Page 1 of Broken Rejected Mate

Chapter 1 - Veva

It’s dark, and I am absolutely drowning in the scent of Emin Argent.

I know this nightmare—I’ve been here before.

Dread fills my throat, my chest tightening to a painful point. This is the nightmare that loops in my head, no matter how many times I try to tell myself I’m over this.

Here I am, my teenage body crouched in his closet, peering out into his bedroom, heart hammering in my chest. Emin’s room is not what you’d expect from a teenage boy—it’s tidy to a fault, clean, orderly. I know this is because of his parents—mostly his dad—and their expectations for him.

Kellen Argent’s voice fills the room, “I just want to make sure you’re doing homework. Like you said.”

“Of course I am,” Emin shoots back, voice casual, relaxed, like it’s the strangest thing that his father is asking at all. It’s easy for Emin to pretend I’m not here. We’ve never met at his house before—for obvious reasons.

It’s a summer night, the sweet scent of the lilacs floating in through the open window and reaching me, even all the way in the closet, tucked behind Emin’s crew necks and sweaters, swathed in his clothing and the scent of him.

When his father knocked on the door, Emin had practically shoved me inside, telling me to go as far back as I could. He thought that would be enough to hide my scent, but I’d started casting under my breath.

To this day, I’m shocked that my meager casting was enough to fully hide me. That, or Kellen Argent was willfullyignorant, pretending like his son would know better than to have something to do with me.

Because if Kellen Argenthadfound me in that closet, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have grabbed me by my hair, dragged me through the house, and thrown me out on the street with a warning not to come back.

It would be one thing for a teenage alpha to have an omega in his room, and a completely different thing for him to have me, Veva Marone, child of the town drunk—a nobody—tucked away in his closet.

There’s the sound of Kellen walking away, then the closet door is opening, and Emin is peering down at me, his face red, flushed.

“What thefuckdo you think you’re doing?” he hisses, reaching down and grabbing my wrist, pulling me up. He’s not rough, but he’s not gentle, either.

Iknowthis is just a dream, but all the feelings come rushing back to me. The dread, the shame. The stupid, mindless hope.

“Emin,” I clear my throat, bite my bottom lip. “I have something to tell you. Somethingimportant.”

The inflection is clear, as is the way I glance down at my stomach. I’m late, need to talk to him. I’ll need a test. For some reason, I’m stupidly thinking this might be the thing to break through the barrier for us. To show him that I’m not just something to climb.

I know Emin’s father wants him to climb the ranks. To use his position as an alpha and friend to Dorian Fields to help the family improve its standing. I know that Kellen would ratherkill me than let Emin be seen with an omega like me, from a family like mine.

But for some reason, I naively think a baby might change that.

“There isnothing,” Emin glances downward, in the direction of my stomach, “that could be important enough for you to come to my house. Do you get that?”

It would have been less painful if he’d slapped me across the face.

“But I thought—”

His hand is on my wrist again, though loosely, like he’s trying to avoid contact with my skin. “You need to get out of here, Veva. And listen—thisis done between us, okay? It’s been a massive mistake.”

Now I’m climbing through the window, feeling the final push of his palm against my back, then the snap of it shutting behind me. I’m crying—partly because of what happened, and partly because I should have known better.

Why would Emin care about me being pregnant? It doesn’t change a single thing between us. In fact, it only makes it worse.

I’m stumbling through his front lawn, knowing I’ll have to leave. That there’s nobody here for me—no other choice.

But the street morphs below my feet, and instead of the familiar concrete in the Ambersky territory, it’s where we live now. The camp, the dusty ground, and Sarina standing right at the edge of it all.

I stare at my daughter—nearly ten years old now, and the brightest young woman I’ve ever met.

Her knees are knobby in the way youth shapes them, her usually bright eyes flashing with fear. She knows something is coming, but she doesn’t know what. She’s always been small, from the first day she was born, a tiny little pink thing that nearly fit in my hand, to now, wrists and ankles with delicate bird bones. Whatever is coming for her, she knows she can’t take it.

And I’m much, much too far away from her.

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