When they severed Jane’s link to the pack, I felt like they cut off a piece of my flesh. They didn’t know I had refused to accept her rejection. Most probably, the pack didn’t know that I could.

Normally, a refusal to a rejection wouldn’t matter, but because I had Alpha blood, my refusal could force the true mate bond to remain intact. Inversely, an Alpha blood’s rejection was final regardless of the mate’s wishes.

This wasn’t common pack knowledge anymore. With the freedoms gained by she-wolves over decades of reform, the councils who rule our kind didn’t want this to be common knowledge. No woman should be forced to remain mated to an Alpha against her wishes. I’m sure my father didn’t think I knew about this. It was well-hidden information.

It didn’t happen often since most wolves would never dare refuse an Alpha’s heir. It was usually the Alpha or Alpha heir that abandoned an unsuitable mate. My father had been trying to force me to do the rejection. A final rejection. But when I wouldn’t, he took Jane’s, assuming incorrectly that I didn’t realize the power my bloodline held.

I stood at my window, which happened to face north, and stared out over the endless treetops. They had dumped her in the frozen forest to the north. There wasn’t anything for miles past our territory except for the vampire.

They believed she was dead by now, but she wasn’t. I would feel it if she died. Her pain and misery seemed less to me now than when she had been taken away.

Jane didn’t know I’d loved her for years. The morning I realized this, was the first day I began to thank her for serving me breakfast every day.

By all appearances, she was always so quiet and compliant. Sometimes at school, I would catch her mumbling a sarcastic remark under her breath or talking to herself in an encouraging way. She’d tell herself that she was strong, and she would be ok.

I heard and felt her and found myself rooting for her, too. She made me smile and laugh and occasionally roll my eyes. No one knew why, but I did, and that was enough for me.

She tried to stay invisible as much as possible around others, but over the years, I realized she was smart and had a quick wit. Even though she never disobeyed or stood up for herself to others, she carried herself with humble dignity that I’d never seen in anyone else.

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I started to pay more attention to her in the mornings and watch how she moved. She mesmerized me.

I would eat my breakfast as slowly as I dared, to spend more time alone with her.

I knew she never noticed me in that way. She wouldn’t dare. My position in the pack would seem impossible to her, so it would never cross her mind.

However, I knew when her eighteenth birthday was, and I was waiting that morning. I hoped.

It took all my self-control that day to wait in my room until she reached the second floor of the house.

I could smell her down the hall, and I knew, but I hardly believed this amazing miracle until I laid my eyes on her.

Regarding the events of the past few days, a lot of the pack would understand my reluctance to give up the true mate bond. They would also understand that my father had to punish me for disobedience. The Alpha’s orders were law. Treason was punishable by death.

I was only spared death in the end because I was his only son, and my mother couldn’t have any more pups. He announced his pardon of my treason for the Luna’s sake.

The pack now believed the Alpha would not even spare his own family if they did not yield to his law. They were terrified and unlikely to disobey any command going forward after this display of power.

It wasn’t that they hated me. If they did, I would surely be dead. It was a confusing situation because I refused an Alpha order, something incomprehensible to them, even if the reason was understandable. But I couldn’t do it.

On that morning, her eighteenth birthday, I discovered that which I had longed for was to be; my true mate was Jane Marie Brown. I felt like the luckiest bastard on earth.

Most wolves who fell in love before discovering their true mates were unlucky because it was almost never with whoever ended up being their mate. When the true mate appeared, due to the sacred bond, the one they loved before would immediately feel insignificant to them. They may even believe the love hadn’t been real in the first place.

I felt truly blessed by the goddess that the girl I had loved for four years turned out to be my mate. She was made for me, and I, for her.

I reckoned that the road ahead would be difficult for both of us. In two days’ time, the neighboring pack would send their Alpha’s daughter to me. Our fathers signed an alliance that included our mating. It was their hope that we would have a son who could become the Alpha of both packs after me and unite them as one. If that were to happen, we would become the largest and strongest pack in North America.

Avery MacKenzie was her name. We had met a handful of times over the years. She was a kind and even beautiful girl but utterly uninterested in me. I would need to speak to her alone before the ceremony. Hopefully, she would understand what I wanted to say.