meant — for my life, or for the strange new power now running through me.