Rejected by My Fated Mate: The Billionaire Princess

Ray Sterling POV:

The damp chill of the municipal detention center usually never bothered me, but tonight, a strange restlessness kept me on edge.

I sat behind the steel desk in the warden's administrative office, smoothing the front of my captain's uniform. As the newly transferred head of this district's enforcement sector, I was clearing the intake logs, checking that the local cells held no unregistered shifters.

A woman's ragged scream echoed down the concrete corridor outside.

"Officer! Please... call someone... I'm in labor!"

"Shut it, inmate 4092!" a guard barked from the central catwalk, followed by the clang of a baton against steel bars. "Every petty thief suddenly goes into labor the second the lock turns! Stay quiet until morning arraignment!"

A sharp prickle crawled up my neck. I flipped through the stack of intake folders, tossing aside drunk drivers and brawlers, until a manila folder stopped my hand.

Aria Hayes. Charge: Corporate Espionage. Complainant: Lockwood Industries.

I opened the file to the intake photograph. The woman in the picture was pale, dark hair plastered to her temple with sweat, her eyes hollow with exhaustion.

My breath caught.

Beneath the damp strands of dark brown hair, the tips of her ears curled upward into a delicate, unmistakably defined point—a physical trait unique to one bloodline across this continent.

The Sterling royal family.

My hand jerked so hard that hot black coffee sloshed over my fingers, scalding my skin, but I hardly noticed. My heart slammed against my ribs with brutal force.

Twenty-three years ago, our pack cradle was raided, and my newborn baby sister was stolen during the chaos. For decades, our parents had searched through human orphanages and border settlements, consumed by grief.

I scanned the rest of the sheet: Orphan. No known family. Profession: Lead Jewelry Artisan.

At the bottom, stamped in red ink: Subject is approximately eight months pregnant.

I slammed my palm down, cracking the desk's laminated wood across the middle, and snatched up my encrypted satellite communicator to dial forensics.

"Authorize maximum emergency clearance under my Alpha-line authority," I snapped into the receiver. "Locate the intake swab for inmate Aria Hayes in the bio-vault. Run a prioritized genomic match against the primary Sterling royal registry. I want results in two minutes, or someone will pay with their badge!"

I slammed the communicator down, lunged around the desk, and seized the desk sergeant by his collar, lifting him clean off the floor.

"Take me to cell block C," I growled. "Right now!"

We sprinted down the hallway. The metallic air carried the unmistakable scent of copper and amniotic fluid.

A piercing shriek tore through the corridor, followed by the wet splash of water hitting stone.

"Captain!" the sergeant stammered, his face turning paper-white. "Her water broke... she's delivering!"

Curled on the grease-stained cot inside cell 104 was the woman from the photo. Her fingers clawed into the damp plaster of the wall, her knuckles raw and scraped. Her spine arched in the grip of a violent contraction, her teeth sinking into her lower lip until crimson trickled down her chin.

"Out of the way!" I roared, kicking the iron gate with enough force to snap the heavy steel latch clean off. "Clear the entire corridor! Move the emergency medical unit inside! Prepare the detention facility's clinic into a sterile delivery room right now!"

I dropped to my knees on the filthy floor beside the cot. Up close, the distinct crescent birthmark behind her pointed ear was unmistakable.

Her dark eyes fluttered open, glazed with fever and pain, staring at my uniform in terror.

"Please..." she whispered, her voice a broken rasp. "Don't... don't hurt them... please..."

Before I could speak, my tactical phone vibrated against my chest. I pulled it out and hit speaker.

"Captain Sterling!" the chief medical officer shouted over the line, his voice shaking with disbelief. "It's a one-hundred-percent match! Chromosomal alignment, genetic markers—she is the lost princess! She is your sister!"

A hot tear spilled over my lashes, cutting a track down my cheek.

I dropped the phone, slid my broad hand over her cold, bloodied fingers, and gripped them with careful gentleness.

"Hold on, little sister," I said, my voice thick with years of sorrow. "Your brother is here."

Her eyes widened in shock, confusion mingling with the agony tearing through her frame. "Brother...?"

"Medical team, lift her!" I commanded.

Paramedics wheeled a sterile gurney into the cell. I helped lift her trembling body onto the mattress, keeping my hand locked around hers until the team rushed her down the hall and through the double doors of the sanitized infirmary.

The red emergency light above the clinic clicked on.

Outside the closed doors, I stood in the corridor, my chest heaving. With shaking fingers, I dialed the priority Sterling family satellite link, patched directly into the main estate.

The line connected on the first ring.

"Ray?" my father's deep, authoritative voice came through, flanked by the voices of my mother, my eldest brother Ethan, and our younger brother Seth. "What happened? You used the red-tier priority channel."

"Dad. Mom," I choked out, gripping the receiver until the casing creaked. "Ethan, Seth ... listen to me. I found her."

The line went dead silent.

"What did you say?" my mother gasped, her voice trembling.

"Cell Block C of the municipal sector," I said, stepping toward the glass partition of the clinic. "Aria. She has the royal ear tips and the crescent mark. The forensic DNA match just came back one hundred percent. She is our sister."

A sob tore from my mother on the other end, followed by the sound of Ethan's chair crashing to the floor and Ethan shouting for our private air fleet to mobilize.

The Sterling family was the wealthiest dynasty across the entire continent, controlling an empire of rare gemstone mining and master jewelry design. For twenty-three years, our vast fortune had meant little compared to the ache of losing the only daughter in our family. None of us ever imagined we would finally find our missing sister locked inside a freezing cell, framed on false charges and suffering alone.

"Lock down the entire district," Ethan's icy voice cut in, cold fury vibrating through the speaker. "The private jets are taking off now. We'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Hurry," I murmured. "She's in labor. She's giving birth right now."

I cut the call and turned back toward the doors.

Inside the sterile room, the monitoring alarms suddenly peaked, followed by a sharp, piercing cry that cut through the silence of the corridor.

The double doors cracked open, and the lead doctor stepped out, sweating but smiling broadly.

"Captain Sterling! The first baby is delivered—a healthy boy!"

Before I could answer, a second, furious wail echoed through the glass.

"And the second is here! A baby girl! It's twins!"

Two new heirs to the richest jewelry dynasty in the realm had just arrived into the world, and every debt owed to their mother was about to be collected in full.