The bright lights above me blur into white streaks. My throat was dry and sore, and every breath I tried to take scraped against my lungs.

I heard someone's muffled voice calling for my name.

"Lyra! Lyra, can you hear me?"

I forced my eyes open.

The Pack Doctor, Morrison, leaned over me, and his face creased with concern.

As my senses gradually came back, I was met with the sterile smell of the hospital. I noticed the antiseptics, the bleached sheets, and a faint metallic scent from the medical equipment.

"Water," I requested, but my voice came out garbled.

He lifted a cup to my lips, and I had to stop myself from sobbing with relief as the liquid touched my lips.

Four days…

Four days without water, food, or anyone looking after me.

"Easy now." Morrison pulled the cup away before I could finish it. "Your body's been through hell. You need to take it slow."

I sank back against the pillows, and that's when I noticed my wrists. Both were wrapped in white gauze, but I could still see the edges of my burns where the silver cuffs bit into my skin.

The badge I had to pay for something I had to do.

"How long were you out there?" Morrison cautiously asked.

"Four days." My voice was now steadier, but colder.

His jaw tightened. "And in those four days, did anyone–"

"No." I cut him off. "No one reported me missing, or organized a search. No one gave a damn."

The backflash of memory was like knives to my bleeding heart.

Six days ago, sitting on my dorm room bed, watching Silas through the window, standing beneath the oak tree with Gareth.

Silas' my boyfriend, my so-called fated-mate. Meanwhile, Gareth's our pack's Beta.

I cracked the window open just enough to catch their voices on the night breeze.

"Are you sure about this?" Gareth's voice carried a note of uncertainty. "She's not liked the other girls. Lyra's–"

"Lyra's mine," Silas interrupted, and even from a distance, I could hear the arrogance dripping from his every word. "The mate bond confirmed that three weeks ago. She felt it too. She's just being stubborn about the arrangement of sharing her."

Sharing …

My stomach churned in utter disgust.

"What if she says no?" Gareth pressed.

Silas let out a laugh. That charming laugh that used to make my heart skip a beat. Now it just made my skin crawl. "I'll simply sweet-talk to her, don't worry. She's a she-wolf with no wolf, Gareth. Where else is she going to go? Who else will want her?"

Each of his words landed on me like a punch. Each one was precise, deliberate, and painfully true.

I'm already eighteen years old, and I had never shifted.

I never felt my wolf stir, nor did I ever experience feeling another presence within me like what every other werewolf had. I couldn’t hear inner voices of my supposed wolf, my primal companion.

I'm empty where others were whole.

And Silas knew it. He'd always known it.

I pulled back from the window, my hands shaking.

I could feel that invisible thread of our mate bond connecting us ever since the full moon three weeks ago.

When I finally felt it snap into place.

I thought it was fate… A destiny. The Mood Goddess' blessing.

It turned out I was wrong.

Silas just admitted the truth. I wasn't enough for him.

He needed to "share" me with his Beta to feel satisfied.

And the worst part? He disguised it as something romantic and special.

"You're extraordinary, Lyra," he'd coaxed, taking my hands in his. "The Moon Goddess blessed me with a mate so perfect that she bonded you to both Gareth and me. How incredible is that?"

I wanted to believe him. The goddess knew how much I wanted to.

But I've learned to trust my instincts.

Being a she-wolf with no wolf meant I've had to sharpen my other skills, and my instincts screamed that Silas was lying.

So, I decided to test him.

Getting the silver cuffs was easy. The Alpha College's security office always kept a few for restraining rogues, wolves with no packs and deemed dangerous by others.

I stole a pair during the lunch rush, when the guards were distracted.

Silver could not only weaken werewolves, but also weaken us. And for someone like me who didn't have a wolf to heal me, it would leave a scar.

I knew that getting in.

On the far edge of the pack's territory was a canyon where patrols would rarely venture because the terrain was too treacherous for training exercises. I hiked out there before dawn, when the sky was still gray, and the surroundings were still quiet.

The scent masker had cost me two weeks' worth of my wage from the cafeteria. I purchased it from a shady witch who set up shop behind the campus bookstore. One vial, painted with symbols I didn't understand.

"This will hide your scent from any wolf wanting to track you, including Alpha's," she promised.

And that's exactly what I needed.

Because if Silas could track me by scent, the test would be worthless.

I found a sturdy tree near the canyon's edge, close enough to hear the river rushing below but far enough from the path that no one would stumble across me by accident. The silver cuffs clicked around my wrists with a finality that made my heart race.

I poured the scent masker all over my clothes, hair, and skin. It smelled like rotting flowers and burning plastic. I wanted to gag but forced myself to stay still as I let it dry and settle onto me.

Four days.

I gave him four days to notice I was gone. Four days to report it. Four days to search for me.

If he loved me, if he truly felt the mate bond the way he claimed, he'd move heaven and earth to find me.

The first day had been easy.

Uncomfortable, sure, the silver had started burning my skin within hours, and my stomach growled with hunger, but it was manageable.

The second day was harder. The burns on my wrists deepened, and dehydration made my head pound. I watched the sun rise and set across the sky and listened for the sounds of a search party.

I waited for howls, footsteps, and voices calling my name.

But there was nothing.

By the third day, I couldn't stand without getting dizzy. My lips had cracked and bled. The silver had eaten through skin down to raw flesh, and the pain was constant, making it inevitable for me to scream.

Still, there's nothing.

On the fourth day, I stopped expecting him to come.

The realization hit me like ice-cold water.

Not only Silas wasn't look for me, but he didn't care either. So, if our mate bond was so weak that my disappearance didn't trigger any alarm in him, then it wasn't worth keeping.

I used the last of my strength to pick the cuffs, a skill I learned from a tutorial video. My hands trembled so much that it took me three attempts before the silver finally fell to the ground.

The walk back to campus had been a blur.

At some point, my legs gave out. Fortunately, someone found me fainted and called an ambulance.

"You're lucky to be alive," Morrison said, pulling me back to the present.

He's rewrapping my wrists with fresh gauze, his movements gentle but efficient. "Another day out there and we'd be having a very different conversation."

"Lucky me," I repeat sarcastically, tasting the bitterness on the tip of my tongue.

He tied off the bandage and met my eyes. "Lyra, I have to ask. Did someone–"

"No," I replied sharply, knowing what he was asking. "I did this to myself."

His expression shifted from concern to something more rigid. "Why?"

"To see if anyone would notice."

The deafening silence stretched between us.

Morrison's been the pack doctor for thirty years. He's seen everything: fights, rejections, rogue attacks, matings gone wrong, and so many more. But the look on his face now was something different.

It's a glimpse of pity.

"And did anyone?" he asked quietly.

"No." The word came out flat and empty from my mouth. "No one reported me missing. No search party was organized. I was gone for four days, and the pack didn't even notice."

Morrison's hand tightened on the edge of my bed. "What about your mate? Silas Croft, he's the Alpha's son. Surely he felt it…"

"He felt nothing." The bitterness finally broke through me. "The mate bond everyone was looking forward to and supposed to be an unbreakable connection? It's bullshit. Or maybe it only works one way. Maybe only the worthy wolves get the full package."

"Lyra "

A voice sliced through my mind like a knife. "Where the hell have you been?"

I jolted upright, my hand flying to my temple. It's the mind-link.

Silas's voice, laced with irritation, snapped sharply in my head.

"I've been calling you for days,' he continued, not waiting for an answer. 'We had plans last night. You completely ghosted me. What's your problem?"

My mouth fell open.

Days…

Apparently, he had been calling for days. And yet, not once did he worry about whether I was alright. Not once did he think I might be hurt, or lost, or… dead.

"And now you're in the pack hospital?" His voice dripped with annoyance. "Are you being serious right now? You skip our date to check yourself in for what, attention? This is ridiculous, Lyra."

Fury flooded my veins, my vision turning red. Every word he said was just another confirmation of my realization about our relationship.

"I'm coming over," he declared. 'We need to talk about this attitude of yours."

Just like that, the mind-link snapped closed before I could respond.

I looked at Morrison. He's watching me carefully, making me realize my face must have been transparent, showing my emotions.

"He's coming," I informed him. My voice didn't waver as I added with sarcasm, "Just great!"

Silas arrived two hours after sunset. The full moon hung heavy in the sky outside my window, and I felt the pull.

The confirmation of our mate bond that I didn't want.

The mate bond flared to life between us as he walked through the door, and I knew with certainty what I suspected for weeks: there's only one bond. I'm only bonded with one mate.

"Mine." Something inside me declared.

Silas' tall and broad-shouldered, with the kind of face that could make women swoon over him. Dark hair, sharp jaw, eyes that shift between brown and gold depending on his mood. Right now, they're narrowed with irritation.

"Finally," he said, closing the door behind him.

There wasn't any concern from him. No questions about whether I was okay or what happened that brought me here.

There was only irritation in his tone and expression for the inconvenience I brought to him. "We need to talk about your little disappearing act."

I let him approach the bed and settle himself into the visitor's chair.

He continued lecturing me until I cut him off, "I, Lyra Vance, reject you, Silas Croft, as my mate."

The words hung heavy in the air between us, building tension. Words that were irrevocable and would mean breaking something that the Moon Goddess herself had granted: our mate bond.

Silas's face went blank with shock. "What?"

"I reject you," I repeated, slower this time, with each word laced with conviction. "I reject the mate bond. I reject your claim. I reject everything you are and everything you represent."

"You can't " He surged to his feet. "Lyra, you can't be serious. Do you have any idea what you're doing? The pain…"

"Say the words, Silas."

"No." He's shaken his head, backing toward the door. "No, you're just confused and dehydrated. You don't know what you're saying."

"I know exactly what I'm saying." I swung my legs out of bed, sending a wave of dizziness through me, but I locked my knees and stayed upright. "You left me out there for four days. You didn't search for me, nor did you care enough. And the first thing you did when you contacted me was complained about our missed date."

"I didn't know you were missing!"

"Exactly!" The word cut through his protest. "The mate bond that's supposed to connect us, and let you feel when I'm in danger, didn't work. Because you don't actually care about me. You only care about having a mate that anyone would do, even a she-wolf without a wolf."

His jaw worked soundlessly. I could see him calculating, trying to find the right words to sweet-talk his way out of this.

"Save it," I hissed. "Just say the words. Accept the rejection, Silas. End this."

For a long moment, he just stared at me. Then, finally, his shoulders slumped.

"I, Silas Croft, accept your rejection."

The mate bond didn't break as easily as it was formed. It tore apart and shredded to pieces that it felt like something was ripped away from my chest. The pain was sharp, agonizing, and then…

It was gone.

I'm free.

Silas staggered, his hand pressing to his chest. His face had gone pale, and actual pain creased his features.

"Fuck," he gasped. "Goddess, that–"

Meanwhile, as painful as it should be, all I felt was a painful relief.

"You'll regret this," he warned, standing upright.

And just like that, his mask was back. He was once again the arrogant Alpha heir who had never been told no. "When I get back from Alpha College, we'll come back to this. You'll see how stupid you're being."

I let him have the last word, and walked out with his pride intact.

Because I knew the truth.

That's never going to happen.

The door clicked shut behind him, and I sank back onto the bed. Through the window, the full moon shone, and its shadow made it feel like the Moon Goddess was there watching.

I pressed my bandaged wrists to my chest and felt the absence where the mate bond used to be.

It felt like freedom.

He's an Alpha She doesn't Care — Chapter 7: The Father's Gambit

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