Rejected By My Untamed Alpha Commander (Fierce Alpha #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Seth

The palace grounds are alive with music and firelight.

Drums and flutes rise in a rhythm that carries across the night, mixing with the laughter of wolves drunk on joy and wine.

Astra and Lucian’s bond is sealed, their vows spoken beneath the moon.

Now the celebration spills over the lawns, where tables are heaped with roasted meats, sweet fruits, and pitchers of mead.

Lanterns swing from the branches overhead, casting everything in warm gold.

I should be among them. Celebrating my king, my friend. Instead, I lean against a tree at the edge of it all, arms crossed, jaw tight.

Leon stands beside me, motionless as stone. His voice cuts through the music, low and even. “You keep staring like that, you’ll burn a hole in her.”

My gaze doesn’t shift. “I’m not staring.”

But I am.

Selene is in the middle of the dancers, her auburn hair catching every flicker of torchlight as it brushes her jawline. Her soft, blue eyes shine as she laughs, caught in the spin of one of the younger soldiers. He’s overeager, fumbling through the steps, but she humors him. She always does.

The sound of her laughter hits like a blade sliding between my ribs.

“She’s been in your sight since the first drumbeat,” Leon continues quietly, patiently. “You haven’t looked away.”

I grind my teeth. I don’t need him to point it out. I already feel the bond clawing at me, dragging my focus to her no matter how hard I fight it.

My fated mate.

The words taste bitter even though they are unspoken. I never asked for this, never wanted it. The moment our eyes first met, the connection lit through me like fire—inescapable, unbreakable. And I’ve been ignoring it ever since.

She’s a healer, yes, but a mediocre one. Her wolf is weak. She doesn’t belong by my side; she doesn’t match the weight of command that I carry.

Yet every time she smiles, my chest aches with something I can’t control.

The soldier twirls her, his hand lingering too long at her waist when she stumbles. My grip tightens on my upper arms, a low growl catching in my throat.

Leon doesn’t move, doesn’t soften. He just says, “If it bothers you, make it stop.”

As if it’s that simple. As if I could step out there, take her hand, and pretend I don’t resent what she is to me.

I force my eyes away from her. “She deserves better than a commander who doesn’t want her.”

Leon’s steady, unreadable gaze lands on me. “And you deserve the pain you’re choosing.”

The statement falls like a stone, heavy in my chest.

The drums quicken, voices rising with them. Selene’s laughter bursts out again, but when her partner spins her too roughly, she crashes hard into his chest. He steadies her with both arms, her palm splayed against him.

Heat flares low in my gut, sharp and vicious. My wolf snarls, demanding I go. But I remain rooted in place.

Leon lets the silence linger before speaking again, his tone returning to business. “The west wall still feels thin. Too much shadow between the torch posts.”

I’m as grateful for the change in subject as I would be for air after nearly drowning. “The east and south walls are secure. I walked them myself before the ceremony. Patrols are doubled.”

He nods once. “North side?”

“Covered. Extra men at the gates. No one gets through tonight.”

“Good.” Leon’s eyes, sharper than mine, sweep the grounds again, though he doesn’t look twice at her. He never does. “When so many are gathered, enemies like to take their chance.”

I breathe out slowly, forcing my jaw to unclench. “They’ll find no opening here.”

Still, my gaze betrays me, sliding back to the circle of dancers and the auburn head thrown back in laughter that doesn’t belong to me.

Before I can tear my eyes away, a figure slides up next to me. A woman—tall, with dark hair that tumbles over one shoulder and lips curved into a smile I know too well.

“Seth,” she says coyly, her hand looping around my elbow, fingers brushing slowly and familiarly over my sleeve. “You look miserable over here by yourself. Dance with me.”

I know her. Maris. Before Selene appeared, before the mate bond turned my world inside out, I’d chased her smiles, her laughter, her attention.

And she had given me some of it, enough to keep the game going.

I’ve had a hundred women like Maris: soft, easygoing, happy to have a tumble or two in bed and then move on.

Playboy, charmer, never serious. That’s what they say about me. That’s what I let them believe. Some attach expectations to me, and I end up breaking their hearts.

“Maris.” I force her name out with a polite nod. “It’s not a good night.”

She leans closer, teasing. “Since when does Seth Rowan turn down a dance? You’ll ruin your reputation.”

“Since I’m on duty.” My voice is even, but the lie tastes sour. “Not tonight.”

Her smile falters, a little pout tugging at her mouth. She squeezes my arm like she thinks she can coax me into it. “One dance won’t bring the kingdom down.”

“It might bring me down,” I say, forcing a rough edge of humor into my tone. “And I can’t risk that.”

Disappointment flickers in her eyes before she slips her hand free. With a small huff, she melts back into the crowd, searching for someone else who may be willing to play.

I exhale, my shoulders stiff against the tree.

Leon waits only a few heartbeats before asking, “Why lie?”

My eyes narrow. “What?”

“You told her you’re on duty. But you’re not.” His expression is relaxed, indecipherable, but his words hit their mark. “You’ve stopped chasing every skirt in the vicinity lately.”

My teeth grind together. “I’m not in the mood.”

Leon’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You haven’t been in the mood for anyone since Selene arrived.” He lets the words hang in the air. “If you’ve rejected your mate, then choose another. Take someone else and be done with it.”

I watch the light from the torches shimmer across the palace walls. The mate bond thrums hot in my chest, unrelenting.

“I haven’t rejected her,” I admit finally, my voice rough.

For the first time tonight, Leon’s composure cracks. His brows lift, surprise evident on his face. “You haven’t?”

“No.” The word is a growl. “Not yet.”

There’s a pause, heavy and weighted. Then, quieter: “What are you trying to do, Seth?”

I don’t answer. Because I don’t know. The mate bond claws at me persistently, demanding something I can’t give.

When I first met Selene, she was on her knees in the throne room, bloodied and half-unconscious.

Her alpha had dragged her forward as a pawn in his scheme, planning to use her and her friend as scapegoats.

Traitors, he’d called them, conspiring to aid the now-Queen Astra in defying the royal decree.

A crime that carried one punishment: execution.

Lucian’s voice thundered over the court that day, his fury cutting through the lies. He claimed Astra as his mate, tore the alpha’s plot apart in front of the king, Lucian’s father, and revealed the treachery for what it was. The truth spared Selene’s life.

But the memory that haunts me is not Lucian’s triumph. It’s her, collapsed on the ground, skin pale beneath streaks of blood. Her lips trembling as she whispered that she hadn’t betrayed anyone. Her wolf flickering so faintly I thought it was gone.

I carried her myself into the healers’ hall.

Sat by her side for days as they worked, pressing herbs to her wounds, using their healing magic to fix her internal injuries.

She didn’t stir, not once. But I stayed, watching the fragile rise and fall of her chest, the mate bond already searing through me with every heartbeat.

And when she finally breathed steadily again—when I knew she would live—I walked away.

Because I knew then what I know now.

She could never stand beside me.

The Rowan line does not bind itself to weakness. My family’s women have always been fierce—warriors, seers, leaders. My mother, my sisters, my aunts: all legends in their own right. And me? I was raised to believe strength demands strength.

But Selene is not strong.

She’s a healer who fumbles with her gift, a wolf who trembles when others bare their teeth. And though the mate bond fires up my blood, it doesn’t change what I see when I look at her.

Someone I shouldn’t want.

Someone I can’t stop wanting.

I press my fist against the tree trunk, the bark biting into my skin. Across the lawn, her laughter drifts to me again, bright and alive. It shreds me. It infuriates me.

Leon breaks the silence first. “What’s your plan?”

I drag in a breath through my nose as the tree bark starts to draw blood. “She’s weak,” I mutter, the words jagged and raw in my throat. “Too weak.”

Leon shakes his head slowly, disappointment crossing his otherwise calm features. “You’re a fool.”

The words cut deeper than they should.

Of course he’d say that. He doesn’t understand. He never will.

Leon was once blessed and cursed with the rarest thing: finding his fated mate when he was still a boy. He loved her fiercely, even in their youth. And he lost her too soon, death stealing her before they could ever grow into what they were meant to be.

I don’t say anything as he turns and walks away, his broad shoulders fading into the crowd. He’s an orphan, with no long line of ancestors behind him, no family legacy that weighs like iron on his shoulders. He can’t grasp what it means to carry the Rowan name.

Every one of my sisters is as strong and unyielding as I am. Yet fate ties me to this. To her.

Shame burns hotter than the wine in my blood.

I exhale hard, pressing my palms against my eyes, trying to smother the fire in my chest. But when I lower my hands, a sharp realization strikes me like a lightning bolt.

I can’t see her anymore.

My muscles tense, my head snapping back and forth. The crowd on the dance floor whirls, skirts flaring, soldiers laughing—but Selene isn’t there. The spot she occupied before is empty.

My pulse spikes.