Rejected By My Cruel Alpha Mate

Aurelia Cain POV:

The guards drag me through cold stone corridors. The torchlight casts long, dancing shadows.

My mind is racing. The dungeon. It buys me time, but I'm trading a public execution for a private one. Assassins are quieter than a pyre.

We round a corner, and a commotion ahead stops us. A group of pack members are gathered, their voices raised.

In the center of the group, I see her. A young maidservant, her face streaked with tears. It's Tilly Shaw, the one whose testimony sealed my fate.

Tilly points a trembling finger at me as the guards shove me forward. "It's her! She's the one! I saw her put the Shadow-Bloom poison in Lord Raphael's wine!"

The crowd surges with renewed anger. My guards have to shove them back to keep them from getting to me.

I look at Tilly, truly look at her. Her eyes are wide with panic, not conviction. She's reciting a script, and she's terrified.

Before I can speak, that familiar, oppressive presence descends again. Donovan appears, his face a mask of thunder.

The crowd parts for him instantly. He ignores me, his molten-gold eyes fixed on the weeping maid.

"You saw her?" Donovan's voice is dangerously soft. "You are certain of what you saw?"

"Yes, Alpha! I swear it on the Moon Goddess!" Tilly cries, falling to her knees.

"She's lying," I say, my voice ringing out in the corridor. "Look at her. Someone is forcing her to say this."

Donovan's head snaps toward me, a silent warning in his eyes to be quiet. He turns back to Tilly. He crouches down, his large frame looming over the small maid. "Tell me again," he commands. "Everything you saw."

Tilly, emboldened by the Alpha's attention, repeats her story, adding more details—the way I supposedly smirked, the vial I hid in my sleeve. They are well-rehearsed lies. But to a grieving brother, they sound like the truth. I watch Donovan's face harden with every word she speaks. My sliver of hope is vanishing.

He stands up, his expression unreadable. "You have served your Alpha well by reporting this treason," he says to Tilly.

Tilly's face floods with relief. "Thank you, Alpha!"

"And the penalty for bearing false witness in my pack," Donovan continues, his voice turning to ice, "is death."

The corridor falls silent. Tilly's jaw drops. My own heart stops.

"What?" Tilly whispers, her face draining of all color. "But... I told the truth!"

"Your story has changed three times since this morning," Donovan states flatly. "Each version more elaborate than the last. You are a poor liar."

He turns to his guards, his voice cold and sharp. “Lock her in a separate holding cell. Post round‑the‑clock watch. No visitors of any kind. I will interrogate her myself later.”

Tilly starts screaming as the guards seize her. "No! Alpha, please! They made me do it! They have my family!"

My key witness. My only lead. He's about to destroy her.

"Stop!" I yell, struggling against my own guards. "Donovan, you can't! She's the only one who knows who the real conspirators are!"

He doesn't even look at me. His face is a granite mask of cold fury.

Just then, another guard runs up, his face pale with panic. "Alpha! It's Lord Raphael! The healers say he's crashing!"

Donovan's entire demeanor shifts. The cold fury is replaced by a wave of raw panic and pain. He shoves past everyone and sprints down the hall.

He pauses only for a second, throwing a command over his shoulder at my guards. "Put her in the high-security cell. No one in or out." Then he's gone.

I watch him disappear, my last hope vanishing with him. As my guards drag me away, I hear Tilly’s terrified screams echo from the direction of the holding cells, followed by a dull thud. Then silence falls completely over that corridor. A cold weight settles in my chest. Donovan had ordered her kept under guard, and this brutal, quiet murder was exactly the kind of betrayal I remembered from my past life. Yet someone had moved swiftly to silence her before he could question her.

They throw me into a dark, damp cell, the heavy iron door slamming shut with a sound of finality. I'm alive, but I'm blind, buried alive in a conspiracy with no way out.