My Alpha Rejected Me for a Dare, So I Walked Away Chapter 10

My Alpha Rejected Me for a Dare, So I Walked Away Chapter 10

Rogue

Helena is floored. I can see it in her eyes – she never imagined I’d hold this much weight in the Nightridge Pack.

She crawls to me like a beaten dog, tears streaming.

“Lady Nightridge. Please. One chance. Just one. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

I know what it costs a she–wolf like Helena to kneel to me.

It’s like feeding her her own fur.

My face doesn’t move.

“Logan and Vivian broke Council law.”

“My pup almost died.”

“You’ve spent your whole life looking down on every wolf beneath you. Today you’re kneeling for

your son.”

“A mother will do anything for her own.”

“I’m a mother too, Lady Blackthorn.”

“Do you really think I’ll let the wolves who almost killed mine walk free?”

She slams her forehead on the floor. Over and over.

“I’ll take his place! I’ll take hers! Please! Not my son! Not Logan! I’m begging you!”

I call the Nightridge warriors. They escort her out.

< Rogue

Every time she comes back, she’s turned away at the border.

Eventually, she stops coming.

Kael moves fast.

While the tribunal is still pending, he systematically peels the Blackthorn Pack apart. He calls in favors from every allied Alpha. He buys out the Blackthorn Pack’s biggest trade partners. He pulls every contract, every alliance, every trade route.

Within weeks the Blackthorn Pack is hemorrhaging. Warriors defecting. Allies vanishing.

Logan watches it happen from a dungeon cell.

Three moons later, the Council tribunal convenes.

Their ruling is harsh.

Logan

– two years in the dungeon. **And stripped of his Alpha title.** The Blackthorn bloodline is formally severed from Council recognition. He will not be an Alpha again. He will not even be a pack member.

Vivian

–

my pup.

four

years in the dungeon. She orchestrated it. She was the one who forced the cat onto

Two moons after Logan is locked away, the Blackthorn Pack officially collapses. The territory is absorbed by a neighboring alliance.

I give birth to a healthy, pretty little female.

Kael and Margaret are over the moon. They treat me like a goddess.

Life is softer than it’s ever been.

Just when I think I’ll never cross paths with any Blackthorn again – Helena finds me.

She’s been watching my movements. Waiting.

She lunges at me with a blade, eyes wild, fur bursting through her skin mid–shift.

“Bitch! You! You destroyed my son! You destroyed the Blackthorns!”

“Die!”

Good thing Kael had trained me like one of his pack warriors. My wolf reacts before my mind does.

I dodge her first swing and pin her to the ground in one clean motion.

I call the Council enforcers. She goes to the dungeon for three years.

After that, Kael doubles my personal warrior guard. Nothing else happens.

Five years pass.

The next time I see Logan, I almost don’t recognize him.

Kael and I are at a neutral–territory inn with our two pups, eating dinner. And then – there he is. In

the corner. Begging.

Logan.

The former Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack.

Now a rogue.

His jacket is threadbare. His hair is matted. He’s thinner than I’ve ever seen. His eyes, once burning with Alpha fire, are hollow and yellow – the hunted yellow of a rogue with nowhere left to run.

No pack would take him. Stripped Alphas are poison. Once the Council formally severs a bloodline, you are feral. You are nothing.

He’s been surviving on scraps. On the kindness of lone wolves and on whatever rogue packs would tolerate him for a night or two.

He’s begging the inn owner for food. Anything. A heel of bread. Scraps from the kitchen.

Then he sees me.

His whole body locks up.

He stares at me for a long, long time. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

He looks at Kael. At our pups. At the mate–mark on my throat – deep, healed, permanent.

I don’t even give him a second glance. I stand up, take my pups by their little hands, and walk

toward the door.

Behind me, I hear his voice crack into a hoarse howl.

“Kael Nightridge! I’ll get it all back! Everything you took from me!”

“*Including Clara!*”

Kael doesn’t turn around. Neither do I.

Outside the inn, a cold wind blows his howl into the dark.

A rogue with no pack, no mate, no pup, no Alpha title, no future – howling threats at the Alpha of the strongest pack on the continent.

All these years later, Logan Blackthorn is still the biggest fool in the pack.

*– The End –*