Rejected Mate's Ascension

Chapter 1. Nice Girls Want Revenge Too

Alpha Blake and Luna Celeste, the beautiful wolves and a picture-perfect fated couple, mated and claimed each-other in the name of the Moon Goddess. As if this wasn't enough, their human wedding oozed romance. Every unmated she-wolf in Grauberg would go to bed tonight with her head full of dreams about finding a soulmate through the ancient werewolf ritual of seeking a fated mate.

If only a rhyme and your Nana's moonstone ring guaranteed this kind of happy endings! Or happy beginnings, since Celeste glowed with a special glow of a she-wolf carrying her mate's pup under her heart, a secret I was privy to as our town's only werewolf doctor.

Julia the Doc, the Pacific Northwest Pack called me.

Unfortunately, in the overheated romantic atmosphere my old nickname, Julia the Thornback—a slur for an unmated she-wolf—was making a comeback. I caught plenty of whispers during the ceremony: Our poor thornback should ask for a fated mate. It's her last chance. What is she, thirty? About time...

My jaded heart knew better. The ancient custom had almost died off for good reasons until Blake and Celeste revived it. The Goddess was fickle and her will... let's just say her ways were always a mystery to me. She hit the bull's eye with Blake and Celeste, no argument, and I was glad she did. Really glad. Nobody deserved every inch of happiness more than them, but in my case... My case was different.

The Moon Goddess's decrees left me muttering under my breath and shooting incinerating glances at a certain man.

Harold-curse-him-Almarr, who should have been exiled, reduced to a rogue, pronounced an enemy of our pack last year, and who instead got off Scott-free—yes, this infamous Harold Almarr—dodged even the miniscule punishment he'd received, because Alpha Blake had forgiven him amid the celebrations. I suppose winning a war against the rogues and impregnating his fated mate could make an Alpha euphoric.

But the Lupine Council of North America! Why did they let Blake do it? This supposedly wise institution had no excuse when on Blake's say-so they rewarded Harold for his treachery. Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable!

Naturally, the Moon Goddess didn't interfere either.

Somehow, the werewolf world had missed completely that Harold hadn't changed a single bit, remaining as arrogant as ever, as cold and as infatuated by his once fated mate as he had always been. Perhaps only a scorned she-wolf could see this. Alas, I couldn't air my objections to Harold's elevation, because in my bitter experience, a she-wolf ended up bearing all the pain, all the shame, while the man walked away unscathed.

If I had to stay silent, should I move on like the rest of the pack? I searched my heart again and again, and no, I couldn't forgive. Since Blake named Harold a provisional Alpha of the Californian Pack I was stuck in ugly resentment. Me, Julia the Doc, who advised her patients every day to not let things fester...

But I couldn't, just couldn't get over myself, no matter how ashamed I felt about it.

Hence, the scorching gazes during a celebration dedicated to love, joy and rose-tinted happiness.

Until Harold lifted his head and intercepted my glance.

I froze, unable to lower my eyelids. My heart ticked away seconds loudly in my ears. In the milling crowd, he had to look away eventually, attracted by someone shinier than me. He always loved people shinier than me.

Harold being Harold, he maintained our eye contact, his ruby-red irises pinning me in a personal flood-light where I squirmed. Goddess, torturing me had to be instinctive at this point! His birthright or something.