THE BETA'S REJECTED MATE

"You're nothing. A runt. I won't let you drag me down."

That night at the Claiming Ceremony, when the silver chain materialized around my neck, binding me to Cassian Ryder, Blackthorn Academy's ruthless Beta, I thought the Moon Goddess had finally answered my prayers.

I was wrong.

He grabbed the chain and snapped it in front of everyone. "Moon's mistake," he announced, his ice-blue eyes cold as winter stone. The crowd erupted. Phones flashed. My humiliation went viral before I even left the courtyard.

But Cassian didn't reject me.

"Rejection's mercy," he whispered against my ear, caging me against the wall. "And you don't get mercy from me."

Instead, he dragged me to his suite. Made me live ten feet from his bedroom. Set rules I couldn't break: Don't speak unless he allows it, Don't tell anyone about the bond, Don't expect help from anyone but him

And then came the worst rule of all:
"Whatever you hear through that wall tonight, you stay quiet. You don't knock. You don't cry. You don't come out."

That first night, I heard everything. The music. The girl's laughter. The headboard slamming against our shared wall for hours. My wolf howled in agony, clawing at my ribs, while the mate bond forced me to feel every second of his betrayal.

"I'm going to keep you," he'd promised with that cruel smile. "And you're going to learn exactly what that means."

He paraded me through school like a trophy of his power. Let his pack trip me, vandalize my locker, dump food on me while he watched with arms folded. Every day brought fresh torture: taunts in the hallways, notes calling me "Beta's trash," classmates who treated me like I was invisible or worse, like I was a joke.

And every night, he brought someone new to his bed, making sure I heard it all through the paper-thin walls.

"You think that scares me?" I asked once, finding my voice.

He leaned in close, eyes dark and dangerous. "It should. Because I'm not done breaking things. Starting tonight."

But Cassian doesn't know what I'm learning in the darkness of that spare room. My wolf isn't whimpering anymore, she's snarling. And the bond he's trying to torture into submission? It's teaching me exactly where he's weak.

He wants to break me to the point I can't come back?

I'll show him what happens when you push a wolf too far.

Because there are worse things than being rejected. And Cassian Ryder is about to discover that the "pathetic runt" he's been tormenting has claws of her own.

The Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes.

And neither will I.

THE BETA'S REJECTED MATE - Book 1
When the bond won't break and mercy isn't an option, survival becomes the only revenge.