I Accepted My Alpha’s Rejection While Carrying His Pup Chapter 03

I Accepted My Alpha’s Rejection While Carrying His Pup Chapter 03

Grandma Rose was waiting at the bus stop at five in the morning in a flannel coat, holding a thermos of hot cocoa like a weapon.

Her old pickup truck was parked behind her. There was a shotgun in the rack.

“Silver buckshot,” she said when she saw me staring. “Get in, baby.”

Grandma ran a little diner on Main Street in Silverpine and lived in the apartment above it. She sat me in her kitchen, wrapped me in a quilt, and put a bowl of beef stew in front of me.

“Eat first. Cry later.”

I ate. For the first time in months, food tasted like food instead of obligation.

Then I told her everything. Lydia. The meetings. The dance. The decree.

She listened without interrupting. Her face went from worried to furious.

When I finished, she set down her mug hard enough to rattle the spoons.

“That man never deserved you. And if any of his dogs come sniffing around my diner, they’re going to learn what silver does to a hide.”

I almost laughed.

Then she leaned closer. And sniffed.

Her whole body went rigid.

“Ivy. How long have you been drinking that tea?”

“Lydia’s tea? Three years. Why?”

Grandma grabbed my wrist and pressed her nose to the inside of it. When she pulled back, her eyes were blazing. Gold. Wolf gold.

I’d never seen her eyes do that.

“Grandma—”

“Your mother was a wolf, Ivy. So am I. I kept it from you because your mother chose a human man and wanted you to have a quiet life. Your wolf should have come when you turned eighteen.”

“But it never came. I’m wolfless.”

“No.” Her voice shook with rage. “You’re poisoned. You stink of wolfsbane. It’s in your sweat, your blood, your breath. Enough to put any wolf to sleep. Enough to hide your scent from every nose in that pack.”

The room tilted.

The tea. Every morning. For your nerves, Luna.

“She did it on purpose,” I whispered.

“Three years of it.” Grandma’s hand moved to my stomach and rested there. Her eyes softened. “And under all that poison, I can hear a second heartbeat.”

I froze.

“How far along?”

I’d found out three days before the gala. A pharmacy bathroom. Two pink lines. Shaking hands.

“Six weeks.”

Grandma closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were wet.

“Does he know?”

“No. He was going to reject me in front of the whole pack. This pup wouldn’t change anything for him.”

“Does it change things for you?”

I put both hands over hers.

“Everything.”

“Then you stay here. You rest, you heal, you let that poison leave your body. And we figure out the rest together.”

That night, the fever hit.

I lay in Grandma’s spare bed, sweating through the sheets, shaking so hard my teeth rattled. My bones ached like they were rearranging themselves. My skin burned.

Grandma sat beside me with a cold cloth.

“It’s leaving you,” she whispered. “Let it go.”

Around three in the morning, the pain suddenly stopped.

And a voice spoke inside my head.

Soft. Ancient. Furious.

Three years. They kept me in the dark for three years.

I sat straight up.

“Who—”

I’m you. I’m your wolf. And I am never going back to sleep.

I stumbled into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

My eyes weren’t brown anymore.

They were silver. Bright, glowing, moonlight silver.

Behind me, Grandma gasped.

My phone lit up on the nightstand. Twenty-three missed calls. All from Kane.

And one text.

“The bond is GONE. I felt it rip apart. The decree is signed. What the hell did you DO? Come home NOW, Ivy. That is an order from your Alpha.”

I stared at the screen.

He’d noticed the paperwork before he noticed me.

I typed four words.

“You’re not my Alpha.”

Then I blocked his number.

Outside, a howl cut through the night.

Then another. And another.

Grandma was at the window in a second, shotgun already in her hands.

“Six wolves at the tree line,” she said. “Blackridge colors.”

My heart slammed against my ribs.

“Stay upstairs, Ivy. No matter what you hear.”

She went down the stairs.

I heard the diner door open. Grandma’s voice. Growling.

Then glass exploded behind me.

A hand clamped over my mouth—and dragged me backward through the broken window into the snow.