Rejected for My Sister

Chapter 1 The Goddess Chooses

Nora POV

I had been waiting for this night my entire life.

Twenty-four years of patience and preparation, of grease-stained hands scrubbed raw for ceremonies, of biting my tongue when my father reminded me what I owed the pack.

All of it had led to this moment beneath the September full moon, with woodsmoke and pine resin thick in the cold air and Rafe Sutherland standing across from me for the first time since I’d come of age.

They’d kept us apart through all those years.

Custom demanded it. When a mating treaty named a pair before the wolves could speak, the packs separated them once adulthood hit.

No visits. No calls. No accidental run-ins at border gatherings.

The Goddess had to confirm or deny the match on Her own terms, with no prior bonding to muddy the signal.

So I’d stayed in Iron River, working on engines and pack trucks, studying for certifications I’d probably never use once I became Copper Point’s Luna.

And Rafe had stayed on his side of the territory line, growing into the heir his father shaped him to be.

I’d seen photos. Heard stories from pack members who attended the treaty visits I was barred from. My sister went on those trips in my place, representing the Keane family while I stayed home and changed oil filters.

But tonight none of that mattered. Tonight the moon would witness what my blood already knew.

I smoothed the front of my dress, a simple dark green thing and the nicest piece of clothing I owned.

My boots were clean for once. My hair was down instead of pulled back in its usual work knot, and the weight of it against my shoulders felt foreign.

I wasn’t the kind of woman who fussed over her appearance.

Jeans and coveralls suited me fine. But this was a mating ceremony, and even I could manage one night of looking like I gave a damn.

Both packs filled the clearing, Iron River on one side, Copper Point on the other.

Firelight threw long shadows across familiar faces and unfamiliar ones.

My father stood at the front of our people, tall and broad, his graying auburn hair combed back, his expression carefully neutral.

He wore that expression at every formal event.

He’d looked at me much the same way my whole life, as if I were a duty he’d learned to tolerate.

Beside him, Conrad Sutherland anchored the Copper Point side. The older Alpha’s pale blue eyes swept the gathering with the proprietary calm of a man who expected everything to go according to plan. His iron-gray hair caught the firelight. He looked completely at ease with authority.

And between the two Alphas, between the two packs, Rafe waited.

My breath caught.

Photos hadn’t done him justice. He was tall, lean with muscle, dark-haired and sharp-jawed, and those ice-blue eyes he’d inherited from his father held a different quality up close.

Warmer than Conrad’s. Or maybe that was just the firelight.

He wore dark clothes, simple but well-kept, and he stood with the easy confidence of someone who’d never had to wonder where he belonged.

I stepped forward when the Elder gestured. The packed earth felt solid under my boots. My pulse hammered so loud I was sure every wolf in the clearing could hear it. I’d rebuilt engines that weighed more than me without flinching, but crossing a ceremony ground nearly undid me.

Then the wind shifted.

Rafe’s nostrils flared. His shoulders locked, his hands curled into fists at his sides, and a visible tremor ran through him. The confidence he’d worn vanished. His gaze found mine, and I saw it hit him. The recognition. The knowing.

Mate.

My wolf surged. She’d been quiet for years, patient in the way that only a wolf waiting for her fated one could be. Now she rose with a force that buckled my knees. His scent slammed into me, pine and cold stone threaded with something deeper that my wolf recognized at once.

“Give your hands,” the Elder said.

I lifted mine. They didn’t shake, which surprised me, because everything inside me did. Rafe reached out. His fingers trembled.

Our skin met.

The jolt ripped through both of us. I felt it in my teeth, my spine, the soles of my feet. White-hot and absolute. Gasps rose from both sides of the clearing at the flash that traveled up our arms, clear confirmation that the Goddess had spoken.

The treaty arrangement had become a fated match.

Joy flooded me so fast it nearly spilled as tears.

Relief right behind it, because I’d spent years telling myself I could marry a stranger for my pack’s sake, could learn to care for a man I didn’t know, could make it work through sheer stubbornness if nothing else.

And now I didn’t have to. The Goddess had chosen what the Alphas had bargained. Duty and desire were the same thing.

I looked up at Rafe and smiled. A real one. The kind I usually saved for the sound of a repaired engine turning over.

He didn’t smile back.

His hand tightened on mine, then released. He stepped back, barely enough for the crowd to notice, but I felt the distance between us all the same.

“Rafe.” The Elder waited, hands lifted in blessing. “Speak your vow.”

Silence.

The fire popped. Sparks drifted upward. Both packs waited. I waited, my wolf whining low in my chest, confused by the sudden retreat of her mate’s warmth.

Rafe’s jaw worked. His eyes darted aside, away from me and his father, toward a spot near the front of the Iron River crowd.

I followed his gaze.

Delia stood beside our father in a pale blue dress that caught the moonlight like water.

Her light auburn hair fell past her shoulders in soft waves.

She was beautiful. She was always beautiful.

My younger sister had gotten the delicate bones, the blue eyes, the kind of prettiness that made people stop and stare.

I’d gotten the strong hands and the stubbornness.

Delia’s face was white. Her lips pressed together so hard they’d lost color. Her shoulders tightened, and she braced herself.

Why does she look like that?

The question surfaced and sank before I could catch it, because Rafe was speaking.

“I need to address both packs.”

Conrad’s head turned. A muscle in his jaw ticked. My father’s expression didn’t change, but his hand flexed at his side. I’d learned that tell when I was old enough to understand that Gordon Keane’s face never showed what his body did.

Rafe squared his shoulders. His voice carried across the clearing, steady and formal, and something inside me began to fracture before the words even landed.

“I, Rafe Sutherland, reject you, Nora Keane, as my mate.”

The world seemed to stop. The fire blurred beyond Rafe’s shoulder, and no one in the clearing moved.

Then pain tore through me.

It started in my chest as the bond that had just ignited wrenched tight.

My wolf howled somewhere deeper than sound, somewhere I couldn’t reach to comfort her.

My knees buckled. I locked them. I would not fall.

I would not fall in front of both packs with the rejection still echoing off the tree line.

“My feelings for Delia Keane began before the Goddess revealed Nora as my mate,” Rafe continued, and his voice was calm, measured, like he’d rehearsed this in a mirror. “I’ve known Delia during the treaty visits. What grew between us is real. I choose her.”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Someone on the Copper Point side swore under their breath. An Iron River woman gasped.

I stared at Rafe, my fated mate, the man whose touch had just confirmed our bond before both packs. He stood there with his hands steady, and he looked right past me to my sister.

Delia, who’d gone on the treaty visits I was barred from.

Delia, who’d spent all those years getting to know the man I was promised to.

Delia, who stood with tears already sliding down her cheeks, her hand pressed over her mouth, looking like she’d known this was coming and dreaded it and wanted it all at once.

Rafe held out his hand to her. After a moment, Delia crossed the open ground and stood beside him.

I understood exactly what I was seeing, and it hurt worse than the rejection itself.

They’d fallen for each other. While I stayed home and honored the custom that kept me away, my sister and my promised mate had found something real. Or something they believed was real. And both of them had decided that what they wanted mattered more than what the Goddess chose.

I looked at my father.

Gordon Keane stood with his arms at his sides. His expression revealed nothing. He didn’t step forward, didn’t speak, didn’t even look at me.

He knew.

My stomach clenched. My father had known Rafe was going to do this. He’d let me walk out here in my one nice dress with my hair down and my heart wide open, and he’d known.

I looked at Conrad. The Copper Point Alpha gave a curt nod. “Copper Point recognizes the proposed union with Delia Keane. The peace stands.”

So. Both Alphas had agreed. The deal was done before I ever set foot on the ceremony ground.

Rafe turned to me. His expression had hardened around the eyes, and he looked almost impatient. “Nora. You need to accept the rejection. Say the words so we can move forward.”

Say the words.

I accept your rejection. That was all it would take to sever the bond clean, release us both, and let my sister step into the place that was supposed to be mine. It should have been simple. The dutiful thing. I’d spent my whole life doing what duty demanded. Why stop now?

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

The bond pulsed between us, raw and bleeding. Through it, I felt Rafe’s determination, his impatience, and the thread of guilt he was trying to smother. Beneath all of that, his wolf howled and reached for mine even as the man tried to reject the bond between us.

“Nora.” Firmer now. “The packs are waiting.”

I closed my mouth. Swallowed. My hands hung at my sides, and I realized rage had set them shaking.

“No.”

The word came out quiet. Rafe blinked.

“What?”

“I said no.” Louder this time. Loud enough for the front rows. “I’m not accepting shit tonight.”

A shocked ripple ran through the crowd. My father’s head finally turned toward me, his gray-green eyes sharp with warning. Conrad’s expression darkened. Rafe took a step closer, his voice dropping.

“Nora, don’t make this harder than it has to be. The treaty—”

“You just rejected your fated mate in front of both packs, Rafe. You don’t get to lecture me about making things hard.”

His jaw tightened. “The bond will stay open. You’ll feel—”

“I know what I’ll feel.”

I knew exactly what an open rejection meant. The bond wouldn’t break until I spoke the acceptance. Until then, I would feel him faintly, while he would feel far more of me. It would hurt us both. It would hurt him more.

Good.

I turned. The crowd parted without anyone telling it to. Wolves stepped aside, eyes down or wide, and I walked through the gap they made. My boots struck the packed earth as I left the fire at my back and followed the moonlit path ahead.

“Nora, wait—”

Delia’s voice, broken and reaching. I heard her footsteps start toward me.

I didn’t turn around. If I looked at my sister right now and saw her tear-streaked face, her outstretched hand, and whatever mix of guilt and relief lived behind her eyes, I would either scream or shatter, and I wasn’t willing to give this crowd either one.

The tree line swallowed me. Pine needles crunched under my boots. The ceremony ground fell behind. With every step, the murmurs and the crack of the fire faded, but I still heard Delia calling my name. Her footsteps halted when Rafe said her name.

The bond pulled tight in my chest, tethering me to the man I was walking away from. Every step stretched it tighter. It didn’t break. It wouldn’t break. Not until I said the words, and I wasn’t going to say the goddamn words.

My wolf was wounded and furious, unable to reconcile the rejection with the mate scent still burning in our lungs. She wanted to turn back. She wanted to fight for what was ours.

I kept walking.

The moon followed me through the canopy. It was full and bright and indifferent, the way the Goddess always was. She’d given me a fated mate, and that fated mate had looked right through me to my prettier, easier, more lovable sister. I couldn’t find any mercy in what She’d done.

The packed earth gave way to gravel, then to the rutted dirt road that led out of the ceremony ground.

My truck was parked in the line of vehicles along the tree break.

I’d driven it here with the windows down and my heart hammering, thinking tonight would be the start of something.

The beginning of the life I’d trained for.

Instead, it was a ragged ending. The open bond remained a constant ache, and I knew it would get worse before it got better.

The pines stood tall and silent around me. Somewhere behind, two packs were deciding what came next. Let them decide. Let my father broker his treaty with his preferred daughter. Let Rafe have the Keane woman he actually wanted.

I kept walking, and I didn’t look back.