The Rejected Mate (Elaine and Michael) novel Chapter 45

They were left in the quiet that followed Marcus and Evan’s polite exit – a soft closing of the door, the distant creak of boots in the corridor.

The pack house felt larger with only the two of them in it, the shadows in the corners deeper, the lamplight making small, golden islands on the floor.

Elaine folded her hands tightly over her belly as if she could hold the pup there with will alone.

“Thank you,” she said again, voice small. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to go back and see them. I’ve accepted what happened… but I’m not ready to see them. Any of them.”

–

Her eyes dropped to the worn rug at her feet. Silverblade pack had become, in her mind, a monument to everything she had lost to the mate who should have been her future and to the family that had turned away. The word betrayal tasted like ash.

Darius listened without interrupting. He nodded, slow and steady. There was no rush in his movements, only the deliberate calm of someone who carried responsibility as naturally as he breathed.

“Speaking of the pup,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat. “You only have–what–maybe three months left before you give birth, right? Do you have any plans?”

The question landed oddly, intimate in the way only an alpha’s concern could be intimate – not intrusive for the sake of prying, but because the fate and welfare of an alpha–blooded pup affected the whole pack.

Elaine felt a flush at the implication of pack obligations and lineage.

Before she could frame an answer, Marcus’s gruff voice came from the doorway, low and polite. “We’ll leave you two to it. Got work to do.”

They retreated with an exchanged glance and a half–grin from Marcus that said they were giving them space. The sound of their footsteps faded away into the pack house. Privacy settled over them like a warm blanket.

“No plan yet,” Elaine admitted, voice rasping. “Aside from staying here with the pup. If that’s… if that’s okay?” Words came rushed, apologetic. “I know you have to think about the pack because my pup has alpha blood.”

Darius’s expression softened, but he lifted a hand as if to stop a river. “That’s not what I meant, Elaine.

You’re a pack member. You can stay here as long as you want, and your pup can, too. What I meant was, do you plan to tell him when the pup’s born?”

The name hung unspoken between them. The absence of Michael was its own presence.

Elaine’s breath hitched. She had not planned to tell him. Why would she? He had rejected her, and in her mind, that rejection had extended to the child forming beneath her ribs.

“No,” she said finally, a bitter little bark at the end of the word. “I don’t want to tell him. The moment he rejected me, he rejected my pup too. I know, as an alpha, you might think I should. That my pup is an heir, or might be a future-”

Her voice broke. “But I don’t want my pup to be heir to that pack. Maybe later, when the pup is older, he might want to know. But I don’t want him to have to belong to people who betrayed their own.”

Darius watched her with an intensity that never judged. If anything, his face held only concern and a steady, almost fierce loyalty that made something in Elaine ache and lift at the same time.

He rose from his chair and knelt in front of her, palms flat against his knees. The movement was intimate without drama, a deliberate lowering to meet her at eye level.

For a heartbeat, Elaine’s world narrowed to his dark eyes and the soft line of his mouth.

“I understand,” he said simply. “And that is your decision. You know what’s best for your pup. Whatever you decide, I will support you. I will always support you.”

His hands, warm and certain, closed around hers. The contact was grounding. It calmed a trembling that had nothing to do with the pup’s kicks and everything to do with the fragile place her heart occupied.

Darius’s voice moved on, softer. “And I will always be here for you and your pup. You know I have feelings for you, right?”

He swallowed, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his features. “We have a connection I can’t explain. I know we’re not mates, but you’re important to me. I wanted to give you time to adjust… to accept what happened. But I needed to tell you.”

Elaine felt the warmth behind his words, the weight of them. Tears came without permission, tracking coolly down her cheeks. Her throat ached – with fear, with grief, with something that felt dangerously like hope.

“I feel it too, Darius,” she admitted, voice raw. “But your mate – your fated mate your fated mate – is out there waiting for you. What if I give in to this feeling and then you find her? What will happen to me? I’ll be someone’s discarded mate again. I can’t go through that. Not now not with my pup. I won’t put my child through that kind of pain.”

–

Darius’s gaze never faltered. He rose and took her face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the tears with a gentleness that made the room seem unbearably small and private. Up close, she could see the resolve in him – not the iron of leadership, but a narrower, personal determination.

“Do you think so little of me?” He asked, not with anger but with a quiet incredulity. “I will not abandon you, Elaine. With what I feel for you, I know I will not leave you. If I ever find my mate, I will tell her the moment I meet her. But I will never walk away from you.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. The kiss was careful at first, testing, then deepening, sure and steady. It was not the brutal, possessive press of a stranger. It was a salve, tender and deliberate, as if he meant to stitch something whole with the simple press of his lips.

Elaine’s defenses – so long built up like stone walls softened. She found herself returning the kiss, hands in the thick hair at his neck, feeling something inside her loosen, like ice giving way in spring.

–the muted When they broke apart, both were slightly breathless. The pack house hummed around them life of a living place, but between them, for the first time in a long time, there was a fragile space that felt like shelter.

Darius rested his forehead against hers.

“We’ll take this slowly,” he murmured. “Your safety and the pup come first. Whatever you decide about telling anyone – we’ll decide it together.”

Elaine let out a shaky laugh that tasted like relief. In the echo of that laugh, she felt a seed of courage.

Whatever lay ahead – whether accusations from Silverblade, the return of old ghosts, or the sudden arrival of a fated mate, she was not facing it alone.

Darius’s words hung in the hush between them like a benediction and a challenge all at once. “I want you to be my Luna. I want to be the father of your pup. My wolf and I accept it. And I promise I will be the best father that I can be. I will love it like my own.”

Elaine watched him–really watched him–this time. The iron curve of his jaw softened, the fierce alpha aura dimmed into something almost vulnerable. She could see it then: not just the claim in his voice but the depth of feeling that threaded through it. It made her chest ache in a way she hadn’t expected.

“I want that too,” she said, voice thin with more than fear, “but-”