The Rejected Mate (Elaine and Michael) novel Chapter 141

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Three Years Later

Three years is a lifetime when you are no longer who you once were.

Transitioning from Alpha and Luna to something as ordinary as a regular pack member felt like being skinned alive—layer by layer, pride by pride, until nothing remained but the raw truth underneath. For someone born Alpha-blooded, power isn’t an ambition; it’s a birthright that lives in the marrow. But my wolf no longer cared for birthrights. He wanted something else from me. Something that gutted me deeper than any wound ever could.

I thought losing my mate and my pup was the end of pain. I was wrong.

The end came when my wolf decided I had not suffered enough.

During the mandatory stabilization training—what the council deemed compulsory discipline for wolves who exhibited instability after trauma—my wolf flatly refused to cooperate. In sessions where he should have stepped forward, he remained ensconced in the dark recesses of our shared consciousness. And when he finally did break free, he was a tempest of raw instinct and shattered sorrow, wild and untamed. I had no dominion over him, just as I had no dominion over the shattered remnants of my past.

The situation deteriorated to such an extent that the council finally insisted on a discussion.

“Ask your wolf what he desires.”

On the surface, the words seemed straightforward. But they were anything but.

That night, in the cavernous expanse of my own mind, I posed the question I had been avoiding like a raging fire: What do you want from me? copied from j-ob-no=ib.comThe instant the thought crystallized, he surged forth, tearing the reins from my grasp, thrusting me deep into the shadows of my own consciousness. He commandeered my body, utilized my voice, and addressed Elder Lucius before I could even comprehend what was transpiring.

I remember nothing of the exchange—only the suffocating sensation of being ensnared behind my own eyes, a prisoner forced to watch a stranger don my face.

Then, as abruptly as he had arrived, he receded, leaving me gasping for air like a man drowning in a turbulent sea.

Lucius’s expression conveyed everything before he even spoke: sympathy and dread intertwined like thorny vines.

“Your wolf has but one stipulation for him to cooperate with you again,” Lucius murmured, his voice laden with a gravity that weighed heavily in the air. “And he insisted I make it abundantly clear—what he desires is non-negotiable.”

I held his gaze, my heart pounding in my chest. The fear that coursed through me was not merely the fear of losing power; it was the fear of losing the last fragment of myself.

Lucius exhaled softly, as if the very words inflicted wounds upon him.

“He wishes for you to relinquish your Alpha title.”

The silence that followed struck me harder than any physical blow.

“In his eyes,” Lucius continued, “you are the reason he lost his mate and pup—thus, you must forfeit the title. To him, being Alpha holds no value in their absence. Yet you… you still cling to it, even now. For your wolf, it’s a fair exchange: relinquish the title, and he will return to you. Refuse, and you shall never call upon him again.”

I yearned to roar in defiance. To argue vehemently. To tell Lucius he was mistaken, that my wolf was mistaken—that being Alpha was not merely a title, it was the essence of who we were, the last remnant to fill the void where my mate once resided.

But my wolf remained silent.

Days turned into weeks. I pleaded with him during the quiet hours of dawn, when grief weighed heavily upon my shoulders and pride felt like a fragile thread. I told him that being Alpha was all we had left that held any meaning—that without it, we would be but hollow shells.

He never responded.

His silence was the answer I feared.

And so, I came to a decision.

The day I acquiesced to surrender my Alpha status, my wolf emerged—transformed. He was smaller, not weaker, but gentler. His presence no longer bore the sharpness that could inflict wounds. He released his dominance like a wounded man relinquishing a painful memory that was too burdensome to retain.

In that moment, we became strangers once more, learning to merge into a single entity again. Each day became a journey of rediscovery, step by step, breath by breath. Trust is a slow process when the soul has been fractured.

During this delicate period, I reached out to Kathy—not as a mate, nor as a romantic interest, but as the only other soul who comprehended the jagged contours of my heart. At first, her wolf was brittle and wary, while mine hesitated. We were two halves of two stories that had met the same tragic end—loss, silence, and a child who had somehow survived it all.

Leo became the bridge that connected us.

It was neither romantic nor epic. It was simply human.

Sharing mornings with him—packing his school bag, listening to his laughter, feeling his tiny fingers entwine with mine when nightmares jolted him awake—those were the moments that began to stitch my soul back together. Kathy felt the same. We grieved side by side instead of alone, and eventually, we learned how to breathe again.