The Rejected Mate (Elaine and Michael) novel Chapter 112

“That is all we need to discuss today, gentlemen. I must return to my Luna, or I’ll never hear the end of it if I’m late for her ceremony.” Darius’s voice cut through the murmurs like a knife, a practiced, genial tone that barely masked the impatience beneath.

They had gathered in his office — a wide room of timber and stone where the allied Alphas came to speak of border lines, trade, and the rising threat of rogues. Today’s meeting had been brisk but necessary: reports of increasing raids, wounded scouts, and stolen livestock. Darius had promised reinforcements, new tracking systems, and traps set along the most vulnerable borders. His assurances drew light laughter, claps on backs, the easy camaraderie of leaders who had weathered storms together.

Some of those leaders laughed with him out of habit. The bachelors among them smiled at the idea of running late for a Luna – cheeks oddly flushed with private, hopeful prayers to the Moon Goddess that one day their own mate might cross their path and chastise them for it. The mated Alphas laughed because the sentiment was familiar: the fury of a mate was a power to be reckoned with and a regular occurrence.

One by one, the other Alphas rose, exchanged curt nods, and filed out into the night, leaving the hall

emptying like a heartbeat slowed. Torchlight flickered against the banners of allied packs, cast long, dancing shadows that seemed to lean closer as the room’s energy thinned. Only Darius and Michael remained.

Darius turned clean, the easy smile dropping from his face. “Can I help you with something, Alpha Michael?” he asked, voice polite but taut.

Michael’s reply came without preamble. “Yes, Alpha. I want to meet my son.”

The simplicity of it made the room seem colder. For a moment Darius’s composure wavered; his features tightened and then reshaped into an expression of controlled ire. The air around him shimmered faintly the signature ripple of Alpha aura when a leader drew in power.

“Michael,” Darius said slowly, each word measured. “How many times must Elaine and I tell you: Nathan is our son.”

Michael’s mouth hardened. The steadiness in his posture betrayed a deeper current beginning to circle, restless.

“Or have you forgotten that when a she–wolf severs connection with her mate, the pup is severed with it?”

Darius continued, anger keening at the edges of his tone. “You chose Kathy. You chose to betray and abandon Elaine. You have no right to either her or Nathan.”

“You think I chose?” Michael snapped, voice low and edged with something like steel. “I did not have a choice but Nathan is my blood – my son and I was not informed of his existence.”

For the first time the ripple became visible: Darius watched as Michael’s wolf strained beneath the surface, a presence nudging at the edges of his human restraint. The Alpha’s eyes narrowed. Was it the man or the wolf that stood before him?

“You keep repeating that as if it absolves you.” Darius’s eyes flashed, not cruel but unyielding. “Even if you were ordered to mate with Kathy, you still had choices afterward. You were ordered to begin that bond, perhaps, but no one ordered you to stay. If my father had given me such an order, I would have taken my mate and left. I would have sacrificed being Alpha to keep her.”

His words were heavy with a personal creed: an Alpha’s first duty, Darius believed, was to his mate. Betrayal of that principle cut deeper than any external threat.

“As I said earlier, I must return to my mate,” Darius finished, voice cooling into practiced courtesy. “This is my final warning, Michael. Stay away from my son. Tend to your pack, protect your Luna, and ensure your own pup’s future. Keep your distance from ours.”

Darius turned then, his cloak sweeping across the stone floor like the end of a sentence. In the doorway he paused, as if to make the last line of his warning linger

“Be content with what you have chosen,” he said, softer now, but the implication was still a promise–ora threat. “For your choices bear consequences.”

With that, he left Michael alone in the hushed office, torchlight sputtering as if in sympathy Michael remained a moment longer, hands trembling, wolf and man cast in the fading glow of a night that had just become uncertain and dangerous.