The Rejected Mate (Elaine and Michael) novel Chapter 46

“But Darius, I can’t. At least not now.” Her fingers tightened around the swell of her own small bump, as if she could physically hold her wavering courage in place. “I’m scared, Darius. I’m scared you’ll find your fated mate. I’m scared of being left alone again. I know you meant it when you said you would not leave me. But what about your fated? What if she’s out there- waiting for you–and she feels abandoned and hurt because you chose me? I can’t do that to another wolf. I know what rejection tastes like.”

He listened, every inch of his stance attentive, as if her words were commands he would obey because he loved her.

Elaine trusted him with the kind of trust that surprised her–raw and total, but there was a quieter, older memory she couldn’t dismiss: the sting of being cast aside by those who claimed to protect her. To ask Darius to deny another the very solace she craved felt like asking him to betray a fate she could not bear to write for someone else.

“I trust you, Darius. A hundred percent,” she said, and the admission broke into a whisper. ” When you say you’ll reject your mate for me, I believe you. But I know myself. I know how painful rejection is. I won’t be the cause of that for anyone.”

He didn’t flinch. Instead, he closed the narrow gap between them and took both her hands in his–big, warm, callused hands that made her feel like the world had a spine again.

“Elaine,” he said, quietly fierce, “I’ve been searching for my mate a long time. If there is one for me, I can’t feel her, I can’t find her. Sometimes I think the Moon Goddess didn’t give me one. I don’t want to lose you for a bond I don’t even know I have. What I do know–what I’m certain of right now–is you. My feelings for you are real.”

He leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers. His breath was steady, steadying.” Tell me what you need. Tell me what you want for you to agree to give us a chance, Elaine. I’ll do it. I’ll prove to you that what we have is real. Let us be happy. I promise I’ll make you happy,”

There was a pleading under the alpha that would have dissolved any other resolve. Elaine let herself be warmed by it, allowed a delicate wish to form and then steadied it before it could leap past fear.

“I want to give us a chance,” she said at last. “But I don’t want to be your Luna. Not yet. Not now. I want us to get to know each other–really know each other. And I want to give you time to think about what this means. About the pup.”

A shadow crossed his face–disappointment sharpened the line of his mouth, but he didn’t push, not in the brutal way some had when they couldn’t accept “no.” Instead, he pulled in a breath that trembled with something like restrained hunger and exhaled it as understanding.

“I can’t say I’m not disappointed, Elaine. I know what I want. Right now, I want you and the pup more than anything. I’ll raise the pup like it’s mine. As I said, my wolf and I accept your pup as our own.”

She could see the sincerity there, the promise stitched together from resolve and longing. It steadied her.

“For the pack,” she cautioned softly, “do not announce anything yet. They can see us together, but no proclamation. Not until I feel ready.”

Darius’s hand drifted to the tiny curve of her belly, a gentle, protective motion that made the room blur at the edges. He looked at her like she was the only thing in the world that made sense.

“Do you have an idea how long you want us to wait before you agree to be my Luna?” He asked.

Elaine thought of the ache of waiting and of the way love–especially their kind of love–could unspool lives. She thought of fated mates, of balls filled with hope and glittering eyes, of the weight of choices made in the name of destiny.

“At least for you to attend three mating–season balls,” she said slowly. “Let those be chances for you to meet any unmated she–wolves. If after that–three seasons–there is no one for you, and you still decide to choose me, then I will be your Luna.”

Three seasons felt like a distance both sensible and cruel.

Darius’s face creased. “Three mating–season balls–three years. That’s long. Too long. But I understand your reasoning. I agree.”

He paused, then added with sudden fierceness, “But I want you to move into my suite. I want you with me always. Both of you.”

His hand stroked the gentle arc of her bump, reverence and claim braided together.

Elaine smiled before she could stop herself. The image of waking to his voice, his steadiness at night, the small domestic moments–tea shared on the balcony, his shoulder a pillow during storms–felt like a life she wanted despite the fear.

“Okay,” she said. The word felt like a small surrender and a large step at once. “Okay.”

He laughed then–soft, relieved, a sound that chased away some of the gloom that had clouded the room since she’d arrived at Crescent Moon. He kissed the top of her head, careful and full of prayer, as if sealing the bargain they had to both just made.

“I’ll tell my parents,” he said after a moment, “and Roselyn. They’ll know you’re my chosen. Well, they won’t know yet about the Luna thing, but they’ll know you mean everything to me.”

“Not yet,” Elaine reminded him, though she didn’t sound harsh. “Give it time. Let it grow. Let me grow into it.”

He nodded, the alpha’s impatience quelled under the weight of what she needed.

They sat together in companionable silence for a long while–nothing spoken except for small, domestic noises: the clock in the hallway, a distant bark from the training yard, the soft throb of life between her ribs.

When at last they rose, Darius offered his arm, and she took it without ceremony.

The hallway to his suite felt full of new possibilities: pictures to be chosen, rooms to be divided and shared, a tiny life that would change everything. Elaine imagined nights when she would wake to a child’s cry and his hand would be there, a steady island. She imagined nights when he would still go to a mating–season ball because he’d promised her three, and she would hold faith like a shield.

They passed the window overlooking the pack grounds. Under the silver smear of moonlight the pack moved like water–figures in practice, couples in conversation–unaware of the quiet agreement that had just been made within the walls above them.

Elaine let the pulse of the pack sink into her bones. It was familiar and foreign at once: familiar because it meant belonging, foreign because belonging now came threaded with choices that would ripple beyond her.

Darius tightened his hold on her fingers.

“We’ll take it one day at a time,” he said. “One ball at a time, one season at a time. I won’t rush you. But I swear–by my wolf, by the Moon Goddess–I will stand by you.”

She looked up into his eyes and, in that gravity, found the courage to make a different kind of promise.

“Then stand by me,” she said simply. “Be with me. Don’t make any final decisions in the heat of hope. Let us be certain, together.”

He agreed without hesitation. And in the quiet that followed, as they crossed the threshold into his suite and the door sighed softly closed behind them, both of them felt the small, enormous turning of a life beginning: fragile, fraught, and yet impossible to resist.