The Alpha's Secretly Powerful Rejected Mate

Kira POV:

The heaving in my stomach finally subsided. I was slumped against the bathroom wall, the cold tile a stark shock against my skin. The agony in my soul and the sickness in my gut were a tangled, torturous knot.

I pulled myself up and stared at my reflection. The woman in the mirror was a ghost, her face chalk-white, her eyes red and swollen. This was the price of being rejected by a fated mate.

Suddenly, a strange, intense heat bloomed in my lower abdomen, spreading like wildfire through my entire body. My skin felt like it was on fire, my breathing grew short and ragged, and a primitive, unfamiliar craving seized me.

It was The Heat. A chaotic biological response triggered by intense emotional turmoil or the presence of a mate. My body, reeling from the Rejection, was screaming for the very Alpha who had just cast me aside.

I turned on the faucet, splashing handfuls of cold water on my face, trying desperately to extinguish the flames.

Then the doorbell rang, the sharp, piercing sound like a death knell.

Who could it be? Aries? Had he come back? A pathetic flicker of hope ignited in my chest, and I immediately crushed it.

I stumbled out of the bathroom and looked at the video intercom. My blood ran cold. It was Eleanor Monroe, Aries's mother, the former Luna of the Pack. She stood there in an expensive Chanel suit, her silver hair perfectly coiffed, her expression one of cold, condescending judgment.

I didn't want to open the door, but she was the former Luna. A wolfless like me had no right to refuse her.

I opened the door. Eleanor swept past me without a glance, striding into the apartment as if she owned it, her eyes scanning every corner.

"Where is Aries?" she finally asked, her voice as icy as her stare.

"He went out," I whispered.

"To see Isla, I presume?" Eleanor let out a cold, humorless laugh. Her eyes, sharp as knives, raked over me. "It's only right for an Alpha to rush to the side of his Luna and their unborn child."

Her words were another stab to my already bleeding heart. I bit my lip, saying nothing, which only seemed to fuel her contempt.

Eleanor stepped closer, her height allowing her to look down on me. Her nose wrinkled in disgust as she caught the scent of my chaotic pheromones, a byproduct of The Heat.

"Pathetic," she sneered. "Like a common stray in heat. A wolfless who can't even control her own body." The word 'wolfless' was a brand, the source of all my shame in this world.

"This is none of your business," I finally managed to retort.

"None of my business?" she scoffed, as if I'd told the world's funniest joke. "You are squatting in my son's home, clinging to a title that no longer belongs to you like a parasite. And you tell me it's none of my business?"

"He already rejected me," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

A satisfied smile spread across Eleanor's face. "He finally did something right. Then why are you still here? Hoping he'll change his mind?"

She paused, her gaze turning even more contemptuous. "Or perhaps you have nowhere else to go? Oh, I forgot. Your gambling-addicted wolfless father is probably still hoping to leech more money from the Monroe family through you."

"Don't talk about my father!" I cried out.

"Did I say something wrong?" Eleanor pulled a folded document from her crocodile leather handbag and tossed it onto the coffee table. "Open your eyes and look, Kira. This is an IOU for the five hundred thousand dollars your father, Joe Hayes, 'borrowed' from the Pack's discretionary fund last month. His filthy thumbprint is right there."

I froze, staring at the paper in disbelief. Five hundred thousand? How could he?

"A father who brings nothing but shame, and a wolfless daughter. You two are a perfect match," Eleanor said, clearly enjoying my expression of shock and humiliation. "You think Aries tolerated you for this long out of affection? It was merely a nod to some insignificant contribution your mother once made to this Pack. That debt of gratitude has now been exhausted."

Her words were a sledgehammer, shattering the last fragments of my dignity.

The room began to spin. The heat in my body and the ice in my soul were a dizzying, torturous combination. The nausea returned with a vengeance.

"Pack your things and get out of here," Eleanor commanded, her voice devoid of any emotion. "The Monroe Pack does not support freeloaders."

She turned, as if she had just finished taking out the trash, and walked gracefully toward the door.

As she was about to leave, a sudden, uncontrollable rage overwhelmed all the pain and humiliation.